Futurama
Season 12 – Episode 7
Episode title: Planet Espresso
Original release date: September 9, 2024
Plot: Hermes inherits a Jamaican coffee farm that holds the ruins of an ancient spaceship.
* * *
[♪ “2001: A Space Odyssey” theme playing]
[all snoring]
[all grunting]
[all grunting curiously]
[all chittering excitedly]
[♪ theme music playing]
First up on today’s agenda…
[slurps] Ah!
[doorbell rings]
Singing hologram for Hermes Conrad?
Ooh! Fun!
♪ Oh ♪
♪ Oh ♪
Oh, rats. I’ll just say it.
Your father’s on his deathbed in Jamaica.
[all gasp]
Oh, no!
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
[mug shatters]
Once more from the top!
I can’t believe it. I didn’t even know my father was alive.
But not for much longer.
Sorry about your pops, Pops. I didn’t realize you had a pops.
I never mentioned him because he was a terrible man.
I haven’t seen him since I was four.
A hurricane swept Jamaica with a pressure drop so low, it destroyed my father’s barometer store.
How low can it go?
Not this low!
[glass shattering]
It was our last night together as a family.
We need money to rebuild.
And they say, a man can make a good living doing weird stuff in the jungle.
Not the jungle, Daddy!
There’s green snakeses in there!
There’s green snakes in lots of things.
But I’ll be home soon, son.
But the miserable cruff never did come back.
He abandoned us.
They say he went off into the woods to grow some exotic crop.
Exotic Jamaican crop?
It could be anything.
Step on it, Leela!
We’ve got to get there fast, so I can tell him I hate him before he dies!
Sure, I know your daddy.
He run a growin’ operation up in the Blue Mountains.
I hope it’s pumpkins.
I’m scorin’ a few kilos from the man today.
Come now, I’m gonna take you there.
Coffee? He’s growing coffee?
Best in the Blue Mountains.
What’ja think he was growin’?
Uh… Pumpkins. Medicinal pumpkins.
[coughing]
The crops are all burnt!
It’s not like Badrick to let this happen.
He treats those beans like they were his own children!
[scoffs] I’d say much better than his own children!
[wheezing]
There you are, ya low-down licky-licky harbor shark!
Now listen to me…
Is that you, son?
Hang on, I gotta put my hearin’ aids in…
[grunting]
Now listen to me, ya low-down licky-licky harbor shark…
…and turn them on.
[static crackles]
Okay, ya lowdown licky-licky etcetera, now see here!
I need to see something?
Wait, lemme find my glasses.
Are you ready? Can I rip you a new one yet?
Oops, these my reading glasses. Is there something I’ll have to read?
Yeah, my lips!
Mmm. Then I’ll need my regular glasses.
[gasps] I can see ya now, son!
You look awful!
Dad, there are things I’ve needed to say to you for a long time.
Ever since that day you walked out on us all those years ago.
What kind of man abandons his only son?
What kind of man leaves his family to fend for themselves?
I’ll tell you what kind!
[choking]
[♪ steel drums playing]
Though I and I never saw eye-to-eye with him and him,
I daren’t speak ill of the dead, so, that’s all I got.
[♪ steel drums continue]
[sobs] I always get so sad when I hear steel drums.
Forty percent steel, baby!
Now, to honor Badrick’s last cuckoo banana wishes, he gonna be buried in a burlap coffee sack.
[grunting]
Thanks for your help, Professor.
To be honest, you’ve been more of a father to me than he ever was.
I feel the same way. You’ve been a father to me.
Let’s bury him here, between the outhouse and the pigsty.
Good thing I always carry my pocket gravedigger.
At my age, you never know when you’ll need it.
[both gasp]
It’s some kind of mysterious buried hatch.
Should we go in?
No, let’s wait until I’m older.
Of course, we should go in!
Sweet UFO of Tupelo!
It’s a spaceship!
And not of this Earth.
It must have come from space.
Look at the size of that engine!
And these would be fuel lines.
Coffee? A ship fueled by coffee? Amazing!
More amazing than the fact you licked the drippings off an alien rocket pipe?
I think not.
What are these weird cylinders and those weird signs?
Stop calling everything “weird.”
You should get out more. I’ll just use my trusty hand translator.
“Ethiopia?”
“Indonesia?”
“Brazil?”
All of the world’s most important sandal-wearing cultures!
Yes, but also the world’s most important coffee producers!
[gasps] “Jamaica!”
And somehow, it’s full of fresh-picked beans!
Not that fresh.
According to my pocket carbon-dater, they’re five million years old.
They predate human civilization!
Five-million-year-old coffee?
If you come across their half-and-half, don’t open it.
Ah! Lifeless alien bodies.
That’s probably an important piece of the puzzle.
[grunts]
Coffee?
Stop tasting stuff!
[sniffs] There’s coffee in these mugs, too!
Mmm! It’s actually quite good.
You drank it? Gross!
Still rich in flavor after all these…
[grunting]
What’s going on?
I’m seeing every color of the coffee rainbow!
Me, too! It’s a double mocha hallucaccino!
Now what’s happening? [gasps] Did they come back to life?
No way, man. We’re just whacked out of our gourds!
It’s like a vision of what went down five million years ago.
Dig?
Helmsman, set a course for planet Kl’zank.
That means Earth.
The empty glass cylinders!
They must have come here to steal our coffee!
We weren’t stealing it!
We brought it to your planet as a great gift!
Oh. Sorry.
No need to apologize.
We’ve been dead millions of years and can’t hear you.
We came from Planet Thermos,
a world of steaming brown beauty,
where the sacred Java plant blooms each morning,
and don’t talk to us before then.
[thunder rumbles]
Hot rain filters through the blooms to produce the sacred coffee,
which flows to the sea, source of all life.
The coffee goosed along our development.
We skipped right past the age of dinosaurs.
Didn’t need it!
Blessed by the bean, we made it our mission
to spread the sacrament of coffee throughout the galaxy.
Look, it’s Kl’zank!
Our first destination on your planet was Ethiopia,
where we delivered coffee to the ancestors of man.
Fascinating! Do you make decaf, too?
We’re aliens, not perverts!
Coffee would trigger huge advances wherever it appeared.
The Pyramids, the Industrial Revolution,
the Boston Tea Party…
The first and only good use of tea.
[scoffs] Tea!
Finally, we headed for the Blue Mountains of Jamaica,
to plant the most potent beans of all.
This coffee would inspire
the final stage of humanity’s development,
allowing you to reach undreamt-of heights
in the arts and sciences.
Even choreography?
Especially choreography!
But tragedy derailed our mission.
[screams in pain]
[alarm blaring]
Mayday! Mayday! Coffee crotch!
[all screaming]
Thus, mankind was deprived of our final gift,
and never reached its full potential.
That was astonishing!
We’ve got to tell everyone the entire story.
The loose coffee cup lid and all the other stuff, too!
No, Professor!
We can’t tell anyone what we saw or heard or drank here.
People will think we’re crazy.
Crazier!
[laughing maniacally]
For you, Dad.
Sorry, it’s cold, but that’s how you serve revenge.
[cackles] Wait. You liked iced coffee.
What heights humanity might have reached with the power of this brew.
If only those aliens had lived to plant the beans.
Maybe we could plant them. We’re alive!
Oh, you flatter me.
And the beans are still down there.
It’s up to us to complete their noble mission.
For humanity!
Ah! There you are.
I’m so glad you buried the hatchet with your daddy.
That way, if he’s still alive, he can hack his way out.
Now, let’s go home.
Yes. You should go.
But I’m staying here to rebuild the farm.
[all] What?
Dad?
Husband, what do you know about coffee?
It takes you an hour to make instant.
Zing!
Are you really going to abandon your boy the way your father did?
This is more important than you know, but I’ll be home soon, son.
That’s a good, non-crazy idea, Hermes.
And we’re all going to help.
We’re a coffee company now!
We are?
Don’t we deliver things, or something?
Indeed we do.
We deliver the world’s best coffee,
or our name isn’t Planet Espresso.
[dramatic music sting plays]
Are the beans ready, Bender? I got a lot of orders here.
Bite my shiny metal roaster!
You can’t rush Bender’s Bendy Blend.
Light, medium, and, bendissimo!
Excuse me, a little service, please?
Sorry, Mr. MacLachlan. Here’s your usual.
Ah. That’s a damn fine bath of coffee.
Outta my ways, Kwisatz Haderachses.
Whoa!
Fill’ers up, coffee jerk!
Hello? Today I’m all about fun.
Meaning a half-caf, teeny-weeny-mocha-cheenie
with a plop-top of froth foam
and do not even think of whipping that dollop.
I won’t.
Are you sure?
Because you look like a dollop-whipper.
Look at me harvest! I’ve got the energy of 10 fiddler crabs.
It’s this miracle coffee.
Ever since I started drinking it, I haven’t had to sleep.
Which gives me more time to drink coffee.
[Zoidberg whooping]
I asked for lukewarm coffee, but this is barely room temperature.
Ow! It’s almost boiling. What room is that temperature?
This one, sugarpuss. ‘Cause you’re heating it up right now.
When do you get off work?
I don’t. I work 24 hours a day.
Somehow.
I’m heres for my frees refill?
Yeah, well, today’s a new day, so it’s a new coffee at full price.
If it’s my faults the Earth rotates,
then it’s the Earth’s faults I did thises!
Ow! That’s it! I’ve had it!
I’m going on strike with all the other employees.
Who’s with me?
Fry, you dolt! You’re the only employee.
The rest of us are management.
Not me, baby. I’m equipment.
What we really have here is an employee problem.
I say we managers strike until Fry learns to work better
and cheaper.
Yeah!
Right on!
What she said!
A-yup.
[all] Hey-hey! Who-who! Who will tell you what to do?
Hey-hey! Who-who! Who will tell you what to do?
All right, fine!
I’ll accept worse working conditions,
but in return, I expect lower pay. Much lower!
[LaBarbara] Poor little Dwight.
He can’t understand why you’re gone.
Last night, he asked if you’re having an affair.
It was the first good laugh we’ve had since you left.
[both laugh]
If I told you the details, you’d call me crazy.
All I can say is it’s about the future of mankind.
That was more than enough detail to call you crazy.
I’m sorry, LaBarbara, but I gotta go.
I’m meeting with the shareholders, and you’re not a shareholder.
We share a child.
Yes, yes, but nothing of value.
Business is booming, people.
Our one cafe can’t keep up with the demand.
We’ll either have to open a second location
or start poisoning our customers.
Oh, no, I’m not learning how to make any new drinks.
How can we afford a second location?
Irish cream syrup alone is $400 a barrel.
How about a silent but deadly partner?
[all gasp]
You’re thinking too small.
You don’t need a second location. You need 10,000.
Mother always aims for the sky.
[both] Ow!
When I had you, I should have aimed for the trash!
Explain your plan without hitting me.
We’ll put franchises everywhere.
They’ll spread across the world like steaming hot acne.
This is it, Hermes!
With Mom’s help, our coffee will bring civilization to the next level.
Plus, we can all go back to our families.
I do miss them.
But why did I frame that photo?
We’ll get the whole world addicted.
And that’s when we jack up the profit margin,
by mixing in cheap trash beans.
[gasps]
Over my almost dead body.
Who’s gonna taste the difference?
You burn the beans enough,
it’s like drinking caffeinated cigar ashes.
Understand this.
We will triple-never double-ever disrespect this coffee!
Get out! And take your dirty, sexy money with you!
[groans]
We’ll stick with the plan. No one messes with my shrubs.
Weird. This one looks almost like my father.
Zoidberg, you’re doing topiary?
[Zoidberg] Nopiary!
Quit pluckin’ my beans, son.
[gasps]
You’re scared o’shrubs? I really was a bad father.
Dad? Have you come back to life, or am I tripping beans?
The coffee done brought me back to life, son.
That’s the kinda stuff coffee do. But hear me now.
‘Cause I don’t want you to end up like me.
I’m nothing like you! I made a success of this place.
After you let it burn to the ground.
I didn’t let it burn!
I set fire to it myself.
Then you’re a fool!
You never knew what you were growing here!
Of course I knew, ya dingdong! I drank the space coffee.
I saw the space vision.
I didn’t have a TV, so I’d watch it over and over.
My favorite part is where they…
Spilled the coffee?
I mean, get a cup holder!
[both laugh]
They were dingdongs, a’right.
But I was a dingdong too.
Too late, I realized I’d wasted my life.
Wasted? How?
I became obsessed with the farm.
I was working for the good of all humanity.
Except my own family.
There’s only one grow’n season for a father and son,
and I missed it.
Oh, Dad, all this time, I’ve been holding on to my hatred,
filing it deep in a mental filing cabinet marked “revenge.”
But now, all I want to say to you is…
[grunts]
I’m good at this!
Why won’t Pops come home? Did I do something to disappoint him?
Plenty. But that’s not the reason.
The reason is, I was a dingdong!
Pops!
My dingdong husband!
I am so, so sorry.
You both mean more to me than all the talking shrubs
and prehistoric space aliens in Jamaica.
Can you ever forgive me?
Come on in, I’ll make you some coffee.
Oh, God, no!
I’ve had enough coffee for the rest of my entire morning.
I guess I could have a little.
Sorry, I ain’ts had my coffees today. Owses!
Well, that’s that.
I sold off the whole coffee estate to Mom.
I’m sure she’s in Jamaica right now, adulterating those beautiful beans and counting her money.
You couldn’t be more partially wrong.
[all gasp]
I already resold the whole crap load for a butt-truck of ass-cash!
Re-sold it? To who?
Who knows? A bunch of rich coffee snobs.
I know it was hard to sell the farm, husband,
but your daddy, he would be proud.
I’m sure he’s smiling down on you right now.
I’m sure he is.
Come here, son.
Pops, aren’t I a little old to be sitting on your lap?
And heavy, too. But stay just a little longer.
Harvest, harvest, harvest, coffee break!
Harvest, harvest, harvest, coffee break!
[♪ ominous music playing]
It’s been five million years.
Has mankind undergone the great transition?
Uh, almost.
Excellent.
Deploy the habitat!
Thanks to the holy bean, humanity will soon be elevated to its final subjugation.
Okay.
Sounds good.
Freed from the shackles of sleep, they shall serve us nonstop, all…
How many hours are there on this planet?
Twenty-four.
That’s all? Fine.
Twenty-four hours a day.
Toiling in our fields, foaming our lattes, and never, ever sleeping for all eternity!
[all laughing]
[♪ theme music playing]
