Featuring Sparky, the invisible elf
When their delivery is eaten by a space whale, Leela becomes obsessed by her desire to retrieve the package and get revenge, ala Captain Ahab.
Tropes
- Abstract Eater: According to Captain Tucker, the whale feeds on feelings of obsession, hence why he and Leela (both Determinators obsessed with getting their deliveries completed) were both spared from its mobius intestinal tract.
- And Then What?: After Amy successfully harpoons the whale, the crew asks Leela what's their next move. "I don't know, I always assumed whales died when you harpooned them."
- Actor Allusion: Amy’s mother, played by Lauren Tom says at the funeral “My days of joy and luck are over. Guess I gotta quit that club.”
- Aliens Speaking English: Lampshaded. After Leela complains that the first statue has a typo, the boss defends himself and the workers by pointing out that they're aliens who speak English as a second language and made a minor error.
- Ambiguously Bi: Leela is about to marry Fry and Zoidberg together but fails when Hermes and Fry attack her. Zoidberg, who had previously fallen for a female Decapodian named Edna and in this episode later has an implied relationship with original Planet Express crew member Candy, replies in anguish "Oh so close."
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Everyone cheered when the statue crushed the Popsicle guy; it's unclear if they're cheering his death, the statue arriving or both.
- Animal Nemesis: Like the title alludes to, a Space Whale.
- Animalistic Abomination: The Space Whale—it's a four-dimensional being capable of ripping into the fabric of space-time so it can break into the three-dimensional realm, has a digestive system that defies the laws of physics and is implied to be a living manifestation of frenzied obsession. This might be a nod to the original Moby Dick, who was also interpreted by some (both in the book and out) as being this.
- The Bermuda Triangle: Many spacecraft have disappeared in a 3-dimensional version known as the Bermuda Tetrahedron, and this is where the space whale is found.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Not just four-dimensional and able to rip through the fabric of space-time, the space whale does curious things with its prey. Most end up locked away for all eternity in its infinite mobius intestinal tract, the few determined ones it feeds off their emotions and absorbs.
- Body Horror: Due to spending decades fused to the Whale's innards, Captain Tucker sports greyish skin, a gaping hole through his chest that exposes his ribs, and a leg that's been stripped to the bone.
- Cartoon Whale: The Space Whale looks like a stereotypical cartoon sperm whale with upper teeth, cavernous jaws, and belly-lining. Justified given that it's, well, a space whale.
- Comically Missing the Point: Hermes chooses to focus on the fact Zoidberg had friends more than the tragic story of Farnsworth’s original crew.
- Crossover Cameo: The Fourth Doctor appears in the space whale's stomach.
- The Determinator: Leela doesn't really let anything deter her from going after the space whale. This is revealed to be what the beast is counting on, as it feeds off of the obsession and obstinacy of its prey.
- Eaten Alive: Everyone except Zoidberg ends up being swallowed by the whale.
- Eldritch Location: At one point, the space whale drags the Planet Express Ship along into hyperspace. Bizarre things happen aboard the Planet Express while in hyperspace, including Sdrawkcab Speech and a conga line including infinite copies of Bender.Hermes: I can see sideways in time! !emit ni syawedis ees nac Inote
- Emotion Eater: Space Whales invoke Animal Nemesis in space captains because they feed on obsession.
- Epic Fail: Leela attempting to pin a map to the wall of the ship ripping open a hole into space. See also Too Dumb to Live and And Then What?.
- Got Me Doing It: Leela corrects whoever calls the space whale a fish, insisting it's a space mammal, but she herself calls it a fish as she declares they should kill it for eating them at the end. It could be chalked up as an insult though.
- Green Aesop: Parodied and defied. After all the trouble the whale gave them, the crew has no qualms about butchering it.
- Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Zoidberg in the first flashback has a pompadour, even though his species doesn't grow hair. It turns out that the crew just imagined he had hair. However, in the second flashback, his white hair was a result of becoming so scared he grew hair just so it could turn white from fear.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Leela, at one point declaring that she is the whale once she becomes fused with it.
- I Resemble That Remark!: "For the last time, I'm not obsessed. I just want this whale to die! Die! DIE!"
- It's Personal: Leela insists her obsession over hunting the space whale isn't personal, as it disrupted her delivery, this time it's business.
- Jerkass Ball: Leela is at her worst in this episode, putting the lives of the crew at risk just so that she can kill the space whale because it inconvenienced her. Justified in that the whale is deliberately invoking those emotions in her to feed off of.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Leela "Maybe if I move the compass like this it will somehow kill the whale". See also And Then What?, Epic Fail and Too Dumb to Live.
- Moby Schtick: With Leela being Ahab. She and her crew are being pursued by a space whale and Leela becomes increasingly more unstable and determined to kill the whale, even at the risk of her crew. Turns out, the whale reels in prey by psychologically influencing them to invoke this trope.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: In the flashback, it turns out that Zoidberg was popular enough with the first Planet Express crew to use this joke on its captain.Zoidberg: Hey, it's all my favourite patients, and also Captain Tucker! Pow!
[general laughter, high fives exchanged]
Captain Tucker: You totally got me, Dr. John. You're hilarious.
[Back in the present:]
Hermes: Zoidberg was popular?
Amy: Zoidberg had hair? - Non-Malicious Monster: Lampshaded by Leela - the 4-D whale isn't evil, it's just very very hungry and happens to feed off obsession.
- Noodle Incident:
- When Leela tells Hermes that she could marry him and Bender against their will, Bender just replies "I've been married to worse."
- Amy gets selected to harpoon the whale after she claims she once went harpooning giraffes in Africa. Whatever the hell happened traumatised her, as she starts having flashbacks and screaming furiously about giraffes.
- Not Quite Dead: Anyone eaten by the whale, including the previous Planet Express crew.
- Pet the Dog: The episode ends with Candy and Zoidberg "picking up where they left off," having apparently been in a romantic relationship before she disappeared.
- Played for Laughs: The crews and families vow to take their revenge on the space whale for devouring them, holding knives, which the 4-D creature has demonstrated before its impervious to.
- Psychological Projection: When Bender gets hit by a diamond and his head goes flying into space, Fry says they need to stop chasing the whale and rescue him, Leela replies "Screw your unhealthy obsession with Bender, we have to stop the whale."
- Sanity Slippage: Leela's sanity deteriorates as she grows more obsessed with killing the Space Whale.
- Shout-Out:
- Obviously.
- In the Bermuda Tetrahedron, the ship flies past the tail of an Oceanic Airlines plane, with the same livery from Lost.
- The ending in which the Space Whale releases everyone in its stomach is similar to the ending of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- When Amy tells Leela that they have to release the harpoon on the space whale, Leela replies "Negative, Sailor Moon. We're going for a sleigh ride."
- One of the people seen escaping the whale is clearly the Fourth Doctor.
- Space Is an Ocean: This being a Moby-Dick parody, the "hunting the whale" montage features .
- Space Whale: The one in this episode is apparently a fourth-dimensional one. It only breaches the 3rd dimension to hunt and fill its lungs with vacuum. Its intestines are fourth dimensional and keeps its meals in temporal stasis so it can feed on their obsession forever.
- Space "X": The above Space Whales, as discussed by Bender and Leela, is not a space fish, it's a space mammal. One dangerous enough for everyone to need to spacewalk from. They also get dragged through a field of spacebergs (i.e. giant diamonds).
- Too Dumb to Live: Leela jumping onto the whales face and trying to kill it with a kitchen knife. See also Epic Fail and And Then What?.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: Leela's obsession for hunting the space whale, which it feeds on, is outdone by her obsession with completing her delivery. An obsession deep enough she overrides the whale's symbiotic bond with her and hijacks control over it.
- Unreliable Voice Over: Inverted in that the visuals are unreliable instead of the voiceover. At the beginning of Professor Farnsworth's first flashback, Zoidberg is shown with a full head of hair, to the surprise of the listeners — but the Professor replies "I never said he had hair! If you chose to imagine him that way, that's your business!"
- What the Hell, Hero?: The rest of the crew call out Leela for endangering their lives with her obsession for killing the Space Whale. Hilariously, she calls out herself when she declares to become a one-woman crew after the others mutiny against her.
- Womb Level: Inside the giant Space Whale.
