Futurama, Episode 7.11: "Viva Mars Vegas"

When I saw that tonight's Futurama was going to revolve around a snazzy, Ocean's-like casino heist, I was immediately excited. Now, who doesn't love a good heist plot? Heck, we're not that far removed from last week's awesome Breaking Bad train robbery, and now here comes Team Futurama to continue the momentum. I'll admit that the heist itself wasn't that complex (having an invisible Zoidberg conveniently removes a heck of a lot of complications), but Futurama piled on some brilliant comedic grace notes. Chief among them was the quick-succession triple threat of (in order) Bender as a crazy Texas robot millionaire, Hermes as a e-mailing Nigerian Prime Minister, and Zoidberg as a young Internet billionaire. The touch of Amy explaining the details of the heist during said heist was a nice riff on an old cliche. And the bizarre brilliance of the heretofore-unused Chart Room made for a great scene; I sincerely hope that they'll use it again.

What impressed me even more was how Futurama laid on as many casino tropes as possible: not just the Ocean's riff, but also the Wong's use of "native Martians" for casino staff; the Casino-like breakdown of casino secrets such as the money-counting room; and of course, the mob's takeover of Vegas. (And before you ask: no, upcoming Vegas mob boss Michael Chiklis didn't stop by for a voice cameo.)

The "big spender Zoidberg" first arc came off well enough, mainly because it wasn't overplayed (although, to be honest, there was simply too much to cram into this episode to allow for more of a focus). The roulette scene, in particular, managed to effectively draw out the suspense, even with the predictability that Zoidberg's going to lose all that money - all $10.368 billion of it. (This is an episodic cartoon series, folks: we can't change the status quo!)

All in all, this was just a really fun episode - again, par for the course when you're dealing with a heist job - and I'm certainly hoping this momentum will carry into next week's finale.

Random notes:

• Yep, Futurama went to the Jar Jar Binks joke well… although props to them for merging Binks with Brinks security.
• One ticket for Sentient Carrot Top, please!
• Fry, unfortunately, was saddled by a Hangover Part II joke. C'mon, guys; he deserves a better movie than that!
• Zoidberg burping the cash during the ending reminded me of the casino episode of The Simpsons where Barney consumed a cup of quarters: "Hey, that guy's paying off!"
• The hand-made opening commissioned by Comedy Central earlier this summer is now part of the series itself! Hooray!
• Next week: The double-episode season finale!