Bob's Burgers: Fraud of the Dead: Zombie-docu-pocalypse (14x09)

Okay... this had to have been an episode planned for closer to the end of October, right? So weird how the episodes have been scheduled!

Cons:

Nothing much to complain about, this was great spooky ridiculous fun! The one thing that was a little odd was that the conceit of this scenario is that Gene and Tina don't know Louise, that they are just a documentary crew, and then there were times later in the episode where they continued to reference that they don't know each other. Like, at the end, Tina calls Bob and Linda "your parents" when talking to Louise, as if she's still being the documentary crew and not herself. That feels like a bit of a muddled premise to me, I would have loved to do a bit more with it.

Pros:

On the other hand, maybe I should eat my words and say that the muddled premise ultimately added to the comedy: I love how high-concept Louise's idea for a movie was, that it starts off as a documentary and then becomes about a zombie apocalypse, so the artifice is that it's a project that gets interrupted by something and that becomes the focus. The end scene with the family reacting was a great capstone, because suddenly when you realize that Louise actually wrote and produced this whole thing, the scope and talent on display is kind of crazy. She got her whole family and so many other people involved, and did it all with nothing other than a couple of cameras being held by her siblings, who also had acting roles in the story.

There are certain things that become more funny when you realize that this whole thing is in fact scripted, like Bob being really reluctant to disassemble the restaurant, but then caving to it because... "this is a zombie apocalypse..." or Linda telling the kids when they go upstairs on their own to keep filming the movie while they hold off the zombies downstairs, "don't go in my room".

I also loved the dedication of Andy, Ollie, Jimmy Jr., Rudy, Mort, and Teddy in their performances, it was so fun to see them all go full-tilt and support Louise in her creative endeavor. There's something honestly heartwarming about this scenario, because it's so ridiculous but we get to see how much of a community these people have built; they'll all show up for each other to help with creativity and fun.

A few stand-out jokes for me:

Rudy saying "it's okay" and "I don't want to be remembered as a complainer" as he's being eaten by zombies was so funny and so in character. It made me wonder if Louise had written that line for him because she knows Rudy so well, or if that was improv on his part.

Same with Tina talking about editing techniques and her "vision" for the project as she realizes she's probably about to be eaten. Is that Tina's artistic integrity, or Louise's writing for how Tina's documentary film crew character would speak? I love the ambiguity of that.

The song was another comedy highlight for me; the meta jokes where Tina asks Louise why she's singing in this documentary, and then the song getting cut off... the fact that this was a joke that Louise wrote into her movie in-universe, as part of her character arc regarding learning how to be an archer... it's all so funny and cute.

I love Louise, so no surprise an episode like this, where she gets to be her zany, creative self, and also go through a bit of a journey of self-discovery, really works for me!

9/10