Recap / Futurama S 8 E 7 Rage Against The Vaccine

TRY UNPLUGGING IT AND PLUGGING IT BACK IN.

A new disease called EXPLOVID-23 begins spreading across the planet, leading to Hermes pursuing a cure through voodoo; meanwhile, the Omnicronians attempt to take over the planet, but find themselves with their own viral variant.

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Tropes in this episode:

• Accordion Man: Parodied. When a fight ensues on the train Hermes boards, an alien with an accordion shaped body is shown being pummeled repeatedly.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Professor Farnsworth dismisses voodoo as balderdash despite acknowledging the existence of zombies. This gets lampshaded by Hermes as he storms out after being ridiculed by the others.
  Hermes: And yet there are zombies.
• Ass Shove: When giving flowers to the quarantined Leela, Fry apologizes for not being able to shove them up where she told him to do so, implying she told him to shove the flowers up his ass.
• Bait-and-Switch: When the Omnicronian fleet arrives at Earth, Kif is seemingly shooting at them and calling one a disgusting freak... before he coughs, and the camera reveals he and Zapp are firing at each other due to both also being infected.
• The Big Easy: New New Orleans is the destination for Hermes as he pursues a cure through voodoo.
• Bland-Name Product: To protect everyone from EXPLOVID-23, Hermes gets everyone to use Gloom, a virtual conferencing software program clearly based on the real-world Zoom.
• Borrowin' Samedi: Bonebot, with his top hat, his being made out of bones, and being a prominent figure in Hermes' voodoo mission, evokes Baron Samedi of Haitian Voudoun folklore.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Barbados Slim returns to help Hermes find the voodoo cure for the rage virus.
  • Dr. Banjo makes his third appearance here, criticizing vaccinations.
• The Cameo:
  • The space helmet-wearing alligators from "The Series Has Landed" appear as fauna in New New Orleans.
  • Elzar appears having opened a restaurant in New New Orleans and using a spice weasel for Hermes's gumbo.
  • Umbriel and her father from "The Deep South" make an appearance.
  • Jrr appears typing up phony news about the virus under his parents' orders.
• Celebrity Cameo: Bill Nye guest stars as his own head in a jar.
• Child Hater: The reason why Wernstrom considers sterility caused by his vaccine as essential.
  Wernstrom: Studies show that kids are what make people angriest! Everyone hates kids!
• Continuity Nod:
  • Leela is quarantined in the "Angry Dome" from "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch".
  • Just as he did in "The Six Million Dollar Mon", Hermes proves he is Unaffected by Spice when he eats extremely spicy gumbo at Elzar's Nonola. Speaking of that episode, LaBarbara was making curried goat when Hermes announces he's leaving for New New Orleans.
  • The Atlantan merfolk from "The Deep South" appear on the far side of the force field levy. Umbriel married the "dugong from Macon," who absconded with her dowry and left her at the altar.
• Cool Key: The highest award of the city is a very nice and big-looking key to the Times Square liquor cabinet.
• Curse Cut Short: Upon Leela being sucked into the Angry Dome, she attempts to say the word bitch. However, the episode cuts away to the White House before we hear her actually use the word.
• Divide and Conquer: The Omicronians spread misinformation online to create conflict and make it easier to invade Planet Earth.
• Exact Words: Amy says she doesn't want to "point fingers" at who brought the pandemic to the surface... and then points her toe at Leela instead.
• Expy Coexistence: Interestingly, COVID-19 itself is actually shown to still be a thing in this show, alongside EXPLOVID-23, and according to Bender, has been around for at least 1000 years.
• Fictional Social Network: Mention is made of a social media platform called "Facebag", which is clearly based off of Facebook.
• Fiendish Fish: An alligator gar attacks Hermes and Bonebot on their way to the Voodoo HQ.
• Find the Cure!: Hermes goes to New New Orleans to find a vaccination for EXPLOVID-23 through voodoo practices, having hypothesized that the virus turns people into zombies.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: The spiced-up gumbo that Hermes eats at Elzar's Nonola actually causes him to let loose an ember of flame. He considers this to be "kinda mild".
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Farnsworth gets his vaccination at the end, you may notice that the needle clearly goes through his arm and injects his torso.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Those who are infected with EXPLOVID-23 get violently infuriated for even the most minor of offenses, if not for no reason.
• Hate Plague: The main effect of EXPLOVID-23 is that it makes people a lot angrier, leading to fights in the street.
• Hollywood Voodoo: Hermes manages to find a cure by pursuing the art of voodoo in New New Orleans. For the most part, the cure is identical to that of a vaccination, the only difference being the inclusion of a voodoo doll that is placed on the patient's arm before they are injected. However these dolls don't seem to serve an actual purpose as the voodoo needle is jabbed through the doll and injected directly into the patient's arm as a traditional vaccine would be.
• How Did You Know? I Didn't: Bender joins in on the street fight during the Omnicronian invasion, doing his usual chant of "Kill All Humans!". When Zoidberg asks if robots can be infected with the virus, Bender replies "What virus?".
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Dr. Banjo compares vaccinations to being confined in a zoo like his aunt, despite being the director of a zoo on Simian 7.
  • Judge Whitey makes the claim that the mask he has to wear during the pandemic is destroying his lungs, then he starts smoking.
• Idiot Ball: Both Lrrr and Ndnd carry that ball in this episode. They both decide to invade Earth during a pandemic, which exposed them to the Explovid virus.
• It's Always Mardi Gras in New New Orleans: Hermes goes to New New Orleans in order to find a voodoo cure for EXPLOVID-23. LaBarbara at first thinks he's going for Mardi Gras, and Hermes points out that while Mardi Gras happens to be happening, that's besides the point.
• Madame Fortune: The Magical Romani fortune teller robot appears again, and her name is revealed to be "Madame Robeaux".
• Magnetism Manipulation: One of the side effects of Wernstrom's vaccine is magnetism, with him demonstrating by attaching a spoon to his nose, and later a newscasters' microphone.
• Meaningful Name: One suspects the reason the Omnicronians get involved and attempt to take over the Earth in this episode is because they coincidentally share their name with one of the variants of COVID-19; the Omicron variant. This also qualifies as an Ascended Meme, as back when lockdowns were still happening, many fans made memes and jokes about how the Omnicronians were to blame for it.
• Moon-Landing Hoax: Amy dismisses EXPLOVID-23 as a big hoax just like the Moon landing.
  Farnsworth: You were on the Moon last week! You grew up on Mars!
  Amy: That's what they want you to think.
• No, You: Ndnd responds to Farnsworth diagnosing her and her husband Lrrr as having a contagious Omicron variant of the virus by stating "No, you're a contagious variant!"
• Nose Shove: True to a real life covid test, the Professor has everyone shove a (ridiculously) long Q-tip up their nose to check if they are infected with the virus.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: At the train Hermes boards, a conductor reprimands an alien woman for jamming her box-shaped husband in the overhead compartment. She proceeds to angrily tell him she knows her rights and that she's recording him, although her husband also tells him off for telling her what to do.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Discussed when Hermes hypothesizes that EXPLOVID-23 is a zombie virus.
  Farnsworth: Explovid victims move at waaaaaay too normal a speed to be zombies.
  Hermes: There are all speeds of zombies out there. Fast ones, slow ones, brisk shufflers...
• Out-of-Character Moment: Jrrr. He seemingly looked fine with obeying his parent’s orders to post online misinformation about the virus on social media so that his parents could invade Earth and has no apparent objections to that. This goes against his pacifistic personality as he previously stated that he didn’t want to invade planets or kill things. Then again, he didn’t participate in the invasion itself, thus sparing him from being infected, and it's possible he didn't know what was going on.
• Plague Zombie: Hermes' theory of EXPLOVID-23 is that it's a form of virus that turns people into a zombie, leading him to head to New New Orleans to seek out voodoo practises.
• Post-Treatment Lollipop: Zapp claims to be promised a lollipop after getting his treatment for the EXPLOVID-23 virus. He's given the voodoo doll upon which the injection was inserted to lick.
• Reaching Between the Lines: Twice an enraged Leela manages to hit people through video screens. First, she punches Bender while in a Gloom meeting room. Later she pies Fry's face through a video screen on the Angry Dome. In that instance her arm is proportional to the screen while the pie is life-sized, and both look holographic.
• Ripped from the Headlines: EXPLOVID-23 is used to spoof the common reactions people had during the COVID-19 crisis, including peoples' response to the virus, conspiracy theories that don't make sense, the use of video-calling software to continue working while at home, and even the 5G network conspiracies are poked fun at here. Interestingly, COVID-19 itself is actually shown to still be a thing in this show, as it starts with yet another back-to-normal celebration after what is implied to be a two year lockdown of some kind.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the hairstyle filters Amy tries out while on the Gloom call is Goku.
  • One of the voodoo dolls on display in the fortune-teller robot’s shop is of a Trog from Disenchantment.
• Shown Their Work: Alligators are depicted with broad snouts and overbites, just as in "The Series Has Landed", in contrast to the crocodiles seen in "Children of a Lesser Bog" which have thinner snouts and interlocking teeth.
• SkeleBot 9000: Bonebot, a robot made literally out of bones, whom Hermes meets in a boneyard during his quest.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: After Fry joins Leela in the Angry Dome, catching her anger virus, they end up in a cycle of beating each other up and making out. The next time we see them outside of the dome, they've clearly done a number on each other.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The pandemic originated from the sewer mutants, and spreads to the surface because of Leela bringing it up after visiting her parents (not knowing they're already infected). However, the sewer mutants don't prominently show up again after this original exposition.
• Spinning Newspaper: A spinning newspaper is used to show how EXPLOVID-23 is spreading, which is revealed to be the work of Bender spinning the tablet showing the newspaper cover, as Fry asks him to do it again for his amusement.
• Sufficiently Advanced Magic: A successful vaccine is created using Hollywood Voodoo, causing Hermes to utter this reversal word-for-word.
• Take That!: This episode is one long one to the many overzealous reactions to the COVID-19 Pandemic:
  • The show lampoons many of the conspiracy theories flown around at the time, such as 5G towers causing mental issues (in this case, Dr. Banjo starts rumours that 5G-enabled chips are in the vaccine, and Farnsworth admits to using these to enhance the data he's collecting on people so he knows if the vaccination works, and notes it's otherwise harmless, not that Dr. Banjo listens).
  • Speaking of which, Dr. Banjo returns once again in a pseudo-intellectual role, this time by being an anti-vaxxer and believing in 5G conspiracy theories. He hosts his own podcast, The Dr. Banjo Experience.
  • The variants of EXPLOVID-23 and their multiple inoculation treatments are also mentioned, with some vaccine variants competing with each other; Farnsworth's gives people an aching shoulder, Wernstrom's gives people (uncontrollable) magnetic superpowers. Not only that, but the virus mutates, starting from Mutants living underground, then to the general population of New New York, then to the Omnicronians having their own variant.
  • The general distrust of news and media outlets is alluded to, and social media's impact is also present, with Jrrr shown quite literally making stuff up on his parent’s orders to destabilize the world and make them more angry.
  • The writers also took pot-shots at people who didn't trust the science of the vaccines or how the virus spread in the first place, and instead seeking and believing other alternative sources and rationale instead; with Voodoo, literal black magic, being used as the eventual cure for it in the show (though from what we see, it actually works as science anyways). Hermes angrily points out the lack of logic in the others dismissing Voodoo as nonsense when they are aware of the existence of zombies.
    Farnsworth: Anything I can't understand is fake!
  • Anti-maskers are also alluded to, with Judge Whitey complaining that the mask he is forced to wear during the pandemic is suffocating him before smoking.
• Tempting Fate: As Mayor Poopenmeyer celebrates the city triumphing over COVID-19 once and for all, the news announces the outbreak of EXPLOVID-23.
• Tranquil Fury: After Hermes gets his voodoo shot, LaBarbara and Barbados test him for effects by making out in front of him. Hermes responds that he's feeling a "normal, easy-to-repress rage", confirming that the voodoo is working.
• Unaffected by Spice: Hermes eats a spoonful of gumbo made bubbling hot by a spice weasel and becomes unimpressed by how "mild" it is, despite shooting some flame from his mouth. He later reveals that he had eight bowls of it.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Leela had been visiting her parents right when EXPLOVID-23 was starting to develop in the Mutants, and she ends up spreading the virus to the surface people as the crew was dropping off Bill Nye's head at the Back-To-Normal Fest.
  • Downplayed with both Lrrr and Ndnd. Both of them planned to invade earth during a pandemic but neither of them expected to be infected with the virus that caused the pandemic and accidentally make it even more contagious in the process.
• Unwitting Pawn: Implied with Jrrr. He is shown posting online misinformation and it’s shown that he is just typing down and posting whatever his parents tell him as both of them were standing behind Jrrr on his laptop. He seemed to have no idea on what he is doing due to his age and lack of understanding on the pandemic.
• Video Call Fail: A couple of moments like this happen during the crew's Gloom meeting, including Dwight gloom-bombing Hermes' part of the call, Zoidberg having audio and video issues, Farnsworth accidentally putting a teddy bear filter in front of his own face, and Hattie joining the wrong call trying to get a prescription filled.
• Voodoo Zombie: Hermes theorizes that EXPLOVID-23 is a zombie virus, so he seeks voodoo practices in order to find a cure (since the zombie legend originated in Voudou).