Hermes is preparing for an inspection from the Central Bureaucracy. But when a fight spills into his office, utterly ruining it, he suffers a mental breakdown. Zoidberg recommends Hermes takes a stress-relieving vacation, and he is temporarily replaced by bureaucrat Morgan Proctor, who becomes infatuated with Fry for his slovenly ways. Bender finds out and threatens to publicize their affair, but Morgan removes Bender's memory chip and hides it within the cavernous Central Bureaucracy offices.
Tropes:
- Bait-and-Switch: When we see Spa 5, we see a woman who seems to be a fitness instructor. She is actually an overseer, and the resort is, as noted by LaBarbara (Hermes' wife), a forced labor camp.
- Behind the Black: Bender somehow failed to see that Morgan was right in front of him until the screen zoomed out to show the audience.
- Blatant Lies: Hermes has spent the day getting his office in top condition ready for an inspection, only for Bender to be chased in there and savagely beaten by a group of people whom he'd cheated at cards. When Hermes walks in and sees Bender lying in the wrecked office, the robot claims, "It was ghosts! Big ones! [beat] And a tornado!"
- Brain Theft: Robotic variant - Bender ends up getting his memory chip, effectively his brain, stolen by Morgan when he catches her in an illicit relationship with Fry.
- Broken Record: After losing his memory chip, Bender can only say "I am Bender, please insert girder" over and over.
- Buffy Speak: "But Bender need brain for... smart making!"
- Call-Back: The people who are invited to the poker game include Leela's old boss, who on arrival says she's fired, what with being two years late for work.
- Captain Obvious: A glorious gem from Morgan on beating the Planet Express crew to the Central Bureaucracy.I should have known you would come here rather than follow standard procedure. And I did know! And that's why I came here!
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Bender wins the poker game by using X-Ray specs. While gloating, he hints too strongly about them, and is beaten up over it.
- Chekhov's Gun: At the beginning, Hermes gives his forms 5 stamps. In the end, he incriminates Morgan by pointing out that she'd used only 4 stamps rather than the requisite 5 on a form that she had filled out when she was in high school.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Hermes gets a letter from the Central Bureaucracy informing him that he's about to get a letter from the Central Bureaucracy. He is then surprised to find he's received a letter from the Central Bureaucracy.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Hermes attempts to commit suicide to avoid a demotion. However, the suicide plan backfires when he realized that he didn't take into account how much the Central Bureaucracy has regulations for just about everything a person can do, and if he commits suicide without filling out all the proper paperwork he'll be posthumously demoted.Hermes: Life! Death! Ether way I'm demoted to a tiny cubicle!
- Furious about Morgan's attitude and her bureaucracy, Fry knocks everything off her desk, turning Morgan on again.
- Hermes attempts to commit suicide to avoid a demotion. However, the suicide plan backfires when he realized that he didn't take into account how much the Central Bureaucracy has regulations for just about everything a person can do, and if he commits suicide without filling out all the proper paperwork he'll be posthumously demoted.
- Driven to Suicide: Hermes's "plan"; jump off Planet Express's tower to avoid being demoted by Morgan. He doesn't go through with it when Morgan states that he'll be demoted posthumously for not filling out all the proper paperwork.
- Easily Forgiven: Hermes swears vengeance against Dr. Zoidberg for sending him to the forced labor camp Spa 5. He seems to have gotten over this by the end, when Zoidberg apparently rescued him. Possibly justified since Zoidberg seemed ignorant about the resort's true nature and Hermes stated that Zoidberg got them back. Hermes also managed to give the camp advice that heavily reduced the physical labor.
- Failed a Spot Check: Played for Laughs. As Bender is talking smack about Morgan, Leela and Fry are making shushing motions, and he says, "Uh oh, is she behind me?" Morgan replies with, "No, I'm in front of you!" and Bender squeaks like a mouse.
- The Farmer and the Viper: Bender decides to have a Pet the Dog moment and warns the cryogenics lab boss about a dangerous internal parasite. Unfortunately for Bender, the boss has a "Eureka!" Moment and realizes Bender's wearing x-ray specs, causing the Cryogenics lab employees to chase him into Hermes' office before they give him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and also trash the office in the process, setting off the events of the episode.
- Gambling Brawl: Bender plays poker with Fry, Leela and her former co-workers. He cheats using x-ray specs and, when he's exposed, is chased into Hermes' newly-cleaned office and beaten up.
- Heart Drive: Morgan removes Bender's personality to keep him from exposing her and Fry's relationship. He is left with his base functions, only able to say "I am Bender. Please insert girder" in monotone Robo Speak.
- Heroic BSoD: Hermes spends the first half of the episode in one.
- High-Five Left Hanging: Morgan gives Fry the position of "Executive Delivery Boy", much to the disdain of his co-workers. Fry tries to get Bender to hi-five him, but he initially refuses until Morgan orders him to. Though Fry goes for the down low, Bender kicks him in the leg.
- Hurricane of Excuses: When Hermes catches Bender in his office, after it has been trashed by the poker players beating up on Bender.Bender: Uh, it was ghosts! Big ones! And a tornado!
- I Like Those Odds: Bureaucrat 1.0 allows Hermes to search for Bender's memory card, but he has to find it before closing time, 1 PM. Leela points out he'd have less than 4 minutes. Hermes just says "Requisition me a beat" before looking.
- The Inspector Is Coming: Hermes' office is all cleaned up for the inspector from the Central Bureaucracy, but it gets trashed. He attempts suicide, but the inspector talks him out of it by telling him he hasn't done the required paperwork.
- Mad Libs Catch Phrase: Hermes' usual catchphrase ("Great [noun] of [place]!") disappears during his Heroic BSoD.Hermes: (shivering) Sweet... something of... s-someplace...
- Madness Mantra: After being reset to his original programming, Bender can only say "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
- Mistaken for Aliens: Fry initially believed Hermes was an "Outer-Space Potato Man" rather than a Jamaican human.
- My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours: How Hermes beats Morgan—he points out that a form she submitted as a teenager was only stamped four times, as opposed to the requisite five.Number 1.0: Bureaucrat Conrad, you are technically correct—the best kind of correct!
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: The gang follow the capsule with Bender's memory chip to the central filing room, only to find the room full of thousands of identical capsules.
- Not Helping Your Case: Accosted by a woman in the park who claims he stole her purse, Bender tries fending her off with some random purse he just happened to have at hand.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Played for laughs, especially in the final act.
- Oh, Crap!: Bender when he inadvertently says something about Ipgee's tapeworm, and all the others chase him down and beat the snot out of him.
- Oh, My Gods!: When Ipgee, Leela's former boss, discovers Bender's X-ray specs, he exclaims "Oh, my various gods!"
- Pet the Dog:
- Bender decides to try to warn one of Leela's former coworkers that he has a serious health problem in his stomach, when it was obviously of no benefit to him. However, this causes the guy to realize that Bender might be cheating and it kicks off the events of the episode.
- Morgan puts Hermes on paid vacation after he nearly jumps off the top of the Planet Express building and assumes his duties so he can recover.
- Prim and Proper Bun: Being an uptight bureaucrat, Morgan wears her hair like that.
- Right Behind Me: Bender goes on a rant about Morgan, then thinks she's behind him.Morgan: No, I'm right in front of you.
- Right on Queue: The line for the Central Bureaucracy is so long there's an elderly man there still waiting for his birth certificate. At one point the line moves backwards, attributed to someone in the line giving birth.
- Saying Too Much: Bender does this by mentioning the tapeworm inside Ipgee's intestine, thanks to his x-ray shades.
- Secret Relationship: Morgan starts an affair with Fry because she is turned on by dirty slobs, but insists it must be kept hidden from everyone.Morgan: If anyone asks, I'll deny it.
Fry: Just like every other girl I dated. - Serious Business: Morgan's utlimately defeated when it turns out she once filled in a form about a date incorrectly.Morgan: It was a regulation date that ended in regulation disappointment.
Hermes: Yes, but you only stamped it four times!
(the other bureaucrats gasp in horror)
Morgan: No, no! I was young and reckless! - Sexy Discretion Shot: Happens between Fry and Morgan in Bender's closet. Morgan sees Fry as she unbuttons her blouse before proceeding to have sex with Fry. Cut to Bender walking in with a candle he made for Fry and seeing them both naked under the sheets.
- Shout-Out: One of the workers at the Central Bureaucracy is a beholder from Dungeons & Dragons.
- Skewed Priorities: Part and parcel of being bureaucrats.
- Hermes sings that everyone figured out he was destined to be a bureaucrat when, as a child, he cried all night because a flood knocked his alphabet blocks out of order. At Spa 5, he's more bothered by the inefficiency than the horrific conditions of the work camp.
- Morgan chews the delivery crew out for screwing up a delivery, with her irritation with Leela being that Leela left port without a full complement of olives (which only came up because Bender was having a martini-drinking contest with the autopilot and ran out of olives).
- Strip Poker: The episode starts off as one of these.
- Suicide as Comedy: As Hermes threatens to jump off a ledge, Bender asks him to "do a flip", while Prof. Farnsworth seems more concerned with getting Hermes's liver after he's dead.
- That Reminds Me of a Song:
- Hermes' Bureaucracy Song. Doubles as an "I Am" Song.Hermes: Requisition me a beat.
- Dr. Zoidberg tries to start his own song in the end, only to be interrupted by the end credits.
- Hermes' Bureaucracy Song. Doubles as an "I Am" Song.
- Theme Music Power-Up: Before looking for Bender's memory, Hermes says "Requisition me a beat", with Bureaucrat 1.0 obliging by playing a tune from his console.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Bender using his "lucky x-ray shades" to cheat his way through poker, but accidentally gets himself in trouble by mentioning a tapeworm going to town on Ipgee's bowels. It was that moment Bender knew he was boned. Hermes' office gets destroyed during the ensuing fight, leading to him getting demoted and replaced by Morgan.
- Uptight Loves Wild: Morgan Proctor's an uptight, anal-retentive bureaucrat that puts Hermes to shame...but she's completely turned on by Fry's slobbery.Morgan Proctor: (seductively pins Fry against a wall) DIRTY BOY! Dirtydirtydirty!
Fry: What the hell's going on? I thought you were anti-dirty, not pro-dirty!
Morgan Proctor: I'm surrounded by neat freaks all day. There's nothing kinkier to me than a filthy slop-jock like you!
Fry: Oh, stop... - Vast Bureaucracy: The Central Bureaucracy.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: Even though Bender's now helpful and polite, everyone decides to get their jerk back. They lampshade such a desire by being unable to rationalize why they should. Justified in that all Bender says is "I am Bender; please insert girder" and his personality is lost.
- Working on the Chain Gang: The spa resort Zoidberg recommends for Hermes is actually a slave camp, where he and his wife are chained up and made to work in a mine. They escape by Hermes using his bureaucratic powers to make the place so efficient that all the work can be done by a single slave, allowing everyone else to go free.
- Wrote the Book: Spoofed.Number 1.0: Don't quote me regulations! I co-chaired the committee that reviewed the recommendation to change the color of the book that regulation's in. We kept it gray.
- X-Ray Vision: Bender's "lucky shades", which he uses to cheat during the poker game.
- You Wouldn't Hit a Guy with Glasses: After Bender pisses off Leela's former co-workers into attacking him in Hermes' office, he tries to dissuade them from doing so by pointing out his x-ray glasses. It doesn't work.Bender: Hey, you wouldn't hit a guy with x-ray glasses, would you?
