Leela
Wikipedia
Futurama Character Guide
Turanga Leela is a fictional character from the animated television series Futurama. Leela is a spaceship captain, pilot, and head of all aviation services on board the Planet Express Ship. Throughout the series, she has an on-again, off-again relationship with Philip J. Fry, the central character in the series. She is one of the few characters in the cast to routinely display competence and the ability to command, and routinely saves the rest of the cast from disaster. However, she suffers extreme self-doubt because she has only one eye and grew up as a bullied orphan. She first believes herself an alien, but later finds out she is the least-mutated sewer mutant in the history of 31st-century Earth.
Turanga Leela was born to Morris and Munda, two mutants who live in the sewer deep under New New York City. The mutant doctor who delivered Leela remarked that she was the least mutated mutant ever born. When Leela was still an infant, her parents gave her up to the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium with a note written in mysterious symbols to suggest that Leela was an alien, so that she would have a better life than a typical mutant.
For the first three seasons of the series, Leela hopes to meet another member of her race of one-eyed aliens. In the episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two", Leela meets Alcazar, a cyclops who convinces her that he and she are the last two members of their extinct race, only to discover that he is a shapeshifting impostor. Leela's parents' plan for concealing her origins works well until an industrial accident caused by environmentally irresponsible Bender brings Leela and her friends into the New New York City's sewer system where for the first time Leela meets her parents and discovers that she is not a cyclopean alien, but is actually a sewer mutant.
Despite her strong-willed nature, she often feels self-conscious about her distinctive appearance, and at one point elects to have surgery to give her the appearance of having two normal-sized eyes, though she later has this reversed. Leela's single eye hampers her depth perception, though it typically does not interfere with her ability to pilot the Planet Express Ship or her mastery of martial arts. She is very athletic and in great physical condition, with most males unable to match her in physical combat.
Originally a career placement officer for new defrostees at a cryogenics lab in the year 2999, Leela quit her job after meeting Philip J. Fry, a defrostee from 1999, and Bender, a high-tech, job-deserting, girder bending robot. Together they are employed as the crew for Planet Express, an intergalactic delivery business run by Fry's distant relative, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. Leela serves as captain of the Planet Express Ship, proving herself to be a skilled officer and often rescuing her less-talented coworkers from peril.
Leela is an avid environmentalist. In "Love's Labour Lost in Space", Leela and crew are sent to Vergon 6, a planet that is about to collapse because of mining. Her mission is to save the animal inhabitants of the planet. The mission winds up unsuccessful because of a small animal Leela finds, because he ate the rest of the animals. This animal, who she names Nibbler, becomes her pet for the remainder of the series.
Leela's and Fry's relationship is a major plot line that runs throughout the series. Fry frequently asks for dates, though she repeatedly turns him down despite her usual romantic mishaps. There are various moments when she does fall for him even briefly, especially whenever he would risk his life for her. She sees him as a true friend and does not want anything more of him, but it constantly appears as if she is hiding deeper feelings for him. At the end of the film Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, Leela openly admits to loving Fry, and shows greater attraction to him from the episode "Rebirth" onward, though their relationship varies. In "The Prisoner of Benda", the two share a romantic interlude, though their personalities have been switched to different bodies. In "Overclockwise", Leela expresses concerns over their "on-again-off-again" relationship, but by the end of that episode, Bender reveals Fry and Leela's future to them, and while the viewer is not told its details, Leela and Fry are clearly pleased with it. The relationship continues through the seventh season, culminating in Fry proposing to Leela. Before she can accept, however, an accident with the Professor's new invention results in the universe being frozen in time, except for her and Fry. They get married anyway, and have a long, happy life together as the only unfrozen beings in existence. Years later, the Professor appears through an interdimensional wormhole and offers them the chance to go back in time to before the universe froze. Fry asks Leela if she wants to go around again with him, a proposal she happily accepts.
During a visit aboard The Nimbus, Leela has a pity relationship with the pompous, idiotic captain Zapp Brannigan in the episode where he is first introduced, "Love's Labours Lost in Space". Throughout the series, Brannigan constantly tries to entice her into dates and romantic encounters, much to her disgust, Leela denouncing him as a general idiot. The next encounter Leela has with Zapp is in "A Flight to Remember", during a cruise on the Titanic. Leela, worried Zapp might try to court her, tells Zapp she is dating Fry. Zapp suspects she is lying and invites her and Fry to dine at the captain's table with him. Zapp does his best to catch them in the lie but due to changing the ship's course earlier in the episode, which eventually leads the ship into a black hole, is called away from the table. Leela is able to make it off the ship with the rest of the crew in an escape pod.
Turanga Leela was born to Morris and Munda, two mutants who live in the sewer deep under New New York City. The mutant doctor who delivered Leela remarked that she was the least mutated mutant ever born. When Leela was still an infant, her parents gave her up to the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium with a note written in mysterious symbols to suggest that Leela was an alien, so that she would have a better life than a typical mutant.
For the first three seasons of the series, Leela hopes to meet another member of her race of one-eyed aliens. In the episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two", Leela meets Alcazar, a cyclops who convinces her that he and she are the last two members of their extinct race, only to discover that he is a shapeshifting impostor. Leela's parents' plan for concealing her origins works well until an industrial accident caused by environmentally irresponsible Bender brings Leela and her friends into the New New York City's sewer system where for the first time Leela meets her parents and discovers that she is not a cyclopean alien, but is actually a sewer mutant.
Despite her strong-willed nature, she often feels self-conscious about her distinctive appearance, and at one point elects to have surgery to give her the appearance of having two normal-sized eyes, though she later has this reversed. Leela's single eye hampers her depth perception, though it typically does not interfere with her ability to pilot the Planet Express Ship or her mastery of martial arts. She is very athletic and in great physical condition, with most males unable to match her in physical combat.
Originally a career placement officer for new defrostees at a cryogenics lab in the year 2999, Leela quit her job after meeting Philip J. Fry, a defrostee from 1999, and Bender, a high-tech, job-deserting, girder bending robot. Together they are employed as the crew for Planet Express, an intergalactic delivery business run by Fry's distant relative, Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth. Leela serves as captain of the Planet Express Ship, proving herself to be a skilled officer and often rescuing her less-talented coworkers from peril.
Leela is an avid environmentalist. In "Love's Labour Lost in Space", Leela and crew are sent to Vergon 6, a planet that is about to collapse because of mining. Her mission is to save the animal inhabitants of the planet. The mission winds up unsuccessful because of a small animal Leela finds, because he ate the rest of the animals. This animal, who she names Nibbler, becomes her pet for the remainder of the series.
Leela's and Fry's relationship is a major plot line that runs throughout the series. Fry frequently asks for dates, though she repeatedly turns him down despite her usual romantic mishaps. There are various moments when she does fall for him even briefly, especially whenever he would risk his life for her. She sees him as a true friend and does not want anything more of him, but it constantly appears as if she is hiding deeper feelings for him. At the end of the film Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, Leela openly admits to loving Fry, and shows greater attraction to him from the episode "Rebirth" onward, though their relationship varies. In "The Prisoner of Benda", the two share a romantic interlude, though their personalities have been switched to different bodies. In "Overclockwise", Leela expresses concerns over their "on-again-off-again" relationship, but by the end of that episode, Bender reveals Fry and Leela's future to them, and while the viewer is not told its details, Leela and Fry are clearly pleased with it. The relationship continues through the seventh season, culminating in Fry proposing to Leela. Before she can accept, however, an accident with the Professor's new invention results in the universe being frozen in time, except for her and Fry. They get married anyway, and have a long, happy life together as the only unfrozen beings in existence. Years later, the Professor appears through an interdimensional wormhole and offers them the chance to go back in time to before the universe froze. Fry asks Leela if she wants to go around again with him, a proposal she happily accepts.
During a visit aboard The Nimbus, Leela has a pity relationship with the pompous, idiotic captain Zapp Brannigan in the episode where he is first introduced, "Love's Labours Lost in Space". Throughout the series, Brannigan constantly tries to entice her into dates and romantic encounters, much to her disgust, Leela denouncing him as a general idiot. The next encounter Leela has with Zapp is in "A Flight to Remember", during a cruise on the Titanic. Leela, worried Zapp might try to court her, tells Zapp she is dating Fry. Zapp suspects she is lying and invites her and Fry to dine at the captain's table with him. Zapp does his best to catch them in the lie but due to changing the ship's course earlier in the episode, which eventually leads the ship into a black hole, is called away from the table. Leela is able to make it off the ship with the rest of the crew in an escape pod.