The Inhuman Torch
| "The Inhuman Torch" | |
|---|---|
| Futurama episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 7 Episode 18 |
| Directed by | Frank Marino |
| Written by | Dan Vebber |
| Production code | 7ACV18 |
| Original air date | July 10, 2013 |
| Opening caption | "As Seen At The 1939 World's Fair" |
"The Inhuman Torch" is the eighteenth episode of the seventh season of the animated sitcom Futurama. It originally aired on Comedy Central on July 10, 2013. The episode was written by Dan Vebber and directed by Frank Marino. In the episode, Bender becomes a firefighter, and ends up housing a solar flare who wants to blow up the Earth from the inside.
At a helium mining facility on the sun, Zapp Brannigan causes a cave-in that traps 15 miners inside the sun itself. Fry, Leela, and Bender venture to save the miners. When Bender attempts to abandon Fry and Leela and return to the ship, he inadvertently saves one of the miners. Prompted by Morbo, who is covering the breaking story on location, Bender goes on to rescue all of the remaining victims. He is hailed as the hero of the day, while Fry and Leela are recognized as his minor accomplices. A fire breaks out at their award ceremony. As Mayor Poopenmeyer explains, the fire department was sold to pay for Bender's medal. Fry, Leela, and Bender put out the fire, although Bender is very showy about it and once again receives most of the credit. Mayor Poopenmeyer decrees that the Planet Express crew are now the city's fire department.
After some time as successful firefighters, the other crew members notice that Bender was present just before every one of the fires they extinguished. They ask themselves whether Bender might be setting these fires deliberately in order to inspire continued hero-worship. Their suspicions are confirmed when, while on the videophone with Bender, they see a fire break out in the shop just behind him. When he returns to headquarters, they confront him and kick him off the team.
As Bender cleans out his locker, a strange, blue flame erupts from his shoulder. He tries to extinguish it, but the flame moves around as though deliberately dodging his attempts. Finally, the flame takes on the look of a shadowy face and begins to speak to Bender. It says that it is a "being of pure solar energy," a member of a race that inhabits the Sun's photosphere. It explains that billions of years ago, it was imprisoned for treason, but that Bender has unwittingly transported it to Earth. When it announces its plans to ignite the Earth and rule over it, Bender realizes that this creature is the source of the fires for which he has been blamed. When Bender accidentally leads it to the sub-basement and the lava pit, it realizes that it can go to Earth's core and transform the Earth into a miniature Sun. To prevent this, Bender captures the creature within his compartment of mystery and flees to an ice floe in the Arctic Ocean, where there is nothing flammable. He announces to the creature, which he begins to refer to as "Flamo", that they will be here for the next billion years.
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