Bob's Burgers: Saving Favorite Drive-In (15x02)

This was a fun one!

Cons:

I expected there to be a punchline to Teddy bringing his sleeping mother: at fist I thought it wasn't actually her, just a doll he'd set up so it didn't seem like he was coming alone, or something. But then we find out that she woke up and Teddy runs off to avoid her. I don't know, could have used a bit more with this one.

Pros:

I thought all three Belcher family plots were excellent! It's always a joy to see Bob getting passionate and excited about something. The flashbacks to teenage Bob and the girl he had one magical might of talking to, were really sweet, and gave an emotional grounding to why he wants to save the drive-in. He then actually follows through with a plan and has a decent idea with the help of the kid running the concession stand. Sure, in the end it turns out that the owner of the drive-in doesn't want to save it, and that Bob's memories will have to live on after the drive-in is closed... but it's still sweet that he put in all the effort!

Linda gets in trouble for talking about a woman behind her back, accidentally texting a rude message to the group chat she's involved in, instead of the group chat she's not in. She has a crisis about this, tries to find ways to wiggle around it, but ultimately takes a phone call from the woman and talks it out, vowing to stop gossiping from now on. I liked that the rest of the family was willing to be a sounding board for Linda in her distress, but that ultimately she just had to buckle down and take the L on this one.

My favorite subplot this week I think was actually the one with the three kids. Tina has leftover holiday candy to share with her siblings during the movie, but she lords it over them and institutes a bunch of rules. When Louise and Gene sneak a sweet, they then have to hide their blue tongues from Tina to avoid being found out! I just loved the flip from the usual sibling dynamic here. It's pretty rare on this show to have Tina really seem like the big sister who you're kind of afraid will be mad at you. Louise and Gene both being genuinely remorseful about eating Tina's favorite candy without realizing it was also funny. She got to torment them a bit before revealing that she'd known of their guilt all along. She forgives them and the candy sharing commences. This is one of those rare occasions in which Tina gets to win out over Louise's scheming, but it was also a relatively gentle and not at all mean-spirited conflict between them.

That's all for now! This one was a real winner for me.

9/10