What does this big twist in “Futurama” season 12 mean for the future of the series?

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for the Season 12 finale of Futurama.

Futurama ended its groundbreaking twelfth season with the largely exceptional episode “Otherwise.” The finale featured another heartfelt, emotional journey exploring Fry’s (Billy West) eternal love for Leela (Katey Sagal). However, the episode ended with a major twist. The ending reveals that the characters depicted throughout most of the episode were alternate versions of Fry, Leela, Bender, and the rest of the Planet Express crew, emerging from the sea of ​​plasma at the bottom of the multiverse in the Graveyard of Ships. The episode also creates several problems as the alternate universe versions of Dr. Hubert J. Farnsworth (West), Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr), John A. Zoidberg (West) and Amy Wong-Kroker (Lauren Tom) went back to Planet Express headquarters in New New York. Also Zapp Brannigan (West) and Kif Kroker (Maurice LaMarche) are dead now?! It’s time to unpack some major unresolved storylines from “Otherwise.”

When will the separation into “Otherwise” occur?

During “Otherwise,” the Planet Express’s long-time ship, Bessie, is finally on her last legs. After a crash landing at the beginning of the episode, Dr. Farnsworth and the rest of the crew take the ship to the spaceship graveyard to sink it for eternity in the sea of ​​plasma at the bottom of the multiverse. According to Dr. Farnsworth’s plasma sea features jet streams from all of the multiverse’s alternate realities, or as he hilariously puts it, “Just alternate realities jet streams.” Everything that is, was or could have been. And many others.” also crap. As the crew takes a final walk through the ship to pay their respects, Fry suffers a seizure due to everyone’s memories returning to the alternate realities of the Plasma Sea. This leaves him stranded on the ship just before it is about to sink, and the rest of the crew rush back to Bessie just before it falls into the plasma soup. Then the split occurs.

The rest of the episode features different versions of the Planet Express crew. They emerged from one of the other-dimensional jet streams in the plasma sea, but the original “primary” versions of Fry, Leela, Farnsworth, Amy, Zoidberg, Hermes and Bender Bending Rodriguez (John DiMaggio) never came back from the plasma sea! They stayed there, stuck in good old Bessie! This refers to the Planet Express crew who have returned to headquarters in New New York were not the original versions that audiences followed for most of the series. This creates various plot holes until the end of the episode.

The original Planet Express escapes the Plasma Sea and kills some key characters

Throughout the episode, an abandoned Fry continues to experience the feedback loop phenomenon from the alternate timelines. Fry believes the recent appearance of a “ghost ship” has something to do with the strange visions affecting his brain. Together, Fry, Leela and Bender take the new Planet Express ship with an AI voiced by the world’s best voice actress Tress LaMarche (Tress MacNeille), back to the spaceship graveyard, where they are attacked by the proverbial ghost ship. It turns out that the ghost ship is not a ghost ship. It is the original Bessie, crewed by the Prime Timeline’s Planet Express crew, which sank into the plasma sea along with the ship. Next they fire a torpedo at the new ship. killing everyone in it, including the alternate reality versions of Fry, Leela, and Bender. However, the original main versions of Zapp and Kif were brought aboard the new ship along with the splinter versions of Fry, Leela and Bender as they were also searching for the ghost ship. The original Planet Express crew murdered three of her alternate reality doppelgangers, along with Kif and Zapp.

“Else” leaves important loose plot threads open

The ending of “Otherwise” reveals that Amy, Hermes, Dr. Farnsworth and Zoidberg with Fry, Leela and Bender were on board the Bessie when it sank. The crew of the new ship that Bessie blew up included only Fry, Leela and Bender. This means that the shard universe versions of Amy, Hermes, Dr. Farnsworth and Zoidberg still reside at the Planet Express headquarters in New New York. Also, the Zapp and Kif who die at the end are probably their main versions. Due to the comedic, episodic nature of Futurama, It’s entirely possible that these action questions will remain unresolved for years or it is only slightly referenced later. It’s also possible that the writers will ignore Kif and Zapp’s deaths unless they find a creative solution. The episode ends with the Planet Express crew without realizing that they killed their alternate reality doppelgangerstogether with Zapp and Kif.

Well, the authors of Futurama will potentially ignore these multiverse shenanigans when the show returns next season. A possible solution to Zapp and Kif’s deaths could be that the characters shown in the episode’s climax were not the original Zapp and Kif. They may have been alternate reality doppelgangers of the characters emerging from a shattered dimension of the plasma sea. That is highly unlikely Futurama will never use Kif or Zapp again in the coming seasons. However, it would be nice to see if a Season 13 episode mentions the additional versions of the Planet Express crew hanging around their New York headquarters next season. They could even turn the fact that Kif and Zapp weren’t dead from the explosion at the end of the episode into some sort of lampshade joke. However, Kif and Zapp’s unexplained deaths raise many questions, especially in the case of Kif and Amy, as they are a fan-favorite couple. Her flagship episode in Season 11, “Children of a Lesser Bog,” is a standout episode for the series’ revival and one of the best episodes in the series’ history.

“Futurama” will return for at least two more seasons on Hulu

The good news is that Fry, Leela and of course Bender will be back for more sci-fi fun. Hulu ordered two more seasons of Futuramatwenty episodes in total, end of 2023. Thinking Futurama The series has been playing with alternate realities since 2003, creating multiverse storylines before they became fashionable with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the DC Universe. Rick & MortyAnd Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Fans can look forward to at least two more new seasons Futurama episodes.

All twelve seasons of Futurama are now streaming on Hulu in the US

Futurama follows the exploits of Philip J. Fry, a 1999 pizza delivery boy who was cryogenically frozen for 1,000 years. When Fry wakes up in the year 3000, he befriends a cyclops named Leela and a mischievous robot named Bender. The three find jobs at Planet Express, an interplanetary delivery service. Her work takes her to all corners of the universe, exploring space and the future as imagined by Matt Groening and the creators of The Simpsons.

Release date

March 28, 1999

Seasons

12

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