Episode Recap: Leela's Homeworld

As The Planet Express team celebrates the news that Leela was named “Orphan of the Year” by the orphanarium where she was raised, Amy notices that one of the Professor’s machines emits barrels of toxic waste. Hermes reveals that he works for the “Federal Bureaucracy,” and orders the Professor to properly dispose of the waste. Bender offers to do the job for $500, and later dumps the waste into the sewers. After receives a plaque from the Warden of the orphanarium, Leela tells the audience that knowing who her parents were was never as important as what she learned at the orphanarium. That night the gang sees a news report that mutants staged an uprising to protest excessive dumping into their sewers. Fry notices that Leela is absent from the room, and finds her crying in the hallway. She admits to him that despite her earlier words, what she wants most in the world is to celebrate her award with her parents. Fry and Leela discover that Bender has opened a waste disposal business using the sewers as his dumping ground. As Leela and Bender argue, the pavement suddenly crumbles, and the three are pulled below by a group of mutants. They find themselves suspended by a crane above a lake of radioactive goo, as Mutant Raoul, the leader of the mutant mob, explains how the mutants have been made more miserable by the dumpings. He sentences the culprits to a dunking in the lake, which will turn them into mutants. Suddenly, two hooded mutants take control of the crane and release the prisoners.The mob chases Fry, Leela and Bender until the three duck into a closed building, where Leela discovers a room filled with memorabilia chronicling her life. When Leela refuses to budge from the room, the three are once again captured, and Mutant Raoul surprisingly announces that the trio will be expelled to the surface instead of tortured. A suspicious Leela allows Fry and Bender to climb to safety, but then locks the escape hatch from within, and jumps into the mutagenic lake below. After realizing that the lake did not turn her into a mutant, Leela spots two hooded figures watching her, and gives chase. Meanwhile, Fry asks the Warden for information on Leela’s past, and is given the alien note found on her when she was abandoned. Fry is later stunned by the results printed out by the Professor’s translation machine. A flashback scene reveals that two mutants gave birth to a near perfect child, save the existence of a single eye and purple hair. Realizing their daughter would have a horrible life in the sewers, Leela’s parents made the supreme sacrifice of abandoning her at the orphanarium, rightfully assuming that the note would identify her as an alien, not a mutant. Back in the present day, Leela chases the hooded figures to the building containing the souvenirs of her life. After sneaking in via the roof, she accuses the disguised mutants of killing her parents. They admit to the crime, and Leela pulls out a raygun, intending to kill them in return. Suddenly, Fry crashes through the roof, and whips off the mutants’ hoods..Leela realizes they are her parents as Fry explains that the alien note was printed on toilet paper exactly like that used in the sewers. Leela’s father admits that they abandoned her so she could have a normal life above ground. Leela confesses that all she ever wanted was to know her parents, and the three embrace amid a bounty of tears.