Futurama's Covid Episode Brings The Show's Timeliest Satire Yet
"Futurama" has never been shy about tackling current events and season 11 is no different. Fresh off satirizing Amazon and online shopping two episodes ago, the series' latest episode — "Rage Against The Vaccine" — is about the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this episode, Planet Earth (and Planet Express) deal with the outbreak of a new virus, dubbed Explovid-23. The virus, spread through nebulous means, apparently originates from the Sewer Mutants. Quarantining the sewers doesn't contain it, though, because Leela (Katey Sagal) was visiting her parents and becomes a superspreader when she returns to the surface.
Half the episode is Hermes (Phil LaMarr), convinced the virus is a form of zombie-ism, trying to find a cure with Voodoo. The other half is COVID jokes, several of them centered around the show's resident scientist, Professor Farnsworth (Billy West). I wouldn't say all these jokes are home runs, but (or even because) they'll be familiar to anyone who can remember the early days of the pandemic and lifestyle shifts that followed.
Quarantining during an outbreak
The episode (written by Cody Ziglar) tips its hat too much by name-dropping COVID-19 itself. At the outset, the city of New New York is hosting a "back to normal" party — apparently, it's taken over 1000 years to fully get COVID under control. Just when one pandemic is over, another begins.
While COVID causes numerous different symptoms (but especially respiratory ones), Explovid makes its sufferers angry. So, the Professor invents new nasal swabs to tell the infected from the "naturally mean."
COVID nasal swabs are thinner than a pencil and only a couple inches long; while using one can feel like you're tickling your brain, they don't actually reach that far. Farnsworth's, though, are about four feet long and require a brain matter sample. On the upside, Farnsworth's swabs give instantaneous results; once Leela is identified as the source, she's forcibly quarantined.
From there, the crew tries to work remotely via the video chat app "Gloom." Unlike the modern Zoom, this one is 3D — chat participants can reach out and touch each other across screens. How can an interstellar delivery crew complete work from their homes? Even the episode doesn't know since after just a few minutes of Gloom shenanigans, Farnsworth (like many real bosses) orders everyone back to the office. Hermes objects, but the Professor shoots him down, ("Everything we do is a violation of health and safety standards!"), instead ordering everyone to mask up.
Since our leads don't know how the virus spreads, they all wear their masks in different arrangements (Hermes covers his mouth and nose, while Bender covers his antenna, etc.). Hermes also refers to the protocols as "hygiene theater," reflecting how some people and institutions simply want to appear like they're fighting COVID.
Vaccines
Back in the 21st century, we had to wait almost a year between the pandemic becoming an undeniable emergency (in March 2020) and the COVID vaccine development (first available in December 2020).
However, Explovid vaccines are developed much quicker thanks to Farnsworth and Professor Ogden Wernstrom (voiced by David Herman). Wernstrom admits his vaccine is "virtually identical" to Farnsworth's, a la the two different COVID vaccines (produced by Pfizer and Moderna). The two rivals get in a pissing contest over the harmful side effects of their vaccines (Wernstrom's induces magnetism), while Farnsworth brags his is "as potent as it is untested." That's another myth about the COVID vaccine, but the line fits a crank like Farnsworth.
In the end, it's isn't the Professors' vaccines that save the day, but a Voodoo potion developed by Hermes' wife LaBarbara (Dawnn Lewis). Her creation "tricks the body into thinking it has the virus" and inoculates them from future infection (so, basically a magical vaccine). Befitting Voodoo, dolls are placed on people's shoulders to cushion the injection site.
Conspiracies
In lampooning the COVID pandemic and the disease's vaccines, the show naturally brings up the public response to both. Like in our time, the word about Explovid is filled with conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Amy (Lauren Tom), always the gullible one, takes up the role of disease/vaccine skeptic. At Planet Express's first masked-up office meeting, she recites a rumor that "there's not even a virus at all" and it's a hoax "like the Moon landing" (even though the crew went to the Moon all the way back in the second episode, "The Series Has Landed"). When the Professor asks why people don't trust his vaccines, Amy answers: "Everyone but you uses social media."
Another character returns to spread these myths: the Luddite talking orangutan Dr. Banjo (David Herman). In the season 6 episode "A Clockwork Origin," he fought Farnsworth over the theory of evolution. Now, he's traded academia for podcasting and targets the Explovid vaccine. At the Professor's public announcement, he shows up as "the only journalist who brought his [own] facts" and accuses the Professor's vaccine of including 5G chips (which it does, so space lasers can use the chips' tracking to target the vaccine particles).
This, of course, references the conspiracy theories that 5G networks caused COVID and that the vaccines included microchips. Vaccines have long been a target for conspiracy theorists (see the false but widely propagated rumor that they cause autism), and the pandemic unfortunately kicked this into overdrive.
The Omicron Variant
The reason that Explovid-23 causes anger, rather than being a more direct COVID parody, is part of the satire. The pandemic stretched political divisions in the United States even further; rather than uniting Americans in a time of crisis, the disease gave us all something else to fight each other about. In "Futurama," someone is aggravating those tensions: Lrrr, ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8 (voiced again by LaMarche). Around the episode's midpoint, it's revealed that his son Jrrr has been spreading conspiracy theories online to soften Earth up for invasion.
The only problem? Once the Omicronians do invade, they come down with Explovid themselves (Lrrr sneezes even though he has no nose). In short, they've created an Omicron variant of the virus.
If I'm honest, I'm not totally comfortable with this joke; blaming the virus' fallout on an alien other rings alarmingly due to real conspiracy theories about COVID being a Chinese bioweapon. However, the Omicron variant joke is a great pun that almost makes it worth it; that the show was able to use a pre-established alien race makes it all the better.
"Rage Against the Vaccine" is not one of the best "Futurama" episodes, but it has a timely message: Get your vaccine or we'll still be dealing with COVID for years to come.
New episodes of "Futurama" release on Hulu on Mondays.