| "The Sting" | |
|---|---|
| Futurama episode | |
Fry and Leela paint Bender like a bee. |
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| Episode no. | Season four Episode 66 |
| Directed by | Brian Sheesley |
| Written by | Patric M. Verrone |
| Production code | 4ACV12 |
| Original air date | June 1, 2003 |
| Opening caption | "A By-Product Of The TV Industry" |
| Opening cartoon | The Queen Was in the Parlor (1932) |
| Season four episodes | |
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| List of all Futurama episodes | |
"The Sting" is episode twelve in season four of Futurama. It originally aired in North America on June 1, 2003. It is arguably one of the most popular episodes of the series.
Contents |
Professor Farnsworth is reluctant to send the crew on their next mission, to collect honey from giant space bees, as it is a mission which killed his previous crew. Though Bender and Fry are relieved at this news, Leela takes offense and drags them along.
At the hive, Leela paints Bender like a bee to distract the other bees while she and Fry collect the honey safely. The crew discover the remains of the previous Planet Express crew and ship in the hive, but Leela insists that they press on. After gathering the honey, Leela decides to bring home a baby queen bee and some royal jelly in order to make more honey. On the way out, Bender inadvertently insults the hive's queen, causing the bees to attack. The crew manage to escape, but in the ship the baby queen awakens and attacks the crew. Fry throws himself in front of Leela to protect her. Fry is impaled by the bee's stinger and Leela is only pricked by the tip of it. Bender disposes of the bee and Leela awakens with a minor wound on her body, and sees Fry lying dead on the floor.
At Fry's funeral, each of the women he slept with (Michelle, his ex girlfriend from 1000 years prior, Morgan Proctor, an Amazonian woman) are in attendance, though they don't seem to be in mourning. A remorseful Leela blames herself for Fry's death. After taking some space honey to calm herself down and help her sleep, Leela experiences a series of dreams in which Fry is alive, all of them ending with Fry telling her to "wake up" and Leela abruptly awakening. In one dream, Fry tells Leela that there is a gift in his locker; Leela finds it after she awakens. In another, Fry gives Leela his red jacket; Leela awakens to discover that she is wearing it, but it mysteriously turns into her own coat when she presents it to the others. Leela's insistence that Fry is alive leads the others to conclude that she is going insane; after experiencing further delusions while awake, Leela begins to suspect the same.
After awakening from a dream in which she attempts to retrieve Fry's corpse, Leela concludes that she is indeed insane. Wracked with guilt and loneliness, Leela resolves to consume enough space honey to fall asleep forever and be with Fry in her dreams, but a portrait of Fry begins to speak and implores her to stop. Fry's portrait tells Leela that he loves her and pleads with her to "wake up" one last time.
Leela awakens in the hospital to see a disheveled, crying Fry at her bedside begging her to wake up. Fry explains that the venom in the bee's sting was completely at the tip. While he recovered completely from the attack, Leela was injected with venom and fell into a coma for seven weeks during which Fry stayed with her.
The idea from the episode was originally inspired by an idea to kill off one of the characters and the story came together in a matter of hours after that.[1] At one point in the episode, Leela is crying and takes a tissue to dry her eye. However, when she does this, she tears the tissue in half. The audio commentary notes that this was an inside joke referring to when the writers were all sick in the writer's room and saved tissues by tearing them in half.[1]
This episode was nominated for an Emmy in 2003 for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour).[2][3] Writer Patric Verrone was also nominated for an Annie Award for "Writing in an Animated Television Production".[4] In 2006 this episode was named by IGN as number 24 in their list of the 25 best episodes of Futurama; the episode was included in the list because of its advancement of the relationship between Fry and Leela.[5] The Futon Critic rated it number 48 in its list of the top 50 television episodes of 2003.[6] This episode is one of four featured in the Monster Robot Maniac Fun Collection, indicating it is one of Matt Groening's four favorite episodes.[7]
In its initial airing, the episode received a Nielsen rating of 2.4/5, placing it 81st among primetime shows for the week of May 26 - June 1, 2003.[8]