Bob's Burgers: Crows Encounters of the Bird Kind (13x17)

I love a good Tina and Bob bonding session!

Cons:

The prank shenanigans back at the diner were a little tame and not particularly vibrant, I guess. Like at first I saw that Gene and Louise were going to be daring each other to do things, and that seemed fun. And then Linda got involved, and I expected a bit more escalation. It was all cute, there just wasn't a lot going on. I realize from the last two episodes that I'm eager for some Louise chaos, that's always some of my favorite stuff on the show.

Pros:

But that being said, I enjoy a quieter, fun family vibes subplot too, and it was cute to see Linda play along with her kids and even try to out-dare them.

And then the main plot featured Tina learning an important life lesson while getting up to mayhem with Bob as her unwilling accomplice! Turns out Tina is incredibly behind on getting badges for the ThunderGirls, if she wants to get a particular honor. She goes into project mode where she wants to collect as many badges as possible, and starts with bird watching. This proves difficult as she's not finding much outside of crows to look at. She decides to cheat, bringing bread to trap the birds and having her dad play bird sounds on his phone to draw them in. This ends in catastrophe when a dove is eaten by a hawk because she lured them to the same place.

But Tina gets a new appreciation for bird watching when she sees a crow using a stick to get its meal, and the park ranger is excited to see a new spark of passion for the hobby emerge. The lesson learned here is that it's okay to slow down, to enjoy the experience of learning something new, rather than just doing it for a badge, in quest of a particular award. I think this is such a good lesson for people to learn, including (maybe especially including) adults. You don't need to achieve greatness, as long as you are content with the little day to day adventures of your life.

I like Bob's supportive father role, he feels very much the way I would want to be as a parent. I'd be anxious about getting caught just like him, but it's wonderful that he doesn't put his foot down or take away Tina's excitement for something just because she's straying off the beaten path with it.

So that's that! RIP to that poor eaten dove, but yay for Tina learning some new things and deciding to continue with the ThunderGirls at a more sedate pace!

8/10