Bender's recent attitude about the value of life has gotten on the Planet Express crew's nerves, but after it is discovered that Bender was built without a backup unit and can therefore die, he goes on a quest to find Inspector #5, the bureaucrat who originally approved him, and get some answers with the help of Hermes.
Tropes present:
- And Show It to You: Parodied during the war reenactment.Darth Trocious: I shall rip out your heart and show it to you! [taps Scruffy with toy lightsaber] It is done!
- Big "NO!": Bender shouts this when he learns that he's built without a backup unit, right after he puts his head in his body.
- Body Backup Drive: Robots have a wireless backup unit that save a copy of them every day, so if their bodies get killed, they'd just download into another body. The discovery that Bender lacks this drive, and is therefore mortal, is what kicks off the plot.
- Cutting the Knot: Hermes' solution to the vast amount of accumulated paperwork at the end? Furnace.
- Coin-on-a-String Trick: Bender uses it on a phone booth while calling Mom.
- Connected All Along: Hermes is revealed to have worked at Mom's Friendly Robot Company and was Bender's quality control inspector.
- Continuity Nod:
- Bender mentions that he was in Italy last week, a nod to the previous episode aired a week prior, "The Duh-Vinci Code".
- Bender's use of the Coin-on-a-String Trick on the phone booth is one to the pilot episode, where he did the same thing on a suicide booth.
- Hermes mistaking a phone booth for a suicide booth calls to mind Bender doing the same thing while at "Past-o-rama".
- The old man waiting in line for his birth certificate back in "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back" finally makes it. And dies.
- Contrived Coincidence:
- Hermes was the one who inspected Bender at the Tijuana manufacturing plan. Years later, they both happened to end up working at Planet Express.
- Hermes is yet another employee who worked for Mom, joining Farnsworth and Zoidberg.
- Did Not Think This Through: Bender calls tech-support for help with his defect. Mom instantly sics everything she can on him, and when Hermes points this out, Bender shrugs it off. Then he remembers he can't survive being killed.
- Exact Words: Oh, Mom'll "take care" of Bender all right.
- Faux Fluency: Bender's ignorance of Spanish, despite being built in Mexico, is once again in display.
- Fingertip Drug Analysis: Fry does this to test the puddle in the wheelchair, confirming it's oil, not urine as Bender stated.
- Foreshadowing: When Hermes opens up the filing cabinet, he winds up knocking Bender the ground... which seemed to be a little too deliberate to have been an accident... There was also when they were at Hermes' cubicle at the Central Bureaucracy and Hermes said how only the assigned bureaucrat could get into the computers. When they are in Tijuana, he is able to get into Inspector #5's computer and disable the Kill bots.
- Have You Seen My God?: While he's met an outright cosmic deity, Bender puts his inspector (and by proxy, himself) on an almost divine pedestal.
- Heroic BSoD: Bender goes into this when he learns he's built without a backup unit. He later breaks down in tears when he can't find Inspector 5 and is willing to die once he comes to accept his newfound mortality (plus he still has a billion years to live).
- Hidden Depths: Amazingly, Mom is upset when Hermes resigns rather than continue working for her. She still has him literally kicked off the premises though. With a donkey.
- Insane Troll Logic: "Thanks to denial, I'm immortal."
- Insistent Terminology: Prof. Farnsworth's comfy chair with wheels is most definitely not a wheelchair.
- Latin Land: Tijuana is a textbook example.
- Manly Tears: Bender breaks down crying when he can't find Inspector no. 5.
- Not What It Looks Like: After the trip to the Central Bureaucracy gets them no information concerning Inspector No. 5, Hermes tries stopping Bender from entering a suicide booth, only for Bender to point out that it's actually a phone booth, which he wants to use to contact Mom.
- Once More, with Clarity: The last part of the episode has a montage of Hermes hiding inspector No. 5's information from Bender.
- Pet the Dog: Though Mom is the closest thing the show has to a Big Bad, she gets a small moment during the flashback sequence. When Hermes angrily resigns from her company, she has a sad (as opposed to angry) frown on her face and seems genuinely upset as she summons a donkey to kick him out. It makes sense that, given her ruthlessness, she would appreciate—and thus hurt to lose — a hard-working and dedicated employee like Hermes.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Before he comes to accept his newfound mortality, Bender starts destroying Inspector 5's house.
- Series Continuity Error: In "Bendless Love", Bender says that he remembers his own birth, being only four years old at the time, and is shown being built with his usual adult body. This contradicts the ending of this episode, which shows a baby Bender being approved by a young Hermes before he worked for Planet Express.
- Shout-Out:
- The Sith-il War (punning on the Civil War), to Star Wars.
- Scruffy quotes Blade Runner ("The candle that burns twice as bright...") after he "dies" in combat.
- Paul Lynde and Hollywood Squares get a shout-out when Hermes goes to his cubicle.
- The Reveal: Inspector No. 5 is Hermes.
- Technology Marches On: In-universe, it's parodied with the brand new "phone booths".Hermes: They have phones in booths now? Finally! I don't have to lug this heavy cell phone around!
- Trigger-Happy: Mom's Killbots, which gets all of them killed in the end."Someone said shoot!"
- Unflinching Walk: Done with Hermes at Inspector #5's old house.Bender: He did it! And he's not looking back at that cool explosion! He's a hero!
- Vetinari Job Security: When Hermes leaves to go on Bender's revenge quest, he leaves Leela in charge. During the time he's gone, things fall apart completely: he returns to find that the ship has been repossessed, unexplained alarms are going off, the Professor is trapped in a giant beaker, Leela has been reduced to a gibbering mess, and the crew is preparing to cook and eat Zoidberg. It only takes him an hour to get things back to normal.
- Wallpaper Camouflage: Hermes is wearing a shirt the exact same color as the wall behind him, just as Leela talks about how bureaucrats blend into the walls.
- War Reenactors: The Planet Express crew take part in a reenactment of the Sith-il Wars, with the Futurama team dressed as traditional Nationalists with laser muskets.
- Wham Shot: The episode's ending has two back to back: Hermes pulling out the Inspector No. 5 file from his jacket and throwing it into the furnace... which reveals, as it burns, that Hermes was Inspector No. 5.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Parodied when Bender realizes he's going to die due to lacking a backup unit.Fry: How much time does he have left, Professor?
Professor: Between a minute and a billion years.
