Recap / Futurama S 8 E 8 Zapp Gets Cancelled

If you can read this, you're too far away from the screen.

Kif files a complaint against Zapp Brannigan and gets him "cancelled," stripping him of his title and forced to undergo sensitivity training. In the meantime, Leela takes over as captain of the Nimbus, bringing Fry and Bender with her.

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Tropes in this episode:

• Aliens Speaking English: Parodied. When Leela greets to the Tactillians in English, one of them is amazed that she speaks their language.
• All There in the Manual: The names of Zapp's robot and woman classmates in sensitivity training are not mentioned in the episode, but revealed to be Flashbot and Marlene by the closed-captioning.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Leela's speech to the crew of the Nimbus begins with the declaration that she isn't Zapp. That's enough for the crew to cheer in glee, given how he treats them.
• Ax-Crazy: Dr. Kind is the personification of this trope. He's bloodthirsty, would destroy an entire planet just because other people haven't done it yet even when they had the perfect chance to, and tied up the real doctor in a fit of rage, and threatens people with durians.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: How Dr. Kind is able to hijack the sensitivity training. He simply wears a uniform and starts pushing the cancelled captains around.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Dr. Kind seems to be an earnest medic trying to help the cancelled captains redeem themselves, but he soon turns out not only to be a massive jerk, but to have tied up the real doctor and hijacked the treatment for his own gain.
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • Downplayed compared to the usual standards of the show, but Dr. Kind can switch back and forth between really tall and really short despite his arms always staying the same length, and has a larva-style mouth inside his regular mouth.
  • Of course, played straight with the groping aliens who are large blobs with faces and arms, along with spherical growths all over their bodies.
• Blackface: Kif mentions Zapp wearing "greenface" when listing all the terrible things Zapp has done, and members of Kif's species gasp. Zapp tries to brush it off as just a Halloween costume.
• Blinded by the Light: One of the cancelled captains is a robot named Flashbot, who as his name suggests releases a blinding light when he opens his chest compartment. And he loves to open his compartment, which is the reason for his suspension (though he claims to be there for "indecent exposure").
  Flashbot: Yeah, well, it's not about the brightness. It's about the color temperature!
• The Bully: Dr. Kind, while admittedly overly cartoonish, is a pretty realistic depiction of a workplace one. He scares the cancelled captains shitless at several points just to embarrass them, changes his size repeatedly by contorting just to make himself feel big, smacks the captains around at several points, calls anyone who disagrees with him "cowards" and is all around very childish, treating anyone he can like a toy to toss around and claim "Mine!" on. Even other workplace bullies in the series, like Zapp (who's shown to be disgusted with him beyond a personal level) or Hermes (who's more unethical than flat-out evil and would mostly just treat Zoidberg badly out of personal repulsion) don't have a constant thirst for tearing people down.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The robot checking people into the class was not just an aide but was actually the teacher for the class. Kind was another person sent to the class for sensitivity training but hijacked it from her.
• Combat Pragmatist: The motto on the Doop station is "Aim low, shoot first".
• Comically Missing the Point: After his Rage Breaking Point, Kif insists that he's going to file a formal complaint against Zapp. Zapp insists it's pronounced "compliment".
• Continuity Nod:
  • A character similar to Flamo is seen telling Zapp to sign the certificate of defeat.
  • Mandy is seen playing with a Feffernoose toy.
• Copycat Mockery: When Leela tells Bender he can't come to the Tactillians' planet since "(his) robot technology will scare them", he angrily repeats her in a "blah blah blah" tone while making a mouth gesture with his hand.
• Covered in Gunge: Leela gets her face splattered with durian while trying to catch it from falling into the air hole. This leaves her with a foul smell from the fruit, which causes Fry to kneel down gagging when he goes to her and Airee to hastily sign the peace treaty while declaring the ritual "knobbling" optional.
• Diaries Are Girly: While working as DOOP captain, Leela uses a "captain's diary" as opposed to Zapp Brannigan's typical "captain's log." Her entry includes text slang and an addendum about how cute her boyfriend looks, and she locks it with a key despite it being an audio log.
• Diving Save: Leela does this to stop the durian from falling into the air hole, complete with slow motion. She gets the fruit in her face and splattered with it.
• The Dog Bites Back: Kif finally grows sick of Zapp’s abuse and reports him.
• Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: Downplayed. Despite the episode calling out sexual harassment from people like Zapp, it also plays the Tactillians' constant "groping" for harmless laughs because it's simply part of their culture. A couple of them even grab Fry's butt, prompting him to cry that wearing a short skirt doesn't make it okay.
• Employee of the Month: Leela has won Planet Express's "Only Good Employee of the Month" award every single month. This only serves as a reminder to Leela of how unimpressive her job truly is, and she looks progressively less proud and more miserable in every month's photograph.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Despite representing Zapp, even the Hyper-Chicken can see that he’s guilty after hearing Kif’s testimony.
  • Zapp carelessly and passive-aggressively pushes people around time and time again, but thinks that no one deserves Dr. Kind's awful treatment.
    Zapp: At least with me in charge, they don't suffer long.
  • Zigzagged with Zoidberg. Apparently, even he is repulsed by the foul smell of durians, but he is still attracted by them because of how sweet and tasty they are.
• Evil All Along: Glab and DOOP reveal their true colors in the episode as it’s revealed that they don’t make peace and alliances their top priority with other alien species but rather seek to exploit them and their resources for selfish gain.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Dr. Kind is genuinely perplexed by the idea that someone would hesitate or refuse to shoot people that are defenseless.
• Exact Words: One of Zapp's offenses Kif lists is performing an erotic fan-dance with a ping-pong paddle and a no-show sock, which Zapp brushes it off as being from a different time. When Kif clarifies that it was yesterday, Zapp responds "So you admit it!".
• Feather Fingers: Deconstructed by the Hyper-Chicken attempting to give Zapp an Indignant Slap only to softly brush his face with his wing feathers.
• Field Promotion: Glab strips Leela of her rank as captain of the Nimbus and gives it back to Zapp once Zapp's cancellation is over, as she would not fire on Dr. Kind due to the innocent Tactillians that were surrounding him. However, Zapp does not do so either, as the sensitivity training he had just gone through actually had an impact and he would rather find a less violent solution. So Glab then pulls Zapp's rank and gives it to Dr. Kind himself, who actually follows through on the order to shoot.
• Flat Joy: When Hermes announces they're going to pick the "one good employee of the month", Amy gives out a monotone "Yay".
• Get Out!: Said by Glab when she dishonorably discharges Leela for disobeying orders.
• Grass is Greener: After her gradual depression over working at Planet Express for years, Leela was excited to prove her worth by taking over Zapp's job and being the captain of the Nimbus for DOOP. She comes to realize the job entails a number of morally sketchy decisions with a lot of responsibility, something she is unable to reconcile in the long run. When she returns to Planet Express where she is appreciated, her smile is noticeably more genuine.
• Grew a Spine: After so many years of abuse from Zapp, Kif finally reaches his breaking point
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The DOOP is revealed to be morally bankrupt in this episode and is shown to be no better than the other factions including Omicron Persei 8. It is revealed that DOOP often come to primitive planets and trick other species into allying with them when in reality, that promise of peace and protection is an excuse for DOOP to steal valuable resources from the planets and cheat the species involved in the process. This is shown when Glab tells Leela that they want to establish “peace” with the Tactillians but their true ulterior goal is to cheat the Tactillians out of their air while implying that the DOOP will declare war on the planet if the Tactillians refuse to comply. This revelation disturbs Leela when she finds out.
• Heel Realization: Zapp seemingly has this after his experience of getting abused by another captain who was much worse than him, and makes a public apology to everyone he has wronged. Time will tell if this sticks though.
• Hollywood Law: Matcluck represents both Zapp and Kif in the disciplinary hearing, then passes judgement upon Zapp himself after hearing both sides.
  Grand Councilwoman: I'm going to allow this.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Double subverted. Zapp intended to actually surrender to the fiery ship that he is unable to douse with the Nimbus's hose due to using up all the water supply for his public shower. But while signing the certificate of defeat, he punctures Kif's head (that he is using as a desk) with his pen and sees his bodily fluids leaking out, so he uses it to douse the fiery captain in a surprise attack.
• Indignant Slap: Parodied when the Hyper-Chicken/Matcluck thinks Zapp referred to him as "frivolous poultry" - since he's, well, a chicken, the "slap" is just a half-flap of his wings that softly brushes Zapp's face.
• Inherent in the System: While Zapp gets removed from his post to undergo sensitivity training, Leela comes to learn that a lot of what Zapp does is not (solely) incompetence and immorality but is acting under the orders of DOOP. They were seeking a treaty with the Tactillians for the purpose of exploiting their wind resources, with the DOOP representative phrasing it as "We tricked them with peace."
• Innocently Insensitive: The Tactillians are a kind and peaceful race, but use groping as their means of peaceful greeting. They are culturally blind to the fact that there are other races that would find this rather uncomfortable.
• Ironic Name: Dr. Kind is anything but.
• Jumped at the Call:
  • As soon as Zapp gets suspended, Leela volunteers to take his place as captain of the Nimbus, due to feeling she is at a dead-end career at Planet Express.
  • Leela was about choose Professor Farnsworth as her second companion after Fry, only for Bender to butt in and offer to take the position instead, clearly to preserve his place as Third Wheel to Fry and Leela.
• Karmic Death: Dr. Kind gets disintegrated by the Nimbus after being named its captain and ordering the ship to fire while it was trained on him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Zapp finally gets comeuppance for his mistreatment and abuse of Kif in this episode as Zapp loses his position as captain and gets a taste of his own medicine when he gets treated like a doormat by Dr Kind. This unfortunately does not last long as Zapp’s cancellation expired after 8 hours, but he does seem to have gained some humility from the abuse he received from Dr. Kind at least for now.
• Living Mood Ring: Subverted. It looks like Dr. Kind changes his mood when he shifts his height using his two sets of arms, a softspoken one when he's on his short arms on his lower body and an aggressive one when on his long arms on his upper body. But it turns out he's just doing that to mess with the suspended captains.
  Dr. Kind: (to Zapp, while on his short arms) Brush harder, tubby!
  Zapp: You can't yell at me! You're on your short arms.
  Dr. Kind: I YELL AT ANY HEIGHT I WANT!
• Mark of Shame: "Canceled" captains are forced to wear a glowing 'C' badge.
• Meaningful Name: The name of the Tactilians comes from a Latin word meaning "to touch". They are indeed very handsy and gropey.
• Mondegreen Gag: After Zapp is sentenced to the sensitivity program and (briefly) stripped of his title as captain of the Nimbus, he balks, claiming "I object to these frivolous, paltry charges!" Matcluck exclaims "Frivolous poultry?! You insult me, sir!" and "slaps" him.
• New Job Episode: In a reverse of "Brannigan, Begin Again", Leela takes over as captain of the Nimbus.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In his zeal to demonstrate how he won't let the sensitivity training he had just been through cripple his willingness to be a firm captain, Dr. Kind actually follows through on the order to fire upon himself from Glab, which resolves the conflict by preventing himself from dropping the durian into the planet's core (though Leela still has to catch it before it falls in, which she gets a medal for).
• Non Human Nonbinary: Implied with Airee, the head of the Tactillians, who is an ambiguous blob like the rest of their people, but refers to themselves as their "quing."
• No Sense of Personal Space: The culture of the balloon people place a lot of importance on groping people for diplomacy.
• Only Sane Employee: Deconstructed. Leela being voted "Only good employee of the month" for every month since the position was introduced at Planet Express makes her feel like she’s wasting her life.
• Planet Looters: The DOOP is only making contact with the balloon people to steal the air being generated by the frozen core of their planet.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Dr. Kind has a reactionary view on sensitivity training, referring to it as "woke" and calling people that subscribe to it snowflakes. He also talks down to Leela as captain by saying that women belong in the kitchen.
• Produce Pelting: Marlene, one of the cancelled captains, throws food at anyone who annoys her, like Zapp.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Dr. Kind is impulsive, immature and essentially lives his life through a constant temper tantrum.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When a durian-splattered Leela decides to participate in the ritual "knobbling" as part of the peace treaty, Airee decides to make the groping optional and just sign the treaty before they and their Number Two run off to get away from the smell.
• Self-Disposing Villain: Dr. Kind is tricked into taking himself out by being named captain of the Nimbus and impulsively ordering it to fire while weapons are trained on him to prove he's not a "snowflake".
• Shout-Out:
  • Dr. Kind is modeled on the titular demon from Night of the Demon. While they look visually distinct, Kind largely seems to take after the puppet gimmick for the demon used in the film (notice how he doesn't share the demon's horns, but takes after its yellow eyes and weird shoulder structure). Dr. Kind devouring a toothbrush using a mouth inside his mouth also loosely mimics a scene from the movie where cult leader Julian Karswell's cat transforms into a leopard and attacks the main character.
  • The symbol for being cancelled is a scarlet letter, meant to be worn in shame.

• Shown Their Work: Dr. Kind introduces the durian as "Earth's most putrid yet delicious fruit". While the durian has an infamous odor which is often compared to garbage or rotten meat (as pointed out in the episode by Zapp and Flashbot), the fruit's taste by contrast is often compared to ice cream or custard.
• Status Quo Is God: Subverted. While Leela loses her position as captain of the Nimbus for disobeying orders, Zapp goes through slight Character Development by the end. Time will tell how long Zapp's reformation lasts.
• Stock "Yuck!": A scent-related example. The durian is prominently featured in this episode in regards to its infamous stench, to the point Dr. Kind uses it as an air-polluting bioweapon, Farnsworth passes out after taking one whiff with the Smell-O-Scope, Airee refrains from groping Leela when she gets covered with the fruit's flesh, and even the garbage-eating Zoidberg is disgusted by the smell (its taste, on the other hand, is a completely different story).
• Subverted Catchphrase: Zapp's tendency to mispronounce words gets flipped in this episode. Instead of being told the correct way to pronounce a word, there are instead multiple moments where he mistakenly corrects someone else's (correct) pronunciation to a similar word.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Even if it worked out in the end, Leela disrespecting the balloon people’s customs and refusing orders from the Grand Councilwoman gets her dishonourably discharged.
  • Matcluck slaps Zapp with a hand after a misunderstanding. As Matcluck is a bird with soft feathers on his wingtips, Zapp is completely unharmed.
• Take That!:
  • Zapp seals his sentence by telling the Grand Councilwoman that she should smile more, a common statement by sexist trolls regarding women in fiction.
  • Dr. Kind uses the term "woke" for the sensitivity training at one point, before he is later revealed to be a Politically Incorrect Villain.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: This seems to be Dr. Kind's method for impressing the importance of considerate behavior in his sensitivity training; he treats the students as terribly as they've treated their peers/subordinates. Subverted when it turns out he's another student in the course who replaced the real teacher to hijack the class for his own goals.
• Tempting Fate: Farnsworth decides it's "a beautiful night for smell-gazing" with the Smell-O-Scope — right when Dr. Kind splits the durian in half releasing its pungent odor.
• Too Dumb to Live: Dr. Kind completes his sensitivity training, at which point Glab immediately promotes him to the captain of the Nimbus because neither Leela nor Zapp wanted to fire on him, then orders him to fire on himself and he does so without haste as a demonstration of his more ruthless mentality. He's vaporized into ash.
• Toothbrush Floor Scrubbing: Dr. Kind forces Zapp and Flashbot to clean the floors with toothbrushes. Then he orders Flashbot to brush his teeth, but when the robot informs him that he doesn't have teeth, he orders him to brush his own teeth instead and then eats the toothbrush with a second mouth inside his mouth.
• Visible Odor: The durian has an odor so repulsive that its smell is actually visible to the characters. Dr. Kind even uses it as a bioweapon by threatening to drop it into the air well, poisoning it for centuries.
  Zapp: My god, it actually has stink lines.

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