Bob's Burgers: Tube for Tina (16x07)

Awww, look at Linda being so supportive of her daughter. We love to see it.

Cons:

I don't think I have anything to complain about other than that I would have loved to see some of the Boyz 4 Now movie, that would have been a hoot.

Pros:

The subplot on this one involves an unfortunate bird that slams into the window of the restaurant and dies shortly after. Louise, Gene, and Bob go to Teddy's to bury it in his backyard, and then they find out that the bird was someone's pet, so they have to go with her to dig up the remains. One thing I liked about this one was how relatively few twists there actually were in the story? Like, I kind of expected once the lady saw the dead bird she'd be like, "oh, that isn't Zeus" and the whole thing would be for naught, or that the guy who knows about birds would show up and cause shenanigans or try to claim that this rare bird deserved to be in a museum or I don't know what else. Sometimes full chaos levels are fun, other times it's nice when a story takes the trajectory you more or less expect from it. Poor Phyllis having her conversation with Zeus at the end... I know it's meant to be funny but I got genuinely sad thinking about dead pets. :(

The main plot features Tina wanting a tube top to wear to a movie about Boyz 4 Now with her friends. Linda tries to act like her only objection to it is the money, and then is trapped when Tina decides to go back and buy the tube top with her own savings. Linda doesn't feel like she can put her foot down now, but she hates the tube top and doesn't want Tina to wear it. When it goes missing, Tina is sure her mom had something to do with it! Eventually they find out it accidentally went with the donation clothes, and they are forced to buy it back from Edith, who has already snagged it.

There was a lot to love about this: I liked that Tina's confidence wasn't shaken by her mom's doubts, I like that she knew what she wanted and stuck to it. And I like that Linda has this genuine emotional response to what Tina is wearing but she is wrestling with that response because she knows that's actually regressive of her. She doesn't want Tina to be embarrassed, and she has some built-in programming that basically tells her "tube tops are slutty". But she fights the urge; her dislike of the shirt isn't more important than Tina feeling beautiful in her own skin. I loved the moment when she says that she was ashamed of her furry belly and Edith just goes, "oh, you mean your human body, you idiot?" that was the perfect line.

So yeah, this was a fun one! We love to see Tina putting herself out there and growing in confidence, and we love Linda being a supportive mom even when she's struggling a bit!

8.5/10