The Sting

The Story
While on a mission to retrieve some honey from space bees, the crew narrowly escapes with their lives to the ship with a baby queen that Leela suggests they use to create their own hive for more honey. However, the baby queen attacks them leaving Fry dead with its stinger through his stomach. Leela begins having dreams about Fry and losing her mentality. She decides to eat some of the space honey they brought back in order to go into an eternal sleep so she can be with him.

Act I: "Leela, let's turn back. There's absolutely no shame in wussing out."
As Fry and Bender are playing virtual golf, the Professor comes in and explains that they are not good enough for their next mission. The two boys celebrate, but Leela seems to take this personally, and demands to know why. The Professor explains that it is a task that claimed the lives of the previous Planet Express crew and the old Planet Express ship; the Professor thinks it too dangerous for the crew, as they are nowhere as good as the old cre. Though Fry and Bender have absolutely no problem with this, Leela insists that they are just as good and asks for the assignment: collecting honey from space bees, who's neurotoxic stings can kill anyone instantly (those allergic to them would also have their insides boil out of their eye sockets). Leela scoffs at this, saying that it would take more than "deadly, deadly bees" to stop them, and that she is more afraid of disappointing herself; Fry tries to weasel out, but is dragged along.

The crew reaches the space bees' hive and paints Bender's body like a bee, giving him a bee language cartridge that will allow him to communicate with the other bees to distract them while they venture deeper into the hive. Fry repeatedly tries to convince Leela to turn back, but Leela ignores him. They eventually come across the remains of the old Planet Express ship in the process, discovering on the crew's black box that they were in fact led to their doom because of the captain's arrogance, much like Leela; however, Leela's pride forces the group to keep going anyway.

The crew eventually reaches the honeycomb stockpile, where they begin collecting the honey. There, they also come across a flow of royal jelly, which the bees feed to the queen. Fry accidentally falls into the pool of jelly, but is quickly saved by Leela. Upon this moment, Leela comes across a baby queen bee. She decides to take the queen with her so that the crew can build its own hive in the future, and takes some jelly to feed her with. Suddenly, Bender's bee language cartridge appears to malfunction as he insults the bees, including the current queen, causing the bees to chase them. Eventually the crew reaches the ship and escape the hive. Once outside, Fry mildly chastises Leela for her recklessness, and that they only escaped through luck, for he fears something bad could happen to her. While Leela comments on herself, saying that she can take care of herself, the baby queen turns on Leela and threatens to kill her. Fry selflessly throws himself in front of Leela in defense before the queen thrusts her stinger, which impales Fry in the lower abdomen and knocks them both down. Bender picks up the queen and throws her into the air lock, ejecting her into space (where she is hit and killed by a space truck). Leela gets up with a marginal wound from the stinger and thanks Fry for saving her. However, there is no response; upon further examination, Leela discovers to her dismay that Fry is dead.

Act II: "Pawning all the stuff in Fry's locker helped give me closure."
Fry's funeral is held at the Orbiting Meadows; Leela, meanwhile, blames herself for Fry's death. Afterwards, Leela keeps dreaming about Fry and is getting hints that he might be still alive - he tells her that he left something for her in his locker, which turns out to be true (the only item Bender did not pawn). Increasingly weird things begin to happen, and Leela feels like she is loosing her mind or going crazy. She tries some of the space honey they brought along, which is said to be useful in smaller doses but can put you in an eternal sleep if you take more than two spoons. Every time she dreams of Fry, he tells her to wake up, which she always does, only to find her hope that he might still be alive disappointed.

Act III: "Why am I sticky and naked? Did I miss something fun?"
Every time Leela wakes from dreams of Fry, which turn ever more romantic, she experiences weird things which grow steadily more unnerving. Finally she believes that she is going crazy and decides that she will take enough space honey to put her in the eternal sleep so that she can be in her dreams with Fry forever. Just as she is about to take the final spoon, Fry's picture on her bedside table tells her to stop and that she cannot give up. He urges her to fight it. Leela's confusion is now complete; she does not know anymore what is happening to her and pleas to Fry to tell her how to get out of this. He tells her once more to wake up - and she does, finding herself in hospital, with Fry sobbing beside her. She has been in a coma for two weeks, as the sting of the baby queen went right through Fry and Leela caught all the poison. Fry never left her side while she was unconscious and kept talking to her in the hope that a familiar voice would guide her back. Apparently some of it got through into Leela's dreams. The final shot shows Leela and Fry hugging each other...he probably deserved it.

Trivia

 * This episode was nominated for an Emmy in 2004 for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour).
 * In Space Pilot 3000, the Professor produces career chips from his previous crew from an envelope labeled "Contents of space wasp's stomach," rather than the space bees depicted in this episode. While the writer admits in the commentary their research found no relationship between bees and wasps, some wasps do invade bee hives to host their larvae.
 * In this episode Fry is stung by a giant bee. Billy West, the actor who voices Fry, is also known as the voice of the Honey Nut Cheerios spokesbee, Buzz.
 * This episode is similar in some ways to the episode "Goodbye" in Katey Sagal's other show 8 Simple Rules. The episodes aired only five months apart.
 * In the funeral scene, many characters from past episodes appear. These include the still-fossilized Seymour, Terry from Applied Cryogenics, Chester A. Arthur (head-in-jar), Leo and Inez Wong, a few of Santa Claus's Neptunian aides, Guenter, a few Trisolians and the women (and the radiator) that Fry has slept with.
 * This is the only time we see the old Planet Express Ship.
 * On the funeral, many characters are wearing special mourning clothes. For example, the Professor is wearing a black lab coat, Bender has a veil around his eyes, Leela uses dark-purple lipstick and so on.
 * Among the many wreaths at the funeral, Bender's is easily the most obvious: "R.I.P. Meatbag", and still shows his typical focus on himself, as his name is larger than that of Fry.
 * Leela's box with "Memories of Fry" contains: the flower he gave her in The Why of Fry, a can of Slurm, a coronation spoon with him as Emperor of Trisol on it, a can of π-in-1 oil last seen in Insane in the Mainframe, the conversation heart from Love and Rocket ("U leave me breathless"), a fake moustache (possibly from The Cryonic Woman) and a refrigerator magnet from Luna Park (The Series Has Landed).
 * Leela uses only half a tissue to wipe away her tears, but not because she has only one eye: it is an inside reference to David X. Cohen who had a bad cold at the time the episode was written and was fearing to run out of tissues, so he halved each one to make them last longer.

Outside Referrences

 * Scruffy is wearing a complete Scottish oufit and plays the bagpipes - a spoof of Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan (Spock's funeral), complete with Scruffy playing the bagpipes like Scotty did. Fry's funeral song is an arrangement of "Walking on Sunshine", which was established as Fry's favorite in Jurassic Bark. He also sings/hums it briefly in War is the H-Word and The 30% Iron Chef.
 * The scene where Leela looks into Fry's coffin in space and sees a colourful tunnel of light (to the music Also sprach Zarathustra) is a parody of the scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Dave Bowman encounters the Monolith and it opens into the same Stargate sequence as in the end of 2001.
 * The song "Bee Happy" is a spoof of the early 90's hit "Don't worry be happy".
 * Multiple references are made to Honeycombs Cereal, such as the Honeycomb Hideout.
 * The scene where the queen bee wriggles its stinger in the Planet Express Ship's cargo bay could be a reference to Aliens.
 * When Hermes sees that Leela is awake, he exclaims, "Sweet Three-toed Sloth of Ice Planet Hoth! She's awake!", referring to the ice planet of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Quotes

 * Leela: What's the mission? Farnsworth: Collecting honey. Ordinary honey. Leela: That doesn't sound so dangerous. Farnsworth: This is no ordinary honey! It's produced by vicious space bees. A single sting of their hideous neurotoxin can cause instant death! Hermes: And that's if you're not allergic! You don't wanna know what happens then, oh no no, God no. Farnsworth: Your insides with boil out of your eye sockets like a science fair volcano! Hermes: I didn't want to know! (cries)
 * Leela: Fry? *gasps* He's...he's dead! Bender: Oh, who will make Bender waffles just the way he likes them now?
 * Fry: Leela, no! Listen to me! You don't wanna lie in bed like a vegetable and do nothing the rest of your life. I've tried it. Bedsores hurt!
 * Leela: (twitching) I'll find Fry's coffin, get his corpse and keep it under my mattress to remind me that he's really dead. That'll prove I'm not insane!
 * Leela: Is this some sort of brain scanner? Professor: Some sort, yes. In France, it's called a "guillotine".
 * Father Changstein el Gamahl: I barely knew Philip, but as a clergyman, I have no trouble telling his most intimate friends all about him. (general sobbing) Hermes: Soothe us with sweet lies...
 * Amy: He's walking on sunshine now...

Characters
(In alphabetical order)
 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Fry
 * Hermes
 * Leela
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Zoidberg
 * Morgan Proctor
 * Terry
 * Seymour Asses
 * Leo and Inez Wong
 * Cubert
 * Guenter
 * LaBarbara Conrad
 * Father Changstein el Gamahl
 * Dwight
 * Sal
 * Scruffy
 * Michelle
 * Petunia
 * Thog
 * 21st Century girl

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Patric M. Verrone
 * Director
 * Brian Sheesley
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Lauren Tom
 * Dave Herman
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore
 * Patric M. Verrone
 * Brian Sheesley
 * John DiMaggio
 * Billy West
 * Maurice LaMarche