Review: Bob’s Burgers “The Hurt Soccer”

Bob and Louise join forces (and a soccer team) in the best episode of season eight yet!

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Belcher kids don’t play team sports, but it’s not for lack of Bob and Linda trying. After signing Louise up for youth soccer, they forget about it until the final game, when the team needs her most. Needless to say, it’s a struggle to convince her to go. (“Do you think Louise would like to play on a soccer team?” Linda asks. “Have you met Louise?” Bob replies.) Bob really doesn’t want to go, either, but he loses a thumb war to Linda. To his surprise, he is thrust into the position of the head coach once they arrive at the field. Tina tags along and immediately throw herself into the role of assistant coach. The team gets slaughtered, but not before Louise decides that her teammates, those “brave little idiots”, deserve to score at least one goal in their entire season. In a heart-thumping final sequence, Louise uses a wrestling move and allows her teammate to gently nudge the ball into the opponent’s goal.

Meanwhile, back at the restaurant, Linda and Gene live out their dream of running a Mom/Son musical piano bar. Amidst all the singing and piano-playing, they even manage to resolve a heated dispute between two community theatre veterans.

Our Take:

Wow! It’s not that the rest of this season has been lacking until now, but this episode really blew me away with how wonderful it turned out. We’ve seen Louise and Bob episodes before, and they’re usually some of the best the show has to offer, so a high bar was set coming in. Thankfully, some hilarious side characters and a great premise combine with the typical mixture of clever jokes and the Belcher family’s chemistry to produce what I’m calling the best episode of season eight so far.

Parents signing up their kids for youth sports is a time-honored tradition, and I’m glad to see the Belcher take on it. The entire set-up is very funny (Louise’s sarcasm being mistaken by Linda for enthusiasm) and somewhat ambiguous (Louise did sound almost too sarcastic – like maybe she wanted to try it out?). By the end of the episode, Louise may not have enjoyed her time in the sun, but she didn’t hate every moment. I love how Bob was thrown into the spotlight as well. Seeing Louise repeat his own words back at him (finger mustache and all) was spot-on.

What puts it even more over the top is that literally none of the Belcher’s know anything about soccer. (Except for maybe Tina, who at least knows that it’s called a soccer ‘field’. “What are we, farmers?” a bewildered Bob responds.) Speaking of Tina, her moments as a dedicated assistant coach were some of the best of the episode. I pretty much died when she slapped the previous coach’s butt during the post-game losing celebration. There were a lot of literal laugh-out-loud scenes, from Gene and Linda’s manager meeting to Bob’s feeble attempts at taking care of his team. (Should I live with my mom or my dad?” one of the players asks him. “Whichever you feel most safe with,” he responds at the end.)

An entertaining and unique premise? Check. Great character moments and extremely funny lines? Double check. Toss in some nods to creator Loren Bouchard’s previous project Home Movies and you’ve got a recipe for success. The Hurt Soccer is a masterful showcase of everything that makes Bob’s work: an oddball family thrown into relatable situations with a little twist.