Review: "The Cyber House Rules" (Season 3, Episode 9)

 

"You're better than normal. You're abnormal! If you ask me, you shouldn't care about what other people think!" "You're right. I'll start by not caring what you think!" - Fry and Leela, defying the Star Trek dynamic of "captain going to first officer for advice."

Airdate: April 1st, 2001

Written By: Lewis Morton

Plot: The Orphanarium is having a reunion of a class of it's former... orphans. Leela, having had a less than pleasant experience there, but goes - Fry encourages her to rub her success in. It doesn't work too well. There, however, she encounters Dr. Adlai Atkins, a plastic surgeon who offers to give her a prosthetic eye. Despite Fry's objections, Leela agrees to the surgery, and strikes up a romance with the doctor.

Meanwhile, Bender finds out from the operator of the Orphanarium that the government offers $100 a month for every orphan adopted. Bender decides to clear house to make a solid $1200 a month. Unfortunately, he has to actually raise the children, which is a fairly costly measure.

Review: 

You ever go into something thinking that it is going to be a bunch of subpar, mediocre, or downright bad, then you watch it, and it's actually pretty good? Well, that's pretty much my thought process when I began to review "The Cyber House Rules". It's not an episode I watch that often, so I was focusing on the "Be Yourself" trope - a trope that is "tried and true", to put it kindly. What I instead got was a pretty hilarious take on that message, and also an episode that focused on everybody's favorite starship captain...

...Leela.

(Sorry, Zapper.)

Leela serves as the show's center of gravity - focused on whatever the mission is, her main role in the show is to provide an "everyman" for the comparatively eccentric rest of the cast to bounce off of. The character doesn't get the belly laughs that the rest of the cast commands - she does provide some humor from her "stuck in a boat with these morons" mentality. Even then, she does have her odd issues - an inability to manage her anger appropriately (as seen in "Raging Bender") is compounded with her outcast status, under the impression that she's the last member of her species and a cyclops.

These, alongside the more tragic issues involving the cast, are played for drama (or, at the lightest, a dark comedy). "The Cyber House Rules" explores a consequence of Leela's outsider status - the torment that she received in the Orphanarium where she was raised. It toes a line where it's almost (darkly) comic, given the rank hypocrisy of some of the bullying ("My eyes might not work, but at least I got two of them!"), but it's ultimately given its emotional pathos by the sheer weight this has had on Leela - a reserved, distant captain of a delivery ship.

It's thanks to Fry that she's able to recognize that, hey, she's gotta be doing better than the rest of the gang at the Orphanarium. And, indeed, she is a cut above the rest - she's in good physical shape and appears to at least have a job. Unfortunately, they still have an extra eye compared to her. Sure, their health might be in the toilet, they might be drunk, and may have aged sixty years in twenty, but the eye still lords supreme.

At her lowest, she turns to another orphan, Dr. Aldai Atkins.

First introduced as one of the people who messed with Leela's mind during her childhood, she actually crushed on him. I have to wonder, though - was she actually crushing on him, or who she was? The most "normal" of the kids? The one with less hypocrisy (so to speak) in his bullying?

Indeed, we get that at the reunion - most of her "classmates" have become impoverished drunkards. Leela, by contrast, lives a fairly successful life - working for a crackpot in a delivery company. Yet, this is still dwarfed by Atkins - a plastic surgeon. And unlike the others, it appears at first glance that he cast aside his own prejudices, has remorse for his teasing, and lives a normal, boring life.

Well, the latter part is pretty true.

The thing is, he manifests his dislike for the abnormal in the idea that the "strange" can be fixed - nay, that it needs to be fixed to it's longest possible length. I could even argue that he plays on Leela's insecurities to get a plastic surgery client. And, well, it works. Leela agrees to the plastic surgery, and the only opponent is one Mr. Phillip J. Fry, who'd take her just the way she is. (C'mon, can I have a saxamaphone solo up in here?) We'll get back to him in a sec.

Afterward, she begins dating Atkins, and have probably the single most boring relationship in the history of the universe. Except it's intentional, so yay to the writers. Here, they take a stock sitcom plot and exaggerate the reason to the point of insanity. Nobody trying to be romantic would call their SO "999,999 in 1,000,000" or "standard". But he works, because he provides a sense of stability for Leela that she long desired. It reminds me of the old Dan Fogelberg song "Same Old Lang Syne" - "She said she married her an architect/Who kept her warm and safe and dry/She would've liked to say she loved the man/But she didn't like to lie. Indeed, the scenario in this episode is more ambiguous, but the point stands - Leela looks at Atkins, and sees an ideal life that she, for so long, has been denied.

Of course, the status quo kicks in at the end of the episode. While a "just the way you are" is to be expected, this episode executes it in a way that is quite ironic. Remember in "Parasites Lost"? "Oh, Fry! I love what you've become!" "What I've become..." Seeing Sally getting teased for her extra ear, and having Atkins immediately suggest plastic surgery to remove said ear, serves as her "What I've become" moment. It is here that Leela puts two and two together - Atkins doesn't see those the way they are, but how they can be artificially "improved", physically or mentally. At best, his genuine affection is shallow.

Adlai Atkins has a certain view of an idealized world - one where everybody looks as similar as possible to everybody else. Futurama does poke fun at the eccentricities of our world, but this episode makes it clear that it also celebrates it. Threatening him with an ironic fate ("By the end of the day, one of us is gonna have one eye!"), the surgery is reversed. Are Leela's insecurities vanquished? Not completely. But, damn it, it's a major step.

And who else stood by the old Leela but, well, the one man who objected to the operation in the first place?

Yes, it's Fry. The show does add a bit of satire to his position by adding a dash of jealousy in the first place. Still, his perspective is that, in a planet full of oddballs and aliens, you can do much worse than having a single eye. He brings up from the start that Leela rose above what others thought of her, and that by that logic, she already beat them.

Getting back to "Parasites Lost", however, he can't really communicate his thoughts in an eloquent manner. What could've been sweet, Picard-esque speeches actually come off as rather insulting and, well, stupid. His heart is (mostly) in the right place, his brain just needs to catch up with it. His statement at the end - "There's nothing wrong with anything" - shows just how much he loves not only Leela, but the eccentricity around him.

Damn it, he'd make a great parent if he was mature enough.

Speaking of which... oh, Bender, Bender, Bender. If this episode reveals anything besides the fact that he'd be a horrible parent, it's that he has no knowledge of foresight. Greed took over his mind once he saw the $100 per orphan stipend. Unfortunately, he has no idea that he has to feed the children, that he has to house the children, to clothe the children... y'know. Child-rearing is a costly venture. Eventually, he decides to sell the children at pathetically low prices to make up the $100 deficit - ironically, starting the dominoes that bring down Leela and Adlai's relationship.

Thankfully, the cops barge in, and finally nail him on his antics. Again, he takes the idea of the logical, forward-thinking robot, and burns it to the ground. Granted, he is moved by the drawing that the children made of him playing with them. Hey, he's an id, not a sociopath... OK, not a complete sociopath.

I think what makes "The Cyber House Rules" so effective is that, over the past couple of years, we've gotten to know the characters - their insecurities, their vices, even the odd virtue or two. It makes this episode more effective than any after school special could. To me, it's a fine sequel to "Parasites Lost" - not necessarily hitting the same beat it did, but still putting out a fine 22 minutes of television.

Tidbits:

• Adlai is voiced by Tom Kenny. You might know him as SpongeBob SquarePants. The difference in characterization is astonishing.
• The idea that Zoidberg was under the impression that doctors are poor is hilariously tragic. Can his life get any more pathetic? I don't think so.
• Kudos for the reappearance of Taco Bellvue Hospital. "Normal, healthy baby? Super-size it for $.49!"
• Bender's treatment of his adoptive children is hilariously disgusting. From teaching them to run out on the bill, to bringing them to a pub, to reading him his arrest record, to trying to sell Sally "As Is"... this man shouldn't raise children. (Wait a few seasons.)
• Also, the reason why I didn't necessarily list Fry as a great parent? Well, he got arrested alongside Bender. I can see why. Not that he meant to neglect the children - he's just an immature, naive fool. And yet, in a few regards, he's wiser that much of the cast.

Favorite Scene: Leela putting two and two together, realizing that Adlai is a shallow ass, and threatening his eyesight if the operation isn't reversed.

Best Character: Adlai Atkins, in a "callous, aloof ass" way.

Memorable Quote: "You're under arrest for child cruelty, child endangerment, depriving children of food, selling children as food, and misrepresenting the weight of livestock!" - Smitty, arresting Bender.

Score: 8.5.