The following contains spoilers for Futurama season 12 episode 10, “Otherwise,” now streaming on HuluFuturama’smultiverse twist in the season 12 finale could be used to explain away any number of discrepancies and plot holes in the show’s canon.Futuramahas always been able to push the boundaries of its comedic sci-fi world. Even concepts likedeath means little in a show likeFuturama, a setting where characters have been resurrected in several ways and killed off in numerous anthology episodes.
However, a core timeline has always existed within the show, even if certain episodes didn’t adhere to all the biggest plot twists and turns. The formal introduction of a full multiverse inFuturamaseason 12’s ending “Otherwise” might be the key to explaining how all those elements make sense alongside one another.The episode formally sets up the multiverse for the world ofFuturamaas a way to kill off two of the show’s main characters even while exact copies continue their adventures intoFuturamaseasons 13and 14.
Futurama’s Multiverse Reveal Can Help Explain Away The Show’s Numerous Plot Holes
FuturamaCan Explain Away Character Deaths Or Disappearances
The idea thatFuturama’s various episodes have been across different realitiescould explain plot-holes and ret-cons in the series. Season 12’s “Otherwise” is focuses on two versions of the Planet Express Ship in similar but alternate dimensions. One version is flung into the depths of the multiverse, inadvertently encountering (and killing) variants of them from another timeline. In one of those two worlds, the story ofFuturamawas essentially closed off, while the ends on the traditional looking version of the crew. However, this could actually explainFuturama’s casual non-canon events, like the end of the world earlier in the season.
Futurama’s Season 12 Finale Debunks A Popular Fan Theory After Disenchantment’s Ending
Futurama’s season 12 finale “Otherwise” takes a big multiversal swing, and in the process debunks a theory connecting the show to Disenchantment.
In “Attack of the Clothes,” Professor Farnsworth’s wasteful approach to fashion seemingly doomed the Earth. However, the next episode jumped ahead as if it had never happened. It’s far from the first timeFuturamahas quietly broken its own continuity, butit can now be explained asanother reality inFuturama’s multiverse. This can effectively allowFuturamato reset in-universe, explaining why cataclysmic events can be seemingly solved and forgotten between episodes. As in “Otherwise,” those episodes with doomed endings are ways that Planet Express Crew variants met their ends.
Futurama Season 12’s Multiverse Already Undid The Revival’s First Big Retcon
How “Otherwise” Connects “Meanwhile” Into A Multiverse Story
This isn’t the first time Fry has been connected to alternate versions of reality. Fry, Bender, and Professor Farnsworth are the last survivors of their universe, which cycled through death and rebirth in season 7’s “The Late Philip J. Fry.” On top of that, “Otherwise” makes repeated reference to season 10’s “Meanwhile,” where Fry and Leela accidentally broke time. This led them to spend a happy life together exploring the world.Memories of this other timeline flood Fry’s mind when he’s near the multiversal chasm, even causing him to faint and set off the divergence point in the timeline.
As reported byScreen Rant,Futuramahas already been renewed by Hulu for seasons 13 and 14.
This suggests “Meanwhile” effectively exists as an alternate reality inFuturama’s timeline instead of just a reset version of the same world. As such,other past episodes can now formally be chalked up to other alternate realities, rendering them non-canon. This could explain bizarre events like season 11’s “The Prince and the Product” orthe ending “Attack of the Clothes.“It also gives the creatives room to experiment with concepts like closure in future seasons, as seen in the episode’s doomed Fry and Leela . It givesFuturamaa backdoor to explain away any experimentation or cataclysmic events as multiversal stories.
Futurama
Cast
Futurama is an animated science fiction series that follows Philip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy from late-20th-century New York City. He is accidentally cryogenically frozen for a thousand years and becomes an employee at Planet Express, a delivery service in the retro-futuristic 31st century.
