Leela's Third Eye

A single eye that marks her as an outcast, a mutant, and the most capable captain in the 31st century.

Turanga Leela is a fictional character from the animated television series Futurama. Leela is spaceship captain, pilot, and head of all aviation services on board the Planet Express Ship. She is one of the few characters in the cast to routinely display competence and the ability to command, and routinely saves the rest of the cast from disaster. However, she suffers extreme self-doubt because she has only one eye and grew up as a bullied orphan. She first believes herself an alien, but later finds out she is the least-mutated sewer mutant in the history of 31st-century Earth.

Quick Facts

Character: Turanga Leela
Affiliation: Planet Express

Lore & Background

Leela's single eye is the central feature of her appearance and the root of her lifelong self-doubt. She grew up as a bullied orphan at the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium, believing she was an alien because of her one eye. In the episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two", Leela meets Alcazar, a cyclops who convinces her that he and she are the last two members of their extinct race, only to discover that he is a shapeshifting impostor who just wanted to marry her so she would be his maid.

Later, an industrial accident caused by environmentally irresponsible Bender brings Leela and her friends into the New New York City's sewer system where for the first time Leela meets her parents and discovers that she is not a cyclopean alien, but is actually a sewer mutant. Her single eye hampers her depth perception and is sometimes exploited for comic effect, for instance, in the episode "The Problem with Popplers" it is suggested that she actually is crashing into billboards every time in the opening credits, though it typically does not interfere with her ability to pilot the Planet Express Ship (beyond crashing into the odd billboard) or her mastery of martial arts.

Reader's Guide

Leela's single eye is a constant source of both comedy and character development. The show uses her eye for visual gags, like the recurring joke that she crashes into billboards during the opening credits due to poor depth perception. Yet her eye also marks her as different, fueling her orphan upbringing and mysterious origins that drive her character development over the course of the series. Despite her self-doubt, Leela proves herself to be a skilled officer and often rescues her less-talented coworkers from peril. Her single eye is part of what makes her one of the few characters in the cast to routinely display competence and the ability to command.

Did You Know?

Despite her single eye hampering her depth perception, she is a skilled martial artist who earned a red belt in Kung Fu as a teenager.
Leela once elected to have surgery to give herself the appearance of two normal-sized eyes, but later had it reversed.