A Farewell to Arms (Futurama)

Did You Know?

• The episode's title refers to Fry and Leela's arms getting torn off.
• The episode parodies the 2012 phenomenon and the film 2012.
• The way Fry found the lettering amidst flammable grease references a death scene in the film Saw.

Plot

Professor Farnsworth sent up a weather balloon to investigate some very strange weather happening around the globe. Fry accidentally attached his so-called lucky pants to the balloon, then shot it out of the sky. The pants landed in Central Park, where a badger stole them and dragged them into a hole. The Planet Express crew followed the badger underground. During the climb down, Fry tried to catch Leela as she fell, but only ended up breaking her leg. Deep inside the burrow, they found an old Martian pyramid and a huge stone calendar. Amy, who knew a bit of the Martian language, read the symbols and figured out that the world was going to end in 3012—which happened to be that very year. Farnsworth checked the balloon’s data and discovered the Sun was about to unleash a massive solar flare that would wipe out the planet. Then an electromagnetic storm knocked out all electronics on Earth, including every spaceship, so nobody could leave. Amy realized the pyramid was actually a stone spaceship that could carry 30,000 people. Zapp Brannigan caught the crew and took them to President Nixon’s Head. Nixon insisted that a machine called the Choose-Matron pick the best group of humans to fly to Mars and restart civilization. Fry got picked because of his lucky pants, but Leela was turned down because Zapp was chosen as the pilot. Right before boarding, Fry swapped his ticket for one that looked like Leela’s and gave it to her. He stayed behind on Earth with Bender, who had decided to stick around just to go looting.