Review: Bob’s Burgers  “Don’t Worry Be Hoopy”

Overview

Tina must confront her fear and her past when she advances to the County Finals of a national free throw competition

Our Take

This week’s episode of Bob’s Burgers is a fun one largely focused on Tina advancing to a County competition for best free throws. Naturally she got there shooting granny shots but we don’t know if she wins or not because we spend most of the episode watching Tina get talked up from multiple vantage points.

The premise of this week’s episode was fine, I just found the execution lacking in that gene se qua that makes a solid Bob’s Burgers episode into an elite episode. For starters, while the flashbacks were pretty straightforward, a couple of them progressed into imaginary flashforwards but with no real difference in aesthetic which to me seems like an opportunity. I don’t know if this was a director Ryan Mattos decision or because it wasn’t in the Lindsey Stoddart-written script but I would’ve liked to have seen the episode deploy some Better Call Saul season six magic and really show a good discernation between the two, with a potential for even more of a differentiation as Tina is talking to her younger selves.

In any event, the episode devolves into more of just a rather standard competition episode but with a twist that features the show’s most endearing quality, a nice moral to the story. A lot could have been done to make this week’s episode a much more ambitious piece, but I guess we’re nearing the end of the season and even show producers need a dip in the pool.