Review: Bob’s Burgers “Fight at the Not Okay Chore-ral”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After a talk with her mom, Linda decides to make the kids do chores around the apartment, which naturally gets some pushback. In an attempt to get them to understand, her and Bob tell them a wild west story about the importance of chores, when Louise hijacks it to point out her parents’ hypocrisy in just wanting to impress Mr. Fischoder. But when Linda cries in frustration, she and Louise compromise, so the kids will do chores in exchange for candy.

OUR TAKE

Bob’s Burgers is back once again, this time with a slightly shorter season than normal due to the recently concluded Writers Strike, and what’s a more fitting season premiere episode with that in mind than one about two parties having negotiations about work? I mean, obviously this is a coincidence, since if they wanted to go for an episode about labor strikes, they could very easily just have Louise start a REAL strike at her school or something. Instead, this episode seems to be pretty much just about how hard it can be to get your kids to do chores while also feeling judgment from your own parents on how to BE a parent. Would’ve been nice to actually see the call Linda had with her mom and perhaps get some flashbacks to when her and Gale were kids, but the points are made sufficiently, I guess. Truth be told, Linda has probably been my least favorite of the main cast due to how she acts and takes things way too far, though I realize that is the point of her character and the point of stories focused on her is how to love someone like that, not to change or fix them.

Besides thinking this was going to be another anthology episode where we get three segments about three different settings that all revolve around the importance of chores, I actually feel like this episode missed a pretty important point in having an episode like this: why doing chores CAN be important. I do realize that the purpose of the story was not to actually advocate for chores and a compromise is reached so the kids do end up doing their chores, but I feel like it would’ve gone a long way to actually explain why things like cleaning rooms or taking care of more mundane things around the house is actually productive for living with people. That said, I do say this while my room is actually very disorganized and my bathroom is a war zone, so I do realize my own hypocrisy here, but I just think that having the endpoint being “do your chores or your mother will cry” is not the best way to go out. Or maybe I’m seeing this all wrong, anything’s possible. That said, this season’s not starting on its best foot, I don’t think. Maybe this is an episode that got pushed to the front because they had a lack or just bad luck, but perhaps we’ll get better ones down the road.