Lethal Inspection

"Lethal Inspection" is the ninety-fourth episode of Futurama, the sixth of the sixth production season and the seventh broadcast season. It aired 22 July 2010 on Comedy Central. Bender discovers that he was build without a backup unit and can, like his human friends, therefore die. Together with Hermes, he seeks out the inspector who originally approved him, despite knowing his flaw.

Act I
The episode opens with the Planet Express crew participating in a re-enactment of the Sith-il War; Fry and company are dressed as Union soldiers, while their opponents are nerds dressed as Sith from Star Wars. During the course of the battle, Bender is "killed" and melodramatically acts out his death scene, laughing off the entire affair. Fry points out that Bender would be much less amused if he were actually dead, but Bender counters that as a robot, he is functionally immortal; his computerized brain is backed up on a daily basis, and if his physical body is ever destroyed, his mind can simply be downloaded into a new one. Based on a cost-per-casualty analysis of the conflict, Hermes awards victory to the Sith, and the two sides congratulate each other on a "good war".

Back at Planet Express headquarters, the weary and bruised crewmembers recuperate from the injuries they sustained during the re-enactment. This only causes Bender to continue to gloat about his supposed physical superiority, as he claims to be of perfect construction, and has a quality assurance slip from the day he was built (which simply reads "Approved by Inspector #5") to prove it. As he retrieves a wheelchair for Professor Farnsworth, however, Bender unexpectedly springs an oil leak. An inspection by the Professor reveals that Bender is not only a defective robot, but suffers from a fatal construction flaw; he was built without a backup unit, meaning that if he dies, his death will be permanent.

Act II
Bender has difficulty coping with his new-found mortality, and cannot understand why the human who inspected him would have vetted him as being of sound construction when he clearly isn't, blaming the bureaucratic nature of the inspection process itself. This prompts Hermes to escort Bender to his office at the Central Bureaucracy, so they can track down Inspector Five and determine why he certified Bender as a quality robot despite his inherent defect. In his absence, he appoints Leela as a deputy bureaucrat so she can handle all of Planet Express's incoming paperwork until he returns. Bender attempts to log on to the computer in Hermes's cubicle, but Hermes says that only the bureaucrat assigned to that particular computer can access the system. This proves moot, however, as the Bureaucracy's records of Inspector Five have been deleted. Bender and Hermes search the file archives for a hard copy, but this too is inexplicably missing.

Crushed by the apparent hopelessness of the situation, Bender enters what Hermes assumes is a suicide booth, only to be told it is actually a phone booth (Hermes, who is surprised to learn that "phones come in booths now", promptly discards his much more compact cell phone). Bender calls Mom at the Friendly Robot Company for tech support, informing her that he is a defective robot, but she retaliates with a missile strike that narrowly misses Bender. Hermes informs Bender that Mom cannot afford to have a defective product loose on the streets, and will kill Bender in order to protect her reputation. Fleeing the pursuit of Mom's Killbots, the two of them hop a train (the Trans-Continental Underground Railroad) and instantly find themselves at the Mexican border, near Tijuana. Bender, who was constructed in Tijuana, believes that Inspector Five may still be living there.

Act III
After showing their documents to a Mexican Border Patrolman, the pair cross the border into Tijuana, only to find that the local Friendly Robot Company facility where Bender was built has been shuttered for years. They discover a discarded employee directory in the garbage, which provides a street address for Inspector Five; this leads them to an old, dilapidated house that has long been abandoned. Hermes advises Bender to give up the search, as there is no trace of Inspector Five, and it is clear that the house has not been lived in for some time. Bender sinks to the floor, overwhelmed by the crushing burden of mortality, believing that he, being Bender, should naturally be entitled to the same privileges as any other robot, if not more. Hermes consoles his friend, telling Bender that even if he is mortal, he is still unique, and that he will always be Bender; no one else, not even Inspector Five, will ever be. Bender is touched by the sentiment, and promises to add Hermes to his "do-not-kill" list.

Just as the two prepare to leave, the house is attacked by Mom's Killbots after her cameras spotted Hermes and Bender investigating the old factory. Hermes says he will break into the Central Bureaucracy's database from Inspector Five's computer and list Bender as being destroyed, which will cause the robots to break off their attack. Bender warns Hermes that the Bureaucracy computers are hack-proof, but is convinced to leave when the enforcers rake the house with gunfire. The plan succeeds: Hermes changes Bender's status to "TERMINATED", which makes the robots stand down (although they destroy themselves anyway, as they are prone to open fire indiscriminately at any mention of weapons or gunfire). The house collapses in flames, but Hermes is able to limbo out of the rubble to safety.

Hermes and Bender return to New New York to find Planet Express in disarray; Leela, unable to cope with the torrent of paperwork she cannot understand, has simply been jamming incoming forms behind the office plants while waiting for Hermes to get back. Hermes quickly remedies the situation by throwing most of the paperwork into the furnace. The crew inquires as to whether Bender managed to find Inspector Five. He replies that he did not, but the experience has made him decide to live his life to its decadent fullest. Everyone leaves to celebrate except for Hermes, who stays behind and removes a folder from his coat, adding it to the furnace. The cover of the folder burns away to reveal Inspector Five's true identity: a much younger Hermes Conrad.

Flashbacks reveal that Hermes worked as an inspector at the Tijuana manufacturing plant; when Bender came off the line, Hermes found the production defect, but faced with the choice to scrap the infant robot for his flaw, Hermes chose instead to certify Bender and give him a chance at life. Hermes resigned from the Friendly Robot Company shortly afterward and left his house in Tijuana, where it remained abandoned. During their visit to the Central Bureaucracy, Hermes covered his tracks by deleting his own records and stealing his own file while Bender was distracted; he did not have to hack into the computer at the house because it was his to begin with. The final shot of the episode is of a smiling Hermes nodding toward the burning file, proud of his choice to save Bender.

Reception
In its original American broadcast, "Lethal Inspection" was viewed by an estimated 1.920 million people, a down about 300 000 viewers since "The Duh-Vinci Code".

Trivia

 * Though we've seen the effects of Zoidberg's ink defense before this is the first time Zoidberg has done it while in frame allowing us to see him shoot ink.
 * The song that is played at the end of the episode is Little Bird, Little Bird by Elizabeth Mitchell. link
 * This episode was originally going to be called "Inspector #5".

Continuity

 * Despite the events of "Attack of the Killer App", Bender uses a phone booth rather than his eyePhone and Hermes throws the same cell phone away that he had already thrown away prior to buying an eyePhone.
 * In Bender's Big Score, Bender is unfamiliar with the concept of phone booths (he mistakes one in the year 2000 for a suicide booth), yet in this episode we see him use a phone booth. Though Hermes comment suggests that phone booths are "new" to the 31st Century.
 * While in Mexico, Bender says "Last week I was in Italy". He is referring to the events of the previous episode, "The Duh-Vinci Code", which aired one week prior to this episode.
 * The old man seen in line at the central bureaucracy was the same one that was in line in the episode "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back".
 * This is the first time in the series that Bender revisits his birthplace.

Allusions

 * Scruffy's quote, "The Flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long," is originally from the by Lao Tzu and was also used in.
 * The Sith Overlords are based on the main antagonists from the Star Wars movies.
 * Hermes and Bender pass a Beholder, a many-eyed creature from Dungeons & Dragons lore, making his second appearance inside the Central Bureaucracy.
 * Bender says "He's got some splainin' to do," this is a reference to a famous misquote from "I Love Lucy", although Ricky Ricardo never actually said the catchphrase on the show.
 * The center square bureaucrat is a caricature of Paul Lynde who was a fixture on Hollywood Squares.
 * He mentions the men's room stall of the TWA terminal as a place to meet people anonymously, a reference to the.
 * In Tijuana, a building hosts a board which says "Adobe Photo Shoppe" a parody of . There is also a Tijuana Wal-Mart and a store called "Aiy! Cantina Turner", a reference to Tina Turner.
 * Hermes' line "Don't fire until you see the Greens of their eyes" is based on a line from the Battle of Bunker Hill in the US Revolutionary War when the commander said to his troops "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes".
 * The Transcontinental Underground Railroad is a mix of the Underground Railroad (not a real railroad but a network of people in pre-civil war times that transported slaves to freedom) and the transcontinental railroad which was created in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln that opened up westward expansion.
 * The ineffectiveness of tech support departments at large companies is parodied here as well.
 * The concept of Bender downloading into a new body upon death is similar to that of the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica as well as that of the characters from the Hugo nominated novel by Charles Stross.
 * Bender's comment about Hermes walking away from an explosion without looking back is probably a reference to Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions
 * The "B" in the Central Bureaucracy's sign is actually the golden arch "M" from McDonald's turned sideways.
 * When Bender attempts to pretend to understand what the Mexican Border Patrolman said in Spanish, the patrolman hits Bender on the head with a ukulele. This is a reference to a running gag in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Quick Draw McGraw where Quick Draw, as his alter ego "El Kabong," would do the same.  However, the gag does not use the classic "kabong" sound.
 * The giant cube from Cubicle Room 729 resembles (or is possibly a reference to the sci-fi film "Cube").

Goofs

 * Hermes has re-obtained his Grade 36, despite having been Grade 34 in Bender's Big Score.
 * Hermes could have been demoted to Grade 36 off screen just as he was promoted off screen prior to Bender's Big Score.
 * In Hermes' flashback, we can see Bender as a baby, though according to "Bendless Love", he was built as an adult, however a similar baby-form was shown in "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles".
 * Bender remembers his birth in "Bendless Love" but he doesn't remember who inspected him in this episode despite his memory of his creation.
 * That episode was before Roswell that Ends Well, where his head was buried for over a thousand years. He may have forgotten by then.
 * He is also several thousand years older due to the time travel in Bender's Big Score.
 * As Bender's memory of his birth is an adult form, it is possible what he remembered wasn't his birth, but an upgrade to an adult body. This process would retain the hardware that constitutes his brain and (had it existed) the backup unit.
 * Maybe his line of bending robots are first manufactured mini-sized, then expanded by some process similar to those foam animal capsules before their first memories.
 * In a previous episode wheels shown were obsolete and no one in the future knew about them, but in this episode the Professor owns a wheelchair.
 * The wheel could have re-entered popular culture since then. Bender has also had wheels attached in the form of a wheelchair twice.
 * Bender was also seen being pushed in a wheelchair by Nurse Ratchet in "Insane In The Mainframe"
 * In the pilot, Bender attempts (presumably final) suicide in a suicide booth, but in this episode it's revealed that he thinks he's immortal.
 * Perhaps he thought his back-up body would be assigned to bend girders for a different purpose than suicide booths, or, if its possible, he would choose whether or not he would enter another body.
 * The idea that Bender has no way of backing up his personality without a back-up unit doesn't make sense as in the episode "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back" his personality is put on a floppy disk.
 * Although it is possible that the backup floppy disk would not work in another Bending Unit. Some of Bender's attributes would always remain with the original body.
 * Nobody mentioned a back up unit in "Bendin' in the Wind" when Bender's body was damaged.
 * His body was only damaged then, not destroyed.
 * Towards the end of the episode, Hermes and Bender return to Planet Express, wearing scarfs and sombreros. Upon their arrival, they find Planet Express practically destroyed. Hermes then walks up to Leela to offer his help on cleaning up. For a split second, his scarf changes color.
 * Hermes's age conflicts here. He was confirmed to be in his fifties in the comic and Bender claims to be four years old. However, Hermes looks like he was in his twenties-thirties in his flashback in this episode.
 * Bender's saying that was a few years back, though. Also, the comics are not canon since, if they were, there would be plenty of additional continuity issues in addition to this one. For example, the crew would have already known what would happen to them in the movies before they happened.

Alien Language Sightings
Time:10:16

Location: Paper sent to Leela

Language: AL1

Translation: NEED EXTRA CASH? MELT DOWN YOUR OLD; UNWANTED HUMANS; WE PAY TOP DOLLAR!

Characters

 * Amy
 * Beholder
 * Debut: Center Square Guy
 * Bender
 * Debut: Mexican Border Patrolman
 * Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
 * Fry
 * Hattie
 * Hermes
 * Killbots
 * Leela
 * Mom
 * Number 1.0
 * Old man
 * Scruffy
 * Debut: Sith Overlords
 * Walt, Larry and Igner
 * Zoidberg