The Why of Fry

So this was an excellent episode explaining why Fry came to the future and his purpose. Not only that, he starts to realise that maybe he does have a chance to be with Leela, but also more talking apperances from Nibbler. Nevertheless a very important episode and in my opinion should have came just before the series finale.

The episode begins with Fry setting off on a space delivery, but finding out that the crew went without him. He asks Leela to go to dinner with him, but his hopes are crushed when she tells him he is going on a date with Chaz, the mayor's aide. When Fry is told to take Nibbler out for a walk, he discovers that Nibbler can talk, and knocks him out, sending him to his home planet Eternium. The Nibblonians tell Fry that the brains are taking information from the universe and storing it into the Infosphere, a ship remiscient of the Death Star. Because Fry is immune to the brain's power, he is the only one who can stop it. Fry gets to the Infosphere using his Scooty Puff Jr and gets trapped after it breaks. He asks questions in the database and soon gets alerted by the other brains as a result. He plants a bomb and activates it, which will send them to a different universe. With seconds away from detonating, the brains tell Fry that they should ask the database what really happened to him on December 31st 1999. He asks the question and finds out that Nibbler is responsible for pushing him into the cryogenics tube. Fry is upset that they took away his life and he is sent to the other universe with the brains as time runs out. Seemingly trapped with the brains, Fry wished that Nibbler never took him to the future. Fortuantly, the brains give him one use of time travel to prevent this from happening. Meanwhile, Leela's date with Chaz ends when he reserves an ice rink only for her and prevents the orphans from skating with them. Fry arrives on 31st December 1999, and teleports just behind Nibbler. Fry grabs Nibbler seconds away from pushing the original Fry into the tube. Nibbler tells him that he needs to be frozen since he won't live long enough, but Fry feels he was "being used". In the end, Nibbler tells him if there's anything worth saving in the future. Fry tells him Leela, but he doesn't think he's important to her. Nibbler leaves the decision to Fry, and in the end Fry pushes the original Fry into the cryogenics tube. Fry returns with Scooty Puff Sr after telling Nibbler that Scooty Puff Jr sucks, and is able to set the bomb off and escape with no problems. He returns to Earth and Nibbler blanks his memory to stay undercover. The episode ends with Leela telling Fry that he may not be the most important person in the universe, but she's glad to be there with him.

Overall, a very important episode, with good jokes and finally an explanation of Futurama and Fry's existence. It's one of my favourites, along with the pilot episode as a reason for this, and it ties up the loose ends very well.

This is a fantastic episode with a reveal of something set up since the pilot (which gave me nerdgasms because that sort of thing does that to me). The story is quite large in scope but never feels as fully epic as it should have done. But that's forgivable because at its heart, this is an episode about Fry's relationship with Leela and that side of things is handled beautifully. It makes excellent use of the show's continuity canon, both building off of the thing set up in the first episode, but also adding onto the events of The Day the Earth Stood Stupid and Roswell that Ends Well. It's also hilarious, as Futurama usually is and the animation and music aren't half bad either.