Leela's Third Eye

Lore & Background

Leela's single eye is the central feature of her appearance and the root of her lifelong self-doubt. She grew up as a bullied orphan at the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium, believing she was an alien because of her one eye. 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 who just wanted to marry her so she would be his maid. Later, 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. Her single eye hampers her depth perception and is sometimes exploited for comic effect, for instance, in the episode "The Problem with Popplers" it is suggested that she actually is crashing into billboards every time in the opening credits, though it typically does not interfere with her ability to pilot the Planet Express Ship (beyond crashing into the odd billboard) or her mastery of martial arts.

In Their Own Story

Leela's single eye defines her life from birth. She 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. 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. Her single eye does not prevent her from being a skilled martial artist and adept acrobat, weapons expert and survivalist. In the episode "Raging Bender", a flashback revealed that she had earned a red belt in Kung Fu as a teenager, but despite her besting all the other students, she quit due to her sexist instructor, whom she beat up years later.

Reader's Guide

Leela's single eye is a constant source of both comedy and character development. The show uses her eye for visual gags, like the recurring joke that she crashes into billboards during the opening credits due to poor depth perception. Yet her eye also marks her as different, fueling her orphan upbringing and mysterious origins that drive her character development over the course of the series. Despite her self-doubt, Leela proves herself to be a skilled officer and often rescues her less-talented coworkers from peril. Her single eye is part of what makes her one of the few characters in the cast to routinely display competence and the ability to command.

Did You Know?

• Leela's single eye is the reason she was bullied as an orphan at the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium.
• In the episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two", Leela meets a cyclops named Alcazar who claims to be the last of her race, but he is actually a shapeshifting impostor.
• Leela later discovers she is not an alien but the least-mutated sewer mutant in the history of 31st-century Earth.
• Despite her single eye hampering her depth perception, she is a skilled martial artist who earned a red belt in Kung Fu as a teenager.
• Leela once elected to have surgery to give herself the appearance of two normal-sized eyes, but later had it reversed.