Episode Recap: Bender Gets Made

Bender, Fry and Leela attend a taping of Essence of Elzar, featuring television’s most popular chef. Bender is ecstatic when he finally gets the chance to meet his idol in person. However, his unbridled enthusiasm proves enormously distracting…especially when he uses a camera to photograph the chef as he is about to discharge a spice weasel. Caught off guard, Elzar aims the weasel into the audience and inadvertently blasts Leela in the face.

Blinded, Leela is rushed to a hospital, where Doctor Kiley diagnoses her with mild corneal irritation. He tells Leela to wear an eye patch for a week. A short time later, Elzar approaches Leela and her friends and, in an effort of goodwill, invites them all to his restaurant for dinner.

After everyone gorges themselves on the wonderful cooking, Elzar unexpectedly presents them with a bill for the meal…totaling some $1200. When Elzar realizes the group cannot pay the bill, he contacts the police. Soon after, everyone is placed in handcuffs. As the group is led to a nearby paddy wagon, Bender proposes a deal: He will work part-time at the restaurant to pay off the debt. Elzar accepts his offer.

Later, at the Planet Express offices, Leela, wearing the eye patch, uses Nibbler as a "seeing eye beast." She is determined to live her life without having to rely on help from her friends. Bender leaves the office and makes his way to the restaurant, where Elzar makes him siphon grease traps and clean toilets. Elzar grows nervous when three robots who are part of the robot Mafia—The Donbot, Clamps and Joy Mouse-Pad—enter the restaurant for a meal. The Donbot takes a liking to Bender when he catches him giving incorrect change for a $100 bill. The Donbot offers him a job as one of his goons…and Bender eagerly accepts.

As his first assignment, Bender must deliver a floppy disk to Sammy "the Mechanical Bull" Gravano at a pool hall. But while making his way to the pool hall, Bender notices a little robot, Tinny Tim, selling Oilad . Bender chugs down a drink…and soon notices that he has been spotted by Smitty and Url. The police men frisk Bender but come up empty-handed. Across the street, Tinny Tim delivers the floppy.

The Donbot congratulates Bender on a job well done. He then invites him to participate in a much bigger job, something that involves breaking the law. Bender accepts the exciting offer, and creates an alibi for his whereabouts by placing a mechanical arm and tape recorder in his crew quarters aboard the Planet Express ship. Bender feigns illness, and the tape record replays back moaning sounds, fooling his colleagues.

Despite her eye patch, Leela pilots the ship into outer space. Soon after, the Donbot’s mobster ship gives chase…and Bender realizes his Mafia friends are targeting a shipment of Zuban cigars aboard the Planet Express ship. The mobsters open fire on the Planet Express vessel, prompting Leela to take evasive action. Unfortunately, Leela’s erratic piloting also makes it impossible for Fry to take defensive action inside the gun turret. Clamps reaches out and grabs hold of the ship’s tail fin. He then clamps the engine, causing it to sputter and fail.

The mobsters board the ship and blindfold Fry. When Bender boards the ship, he seizes the opportunity and disguises his voice by using a thick British accent. The ruse works, and neither Leela nor Fry guesses his identify. Shortly thereafter, the Donbot notices that a robot is listed as a member of the crew. He orders Bender to eliminate him. Bender makes his way to his quarters and pretends to have a violent battle with the robot within.

Once Bender’s mission is accomplished, the Donbot orders the destruction of the ship. Bender asks for—and receives—permission to carry out the order himself. Once the mobsters leave the Planet Express ship, Fry unties Fry and Leela. Elated, Fry slaps Bender on the back, causing an avalanche of cigars to tumble out of his chest door. Later, Leela removes her blindfold…and her vision comes back into focus.

Shortly thereafter, Tinny Tim gives Bender his "cut" from the cigar heist. Bender announces he is quitting his association with organized crime and changes the serial number on his chest cabinet as a means of altering his identity.