Bob's Burgers: Dad-urday Kite Fever (15x20)

Not sure why two episodes aired in the same week, but I'm not complaining!

Cons:

I feel like I say this a lot on this show, but could have used a bit of resolution on the subplot! Teddy figures out a way to say "lawnmower" by imitating Linda's voice, which was funny, but I wanted to hear him actually say it for the play!

Pros:

This was a Bob episode, and we got to dive into a bit of his psyche here. His father shows up with a kite that was bought after Bob's mom died, but that they never actually flew together. Time to correct that record with the kids! But when they go out to fly a kite, it gets away from Bob and sends him on a grand adventure, where he ends up teaming up with various bikers from the community that are helping him on his journey.

This is one of those plots where you would never guess where it was going when it started out: I assumed there would be kite shenanigans with the kids, and then the kite was gone. Then I assumed Bob would end up a wayward wanderer, constantly getting farther and farther from home, but nope: Critter runs into him at the train station and gets him going back the right direction pretty quick. The obstacles keep changing: now it's that Critter has beef with someone he sees on the train, over coveted spots in school for their preschoolers. The chaos continues until Bob is jumping into the water to chase after his poor kite, while Snakebite the biker gives family therapy advice about being there for your his kids.

I had a big grin on my face through all of this. Lots of genuinely funny moments, like Bob saying he doesn't have the thighs for biking, the kids playing lighter tricks with their grandpa, the details about the various schools the biker's children were going to. But I also loved it for it's "message" as trite as that might sound. The kite came to symbolize something about the quality time Bob was failing to spend with his kids, but that baggage actually doesn't really apply to him. He does make time for his kids, he is available to them. He has some stuff to work out with his dad about their relationship, but that's its own thing.

So yeah, another winner of an episode - two good ones today!

8.5/10