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| Do you remember the good old days before the ghost town? |
Synopsis: It's Mother's Day - a day when all robots pay tribute to Mom, the owner of Mom's Friendly Robot Company. Thing is, she's not a fan of the "jerkwad robots", so to speak. In fact, she's just laundering the money they give her, and turning the lavish gifts into a "hocus-pocus" cure for cancer. This year, she commemorates the 70th anniversary of a tragic event by activating the command antenna on every robot, demanding that they conquer earth for her. They proceed to cause anarchy in New New York City.
However, what happened 70 years ago? Thing is, Mom and Professor Hubert Farnsworth once dated. Professional disagreements, though, caused them to separate. Her sons try and convince Farnsworth to get back together with Mom, or at least get the remote to call off the invasion.
Review: Futurama has largely held to it's dystopic view of the future. The antagonists are ruthless, the protagonists aren't too much better... and, in a way, the world's not too different than our world. I've mentioned it before, but it comes in full force here - this time, Futurama uses science fiction themes to communicate and subvert a love story by showing the insanity of both participants.
When we first met Mom in "A Fishful of Dollars", she was a pretty good indicator of the Futurama universe's contrast to more utopian science-fiction programs. A sendup of the Thatcherite and Reaganite era philosophy of big business and bigger money, Mom was cold, calculating, and odious, willing to ride the backs of poor third-world children just to pad out her profits and prevent the exposure of flaws in her strategies.
This episode starts by exposing her omnipotence amongst the robots even further - she's the premier, if not the only, robot manufacturer, and robots everywhere are willing to give her gifts, like children often do. It also shows just how much power she can yield - she can create anarchy at the flip of a switch.
In a way, she's sort of the parallel to TNG's Dr. Soong. Correct me if I'm off the mark, but Soong created Data and his brother to try and prove that you could create sentient androids. He did it not for capital gain, but to prove that it could be done. Even further, he treats his creations almost like sons. Indeed, the Star Trek universe runs on this philosophy of improvement not for capital gain, but for the advancement of the human (and alien) mind.
Futurama, though, is both a dystopia and a product of it's time - the post-Thatcher/Reagan era of capitalism. So, of course, Mom uses the robots to fulfill her own nefarious purposes of taking over the world, and uses them to try and get as much money as possible. There's no love there - it's all a facade, a manipulative one.
However, we also get a bit of a flashback to her earlier days - one where she had a romantic liaison with Farnsworth. Normally, a show would try and show that, well, she was simply scorned, and became antagonistic through the demise of this romance. So, what does Futurama do? When Mom talks around Farnsworth's new "cute" Robot Toy...
"We'll build them 15ft tall and sell them on the arms market!"
Yup - they make Mom to be callous from the outset. She wasn't dumped for some cheesy reason - she was just insane from the start. It's a quirky twist on the old cliche of "woman goes mad because boyfriend dumped her" - Mom was mad from the start, and she's still insane at the end.
However, her relationship with Farnsworth still contained some interesting parallels. If you look at it, really, Farnsworth isn't that different. His inventions involve the capture (and torture) of apes, he routinely neglects his crew (remember "Oh, god, you're alive!"), he was emotionally insensitive to his son at first, and is shown to be quite a bit of a lout. Granted, he still has something of a moral high ground, even if Mom is a psychopath. Still, the morality is a bit greyer on the heroic side than normal.
I also love how Bender operates in this episode. While we saw him reject what he felt was an anti-robot society in "Fear of a Bot Planet", this episode shows him more talk the talk rather than walk the walk. Sure, he creates mayhem, but this is rather normal for him.
I also can't help but his character here is an analogy of "slacktivists", given his desire to continue sitting down during the riots. That, plus he has a working relationship with a greeting card. A communist greeting card who's reasons for rebellion involve the overthrowing of a humanity seen as bourgeois. (Ironically Mom herself is a member of the upper class. Irony, or commentary on historical communist revolutions?) However, once said greeting card announces that, y'know, there are sacrifices in the new Robo-centric society, Bender turns against him. Bender - talking the talk, yet unwilling to walk the walk. Sometimes, he comes off as more human than the humans.
Personally, I felt like this episode also was trying to establish some form of commentary on the increased reliance we have on computer-based technology. With an armed rebellion, the denizens of New New York - or at least, the Planet Express Crew - are reduced to a practically paleolithic mentality. Granted, the crew weren't the smartest people out there, but still. Arguably, it's more effective than the anti-tech message in Star Trek: Insurrection.
At the core of "Mother's Day", though, is a fun, funny episode. Sink into the crevice that's become a part of your couch, and watch it.
Tidbits:
- Figured I'd let you know, I've also begun to classify my reviews based on the "type" of episode. This is inspired by Musings of an X-Phile, a review blog dedicated to The X-Files, which aired it's later episodes around the same time Futurama aired on FOX. It's now linked to the left.
- Finding out that Fry was in the Scouts, to some degree, could be an indicator of survival skills... that is, if he knew how to open a can of soup, or understand what a wheel is. Indeed, these failures shows why he never made it too far up the ranks.
- In what might be the most egregious oversight in the history of the show, apparently, the robots managed to take Suffolk County before invading the Bronx. First question - how? I would figure that Mom's cabin is closer than any point in Suffolk. Second question - how did they get out of Manhattan, anyway? I'm confuzzled.
Favorite Scene and Memorable Quote: Probably Bender's reaction to just how far Comrade Greeting Card is willing to go to achieve a Robo-Communist utopia. Made me laugh. "Do svidaniya, comrade!"
Least Favorite Scene: Can't name one specifically. OK, maybe the Suffolk County line. Even then, it's a nitpick.
Score: 8.5
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