The following contains spoilers for Futurama season 12 episode 1, "The One Amigo," now streaming on Hulu

Summary

• Futurama's season 12 premiere changes Bender's robot backstory, introducing new family connections.
• The show's lore depends on character-driven logic, but Bender's evolving origins challenge consistency.
• Changing Bender's origins repeatedly has undercut the established lore of Futurama's universe.

Futurama's twelfth season premiere changes more of Bender's backstory, which has been retconned several times over the last twenty-five years of the show. The word of Futurama is a fantastical one even when compared to other sci-fi. However, the advanced technologies and massive reveals all follow a character-driven sense of logic. The emotional stories and evolutions of the main cast ensure the changes don't break the lore of the show or throw off the overarching arc of the series. However, one character has had their backstory changed repeatedly.

Bender is one of Futurama season 12, revealing more unseen connections. The latest are particularly big, as they quietly call into question some of the most established elements of Bender's backstory and potentially break the established lore of the show.

Futurama's Season 12 Premiere Changes Bender's Robot Origins

Bender's Extended Family Grows In Some Pretty Big Ways

Futurama season 12's "The One Amigo" introduces some serious retcons to Bender's backstory and connection to the greater world, quietly undercutting elements introduced in previous episodes. "The One Amigo" largely follows Bender after he sells the concept of himself as an NFT. Losing ownership of himself sends Bender into an existential crisis and leads him to return to his roots in Mexico. In doing so, Bender discovers his connections to an ancient tribe of robots who largely hide from the modern world. His Mother, an extender arm, eventually abandoned her family and relocated to the Mom Factory in Tijuana.

This sets up the previously established backstory for Bender, who was "born" in a Mom's robotics factory just a few years before the events of the series. This sets up Bender's secret family to build on the confirmed elements of Bender's mother, who was rarely seen in the original series (but played an important role in the entirely audio episode, "Radiorama"). However, it does introduce some serious changes to Bender's other connections and relation to other important developments of the world that heavily impact his history with Hermes, Professor Farnsworth, and Mom.

Futurama Has Already Changed Bender's Origins Multiple Times

This isn't the first time Futurama has tweaked Bender's backstory. Established in season 2's "Mother's Day" to have been created as part of Mom's robotics company, later stories like season 4's "Crimes of the Hot" and season 7's "Free Will Hunting" have made it clear that Bender is a direct descendant of the kind of robots designed originally by Professor Farnsworth. The modern robot was revealed in those episodes to be designed in the prior century, but now Bender has a connection to robots that were supposedly built thousands of years before the events of the main show.

A more natural retcon to the character's backstory occurred in season 6's "Lethal Inspection," one of Bender's best episodes. where a young Hermes played a crucial part in ensuring a defective Bender was given the chance to live. That episode confirmed that an infant Bender was constructed ahead of the Bender who was assembled in season 3's ""Bendless Love," but did so without fully erasing the connections to robotic origins in the universe. Season 12's big changes to Bender's backstory are just the latest tweak to the story, and a quietly huge shift from the previously established lore of the universe.

Changing Bender's Origins Again Undermines Futurama's Lore

Futurama's massive world is actually driven by surprisingly tight world-building. Elements like Nibbler being responsible for Fry being frozen or Leela being a mutant were teased seasons before they were confirmed. While there have been little tweaks to backstories for the sake of a joke, the series often tries to balance the throwaway gags with typically consistent expansion of the character backstories. That's what makes the latest changes to Bender's history so uniquely frustrating. It introduces elements to the show, like Bender's ancient robotic ancestors, that contradict established pieces of lore that connect different corners of the universe.

The core concept of introducing more of Bender's family is a fun one, and a clever way to expand the show's universe of characters. However, the inclusion of secretive robotic villages that have avoided software updates for years and have so far never been involved in the otherwise global events undercuts Bender's personal history, connections, and story. It's a frustrating turn to see previous powerful episodes like "Free Will Hunting" undercut as a result. Futurama is at its best when it blends the established lore with new ideas, and "The One Amigo" falters on that front in a disappointing way.