Review: Bob’s Burgers “The Nightmare 2 Days Before Christmas”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

When Linda accidentally blows a circuit breaker, Mr. Fischoeder puts the Belchers up in a weird hunting lodge for the holidays, but they lose their Christmas Tree on the drive there, eventually finding it in a ravine and giving up. Bob also tries to cover up a horrific painting of a rabbit being disemboweled but gives up on that too after awhile. The kids decide to make their own tree and the Belchers celebrate with that.

OUR TAKE

Bob’s Burgers closes out this year’s batch of episodes with their yearly Christmas special, oddly placed right after their Halloween special, possibly because of so much weirdness with the strikes? This has certainly been an odd year for this show, mainly because said strikes have left it with a bit of a truncated season, but that hasn’t stopped it from having some real stand out episodes thus far, and hopefully with more to come. This one, however, is not all that exceptional. It’s perfectly fine as it is, nothing all that wrong about it. It’s got the awkward humor that the show is known for and Linda’s subplot about losing the tree and accepting letting it go is pretty funny, especially when you consider how she has reacted to losing trees in previous Christmas episodes (even when she picks them out way too early and they dry out). But with that aside, other than Linda, the characters don’t really get much to do or with the setting they’re in. Bob tries to cover up the painting, the kids just kinda do random things around the house while waiting and preparing for Santa, and the episode ends on a wholesome note, but it didn’t really land the same way other Christmas episodes have.

And because the content of this entire episode was only enough to fill one paragraph and I need like another hundred fifty words, this is now about looking back on better Bob’s Burgers Christmas Episodes. Remember the first one that was about the family having a guy stay with them who thought he was a mannequin? Or the one where Bob is chased relentlessly by a truck shaped like a candy cane? Or Louise trying to put on a musical proving she was on the nice list? Or when Bob had to join a gingerbread house making competition? These are all wacky premises on their own certainly, but they always made that wackiness an opportunity for character work and playing into the festiveness of the season. I really do not get what happened here that we ended up with this fruitcake of an episode. Maybe they were going for something a bit more subdued and wanted to draw admittedly pretty looking backgrounds, but if I have to think about this episode critically, all I’m seeing is where it has under-performed where other episodes like it have excelled. But regardless, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, we’ll see the burgers flipping again in 2024.