Review: Bob’s Burgers “Butt Sweat and Fears”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Tina gets ready for a dance in hopes of slow dancing with Jimmy Jr, while the rest of the Belchers and Teddy end up making a basement of the restaurant that becomes a chic new underground hang out spot until they find bark beetle egg sacks within the wood and have to throw it all out.

OUR TAKE

So ends Bob’s Burgers’ shortest season since…wow, 2012! This was the show’s first time dealing with a Writer’s Strike and apparently that translates to frontloading most of the season’s episodes in the Fall and then having like three actually come out this year, each spaced out by a couple months each. As you may remember, the last episode came out in March, with no indication of when or if another episode would be coming out. But come out it did, just in time for the other three big season finales of Animation Domination, AND…it’s just okay. Which is not bad, though very much a step down from the show’s last two season finales. Season 12 had the first two parter in a long while, as well as leading into The Bob’s Burgers Movie, while Season 13 had the emotional sucker punch of “Amelia”, which was already following up the sweetness of “Radio No You Didn’t”, which was one of Paul Reubens’ last performances. Putting that into context ends up not doing this episode no favors, which you may notice since I haven’t even begun talking about the episode itself yet. One really has to wonder if this was simply the best episode script they had on hand to finish, because this is probably the most just okay season finale they’ve had in years.

Also worth pointing out that this season has managed to keep things pretty varied in terms of character focus, since this is the first proper Tina focused episode we’ve gotten here. It’s a bit of a let down that it ends up being partially about Tina’s somehow never ending crush on Jimmy Jr, who still is not even remotely interested in her. Which interestingly, they don’t really hold against him, which they don’t necessarily need to. The episode makes clear that it’s less about him specifically and more about Tina’s consistent anxiety about being in a more mature setting with her peers and that being interfered with by her own butt sweat. There, she also meets another kid who is just as anxious and spends time with him, eventually dancing with him instead to try and guide the both of them out of their anxiety holes. Again, this is a perfectly fine individual episode on its own, but as a season finale, especially in the ranks of recent season finales, it definitely falls short. Also there was the stuff with the family, it’s not really worth mentioning other than the totally wooden version of the restaurant looks neat. See you next season, Belchers, and hopefully without the reminder of how broken the entertainment industry is getting in the way of the show.