- "Hey! I got a busted ass here and I don't see anyone kissing it!"
- ―Bender[source]
I Second That Emotion is the fifth episode of Futurama Season Two. It was written by Patric Verrone, and directed by Mark Ervin.
Synopsis
When Nibbler has a birthday party, Bender becomes annoyed that he is getting more attention than him. Having reluctantly made a birthday cake for Nibbler, Bender is aghast to see Nibbler gobble it all up before everybody else can praise Bender for the cake. In extreme annoyance, Bender flushes the animal down the toilet. Leela is distraught at the loss of her pet and angered by Bender's inability to understand the emotions of others. Professor Farnsworth proposes a solution: installing an empathy chip in Bender's head that will cause him to feel other people's emotions. After forcibly installing the chip, the chip is tuned to pick up Leela's emotions, so that whatever feelings Leela experiences, Bender is forced to experience as well.
After a night of experiencing Leela's feelings, Bender misses Nibbler so much that he cannot stand it. When Fry tells him that alligators can supposedly live after being flushed, Bender flushes himself down the toilet in pursuit of Nibbler. Fry and Leela enter the sewers and quickly manage to find Bender. Unfortunately, they also find a crowd of mutants who live in the sewers. The mutants introduce them to their subterranean civilization. They also reveal that a monster called El Chupanibre has been terrorizing them.
Leela, thinking that Nibbler is the monster, is happy until she is informed that the only way to lure the monster out is to offer a sacrifice in the form of a virgin. Although not one herself, Leela is the closest thing to a virgin there and is therefore forced to be the sacrifice. At the sacrifice, Nibbler emerges from a pipe... but so does a large, reptilian monster, who is the real El Chupanibre. Fry gets entangled in the trap that was meant for El Chupanibre, leaving only Bender to fight the beast; however, Leela is so scared, for herself and the others, that Bender is immobilized by her emotions. He and Fry teach Leela to stop caring about other people and care only about herself, and as a result, Bender is able to fight off the beast, whom he eventually flushes down a giant toilet into the sub-sewers.
The Professor removes Bender's empathy chip. He says in amazement that the chip was actually turned off, so that Bender was actually sympathizing for Leela by himself. He then corrects himself, saying that it was actually at triple capacity ("And I still barely felt anything!" Bender claims.) Bender still retains his 'in-your-face' attitude; meanwhile, Leela learns that adopting Bender's attitude is better than being nice.
References Explained
- Fry: "Too bad he wasn't an alligator. Y'know, when you flush those things, they stay alive in the sewers."
Bender: "Really?"
Fry: "Yep. My friend's cousin's caseworker saw one once. It's a widely-believed fact."
- Fry: "So, is it true that alligators flushed down the toilet survive down here?"
Vyolet: "No. That's just an urban legend."
Bender: [pointing] "Then what are those?"
Vyolet: "Crocodiles." [She snorts.]
Raoul: "We keep them as pets. Then, when they grow too large, we flush them down into the sub-sewer."
- These are references to the urban legend, widely circulated from the 1960s on, concerning baby crocodiles/alligators obtained by New Yorkers vacationing in Florida being flushed down the toilet when they proved to be too troublesome and/or large to make good pets, whereupon they grew to gigantic size in the New York sewer system. Further generations of alligators were said to have grown to become albinos, the darkness making pigmentation unnecessary.
- Fry: "Wow. You guys worship an unexploded nuclear bomb?"
Vyolet: "Yeah, but nobody's that observant. It's mainly a Christmas and Easter thing."
- This is a parody of the zealous worship of a nuclear bomb by underground denizens in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes". This is also similar to the post apocalyptic video game Fallout 3, in which there is a settlement based around a nuclear bomb and there is a cult worshipping it.
- While freestyling with his own head, Bender whistles "Sweet Georgia Brown", the theme music of The Harlem Globetrotters
Appearances
Characters
Easter Eggs
- The 31st century birthday song is:
What day is today?
It's _____'s birthday
What a day for a birthday!
Let's all have some cake!
Since it is Nibbler's birthday, of course Nibblers name is inserted into the blank in this episode.
Goofs
4mins into the episode if you look at the top right corner you can see a women undressing.