History Recap / FuturamaS3E20Godfellas

* LampshadeHanging: Leela's line under ContrivedCoincidence, which the DVDCommentary admits was their way of side-stepping the unlikeliness of it (and Creator/MattGroening calls "hanging a lantern").

* DressedToPlunder: The {{space pirate|s}} captain dresses like a stereotypical sea pirate from the olden days: bicorne hat, ruffled shirt, eye patches over two of his three eyes, wooden pegs replacing three of his four legs, and parrots on three of his four shoulders.

* EmergencyCargoDump: Bender tries to slow down his drifting through space by dumping excess weight. So he starts throwing off the swag he picked up from the SpacePirates.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: In a bit of black comedy, as the shrimpkins are nuking one another and Malachi's son is hugging the ground in the hopes that Bender will save them, one can see Bender's eyes tracking the nuke that's about to fall on Malachi's family.
* GeniusLoci: God is a sapient galaxy. From the shrimpkins' perspective, Bender is also a living world.

* PhonyPsychic: Fry hires the Robot Fortune Teller to channel Bender. She misremembers his name as "Bonder" when claiming to be him and tells Fry to giver her more money.

* BeingGodIsHard: Bender's seemingly simple request for beer led to the micro sized aliens having many hardships. And then they waged religious war against the other micro alien colony on Bender that couldn't see him and didn't believe he existed. And then everyone died. Later in the episode Bender met an entity that may or may not be the real God, and shared notes. Conclusion reached:

* ScriptWank: The aesop is repeated at the end.

* BarbieDollAnatomy: Bender carves the drawing of the Pioneer Plaque on his chest, but the man and the woman lack visible genitalia or nipples (the real life woman on the pioneer plaque downplays this, as she has nipples but her pudenda was absolutely smooth with no visible vulva whatsoever).

* ContinuityCameo: The voice from the telescope that yells at Fry to stop asking about Bender is quite clearly Lrr (RULER OF THE PLANET OMICRON PERSEI 8!)

-->'''Bender:''' ''(to the Galactic Entity)'' It was ''awful.'' I tried helping them. I tried not helping them but in the end, I couldn't do them any good.
* HiddenDepths: Bender tries very hard to be compassionate and merciful towards his Shrimpkin followers, in stark contrast to how he usually treats people. Unfortunately his thoughtlessness in attempting to perform miracles leads to the Shrimpkin getting wiped out.

* InMysteriousWays: {{God}}/satellite/satellite-which-collided-with-God believes that God ''should'' behave in a mercurial fashion. If a deity does too much for its people, they will become dependent on it, but if it does too little, then its people will not be able to deal with problems beyond their abilities and will lose hope. By working in mysterious ways, the people are motivated to work hard and expand their knowledge, but can still receive help if they need it. This is a stark contrast to how Bender plays God to the Shrimpkins. By asking them to do him favors, he inadvertently introduces crime, while maiming and killing hundreds, if not thousands. By trying to help, he kills scores of them and destroys many of their crops. By doing nothing, those he hasn't paid attention to feel ignored and eventually wage all-out war that results in mutually assured destruction, using weapons built from Bender himself. Speaking with the nebula changes Bender, who goes out of his way to rescue trapped monks who Fry suggested God could take care of. Such an act is done of Bender's own will, but only because of the nebula's influence, so the nebula ''does'' save the monks, though they will not credit him, thus showing his philosophy in action.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: This is how the godlike entity Bender meets operates. He openly considers the possibilities of being a sufficiently advanced A.I. or an actual PhysicalGod to be equally viable, and a clear answer for what exactly "he" even is [[RiddleForTheAges is never given to either Bender or the audience]].

* BarbieDollAnatomy: Bender carves the drawing of the Pioneer Plaque on his chest, but the man and the woman lack visible genitalia or nipples.

* InMysteriousWays: {{God}}/satellite/satellite which collided with God believes that God ''should'' behave in a mercurial fashion. If a deity does too much for its people, they will become dependent on it, but if it does too little, then its people will not be able to deal with problems beyond their abilities and will lose hope. By working in mysterious ways, the people are motivated to work hard and expand their knowledge, but can still receive help if they need it. This is a stark contrast to how Bender plays God to the Shrimpkins. By asking them to do him favors, he inadvertently introduces crime, while maiming and killing hundreds, if not thousands. By trying to help, he kills scores of them and destroys many of their crops. By doing nothing, those he hasn't paid attention to feel ignored and eventually wage all-out war that results in mutually assured destruction, using weapons built from Bender himself. Speaking with the nebula changes Bender, who goes out of his way to rescue trapped monks who Fry suggested God could take care of. Such an act is done of Bender's own will, but only because of the nebula's influence, so the nebula ''does'' save the monks, though they will not credit him, thus showing his philosophy in action.

--> '''Entity''': When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: This is how the godlike entity Bender meets operates. He openly considers the possibilities of being a sufficiently advanced [=A.I.=] or an actual PhysicalGod to be equally viable, and a clear answer for what exactly "he" even is [[RiddleForTheAges is never given to either Bender or the audience]].
* NotQuiteTheAlmighty: Discussed by Bender and the Galactic Entity on whether the Entity is {{God}}, or a god-like being that was the result of a probe colliding with {{God}}. The Galactic Entity admits both are possible.

-->'''Fry:''' You can't give up hope just because it's hopeless. You gotta hope even more and cover your ears and go, "Blah blah blah blah!"

** The idea that "God" might have been "the remains of a space probe that collided with God" is very likely a callout to the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E3TheChangeling The Changeling]]" or ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture, which focus on a space probe that collided with an alien craft and became a near-godlike entity.

** The idea that "God" might have been "the remains of a space probe that collided with God" is very likely a callout to the ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS2E3TheChangeling The Changeling]]", which focused on a space probe that collided with an alien craft and became a near-godlike entity.

* VoiceOnlyCameo: The voice from the telescope that yells at Fry to stop asking about Bender is quite clearly Lrr (RULER OF THE PLANET OMICRON PERSEI 8!)

'''Galactic Entity:''': Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing.

* ContrivedCoincidence: Fry's prayer to find Bender just happens to reach the God-entity, who happens to have Bender nearby and decides to throw him back to Earth.

* KindnessBall: This is easily the most sympathetic Bender has been in any episode. Although he does take advantage of his godhood for booze, he takes no malicious action, regrets even things that ''accidentally'' harm others, and at the end goes out of his way to help some people he never even met.

* OhCrap: Fry and Leela are shocked after Bender gets fired out of a torpedo tube.

%%* KillEmAll: Those poor Shrimpkins.

** If you do too much for others, they become overly reliant on you, and if you do too little people, lose hope.