As befitting the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, Bob’s Burgers serves up a double helping of episodes this week.
The first focuses on a much different holiday than Thanksgiving: Lobsterfest – the bane of Bob’s existence.
Unlike the previous episode about the town celebration, Lobsterfest only serves as the setting for Louise’s and Gene’s manic escape from Logan. It can hardly be considered their fault for throwing a three-year-old rotten cantaloupe at the psychotic bully. They were home alone for the first time ever, and found a rotten cantaloupe for the first time ever. What were they supposed to do if not chuck it out the window at an innocent passerby?
This episode examines Gene’s and Louise’s relationship. When Linda tells Gene that he is in charge of Louise, everyone is surprised. Gene may be technically older, but, as evidenced by her ability to get him to buy into all of her crazy schemes, Louise is the more forceful personality of the two.
As with many of Louise’s schemes, the cantaloupe prank goes wrong almost immediately. Of all the citizens that could have been hit with the projectile, it had to be Logan, Louise’s “crazy-face mad” psycho nemesis.
Logan decides to work out his anger issues on the Belcher duo and manages to lure them out of their house. He chases them through Lobsterfest and Gene finally proves that he is the big brother by standing up to Logan when he makes Louise cry. It is a heroic effort that lands him a hug from his usually emotionally distant little sister.
Meanwhile, both their parents and Tina have their own little quests in unfavorable circumstances. For Tina, this is brought on by accidental E.C. (eye contact) with Joe Harrison, a boy we have never seen before and Tina has never thought about before. It doesn’t matter, though, because the E.C. has Tina hooked and she immediately earns herself detention to give Joe the chance to confess his feelings to her. In the span of the afternoon, however, she comes to believe that the spark has gone from their nonexistent relationship and gives him a gentle break-up stare.
The best part of this plot were the small cutaways to Mr. Frond overseeing the detention. To him, Tina’s ill-fated romance plays out as her mumbling under her breath and spacing out. It is highly doubtful Joe even noticed the entire relationship he was supposedly in with Tina.
Bob’s and Linda’s situation is even more awkward. It’s time for their annual meeting with their accountant and, as they tell Teddy, they just try to laugh at his bad jokes and get through the hour without offending or angering him. That becomes harder when all the adults accidentally indulge in some pot cookies. Now, they’re high and stuck with someone they really don’t like.
Joe is completely forgettable, which is the point of the plot, but the accountant, Gerald, also fails to make any impression. We don’t understand why Bob and Linda don’t particularly like the guy and his pot-influenced ramblings don’t reveal anything funny or interesting. The best moment in this slight plot was the group scrambling to hide from Gerald’s next client, and Gerald demanding he get his own room in the cushion fort they’re building. He needs to regroup after Linda admits they don’t like his jokes and ruins his dream of a stand-up career. Bob tells him he deserves his own room (and even makes him one) and manages to connect with him over their love of their own bad jokes. All in all, it wasn’t a bad episode, but just felt like an appetizer for the main event.
So… with a brief Simpsons interlude we’re on to the Thanksgiving episode.
This one also features a Gene and Louise scheme, just one on a much bigger scale.
It’s the week before Thanksgiving and Louise is mad. The school is supposed to have a half day, but Mr. Frond insists all the students stick around and watch a poorly made and acted Thanksgiving play. Louise is determined to get an actual half day for once in her life… and she has a secret weapon.
The key to the half-day, Louise realizes, will be performing a play so offensive that it will be shut down. For that, she turns to Tina for help. Tina is truly the best person to write a play that is inappropriate, offensive, and Thanksgiving-themed. She’s already started on “The Quirky Turkey”, an original short story based on mean girls Tammy and Jocelyn calling her quirky as an intended insult. In Tina’s version, the popular turkeys meet a dark end on Thanksgiving and the Quirky Turkey survives for another day and lands the pig of her dreams. She’s happy to adapt it into a play.
The problem is, Gene and Louise haven’t told Tina that their intention is to make the play as bad as humanly possible. When they ask her to play the Quirky Turkey, she thinks it’s because she has effectively captured the turkey’s dead-eyed stare and not because her siblings are rooting for her to fail. It’s only when Louise outlines her plan to make the play horribly graphic and rain real turkey giblets and gizzards on the audience that Tina figures it out.
Although Tina’s creative endeavors (usually involving horses or zombies) are hilarious, the show always takes her passion for her work seriously and shows what a major problem it is that her siblings think her play is “horrible”.
Meanwhile, the B-plot is simple and silly. Linda finds a potato that looks like her grandfather. Bob tries over and over to discourage the new obsession, but finally caves and brings Grandpa Potato along to see the play. That probably wasn’t the best idea.
Even Louise has second thoughts when the play actually is performed. The turkey guts horrify both the actors and the audience.
After she realizes her mistake, Louise immediately apologizes to Tina and Tina saves the day with a heartfelt solo about having the guts to be yourself. She had the perfect props for it, after all.
Hope everyone has a happy and giblet-free Thanksgiving holiday! What did you think of tonight’s episodes? Let me know in the comments.
