Review: Bob’s Burgers “Every Which Way But Goose”

Jimmy Jr.’s goose is cooked.

Overview (Spoilers Below!) 

The eighth graders got to suggest themes for this year’s dance. Tina proposed Night of the Living Dance, a zombie-themed event based on one of her finest erotic friend fictions. She’s thrilled when her theme is actually picked, but there’s one small problem: Jimmy Jr. hasn’t asked her to the dance yet.

Tina begs Gene and Louise to cover for her at the restaurant while she works on the dance planning committee; in exchange, Tina must clean the restaurant bathroom every night of the week. After some needling from Tina, Jimmy Jr. admits that he’s not going to the dance. Tina wanders away from school and finds a goose in a park, and she rattles off her woes to him. When she’s done venting, though, Bruce the Goose still follows her.

Jimmy Jr. wants to talk to Tina, but she’s still furious; she skips dance committee and heads to the park to talk to Bruce. When Louise gets on her case for not cleaning the bathroom, Tina tells her family that she quit the committee.

Meanwhile, Gretchen is glum because her family has asked her to bring a “nice” guy to her sister’s wedding. Linda sets her up an account on the wholesome dating website Perfect Pair, but Gretchen wants to find a guy on Fun Buddy. While Gretchen goes on boring date after boring date, Tina spends all her time with Bruce. Bob makes Louise and Gene clean the disgusting bathroom.

Tina is full of misanthropic rage. Even worse, her family reads her latest erotic friend fiction: a romance between her and Bruce. Louise and Gene confront Jimmy Jr., and he admits that he can’t go to the dance because he pulled a butt muscle. Linda hacks into Gretchen’s account and asks one of her dates to the wedding. Louise and Gene head to the park and trap Bruce in a cardboard box. Gretchen ends her friendship with Linda.

Gene and Louise take Tina to the dance, but she’s too numb to care—until Bruce bursts into the gym and gets stuck on the bleachers! In the end, Linda asks Gretchen to her sister’s wedding as friends. Despite his butt injury, Jimmy Jr. climbs up onto the bleachers to free Bruce. Tina dumps Bruce and he immediately finds a new goose girlfriend.

Our Take

What a bizarre premise for an episode—but it’s all so very Tina.

Honestly, when we first met Bruce, I was sure that Tina was going to take him to the dance as her date, so I appreciate that the story took a turn I wasn’t expecting (although Tina dancing with a goose in the gym, with him wearing a little bowtie, would be pretty darn entertaining slash disturbing). The idea of Tina getting fixated on some new weird boyfriend stand-in is hardly new (see: Tina and the Real Ghost), but the specifics of this episode are just too weird to feel old-hat. Tina wrote an erotic romance about having babies with a goose? That’s messed up in the best possible way.

Yet for once this season, I think I actually enjoyed the B plot even more than the A plot. The Gretchen and Linda scenes are chock-full of absolutely hilarious dialogue. Here’s some of my favorite gems:

• “Aw, Gretchen, why so droopy?” “I’m not wearing a bra.” “No, your frowny face!”
• Teddy is going to see an Australian all-male review called the Digeree Dudes
• “Software engineer? Talk to me when you’re a hardware engineer.”
• One of Gretchen’s potential dates on Fun Buddy is wearing a tank top with the nipples cut out. He refers to this iconic look as his “pepperoni”
• “Is he on the toilet? He’s being funny. I think. I’m gonna send him a message!”
• “He looks like if a banana were a person!”

Perhaps I’m so invested in this plot because, in a season mostly populated by narratives about the kids navigating school life, it’s interesting to explore a more adult storyline for a change, utilizing the unique potential of specifically adult animation. Online dating apps are populated by plenty of creeps and weirdos—making this a relatable scene, I’m sure, for many female viewers trying out the waters of online dating in real life. Then what makes this scene so original? Why, Gretchen is desperate for a creep—she can’t stand kind, upstanding men who respect boundaries. She’s wild and intense and very sexual, and she can’t handle a man who isn’t going to go just as hard. I can’t remember the last time I saw a female character on a TV show who was just allowed to be gross and creepy and weird, and it lends the show some originality for sure.

There’s also a lovely message behind the Gretchen story-line—that you shouldn’t try to force the people around you to conform to your idea of what a happy life should look like. Maybe Gretchen never wants to settle down with a nice man and get married. Maybe she just wants to sleep around forever, and that’s fine. It’s lovely that Gretchen’s story ended in friendship and solidarity rather than being forced to become something she’s not to please her family. Once again, Bob’s Burgers presents a universal moral that many people, I’m sure, could learn a thing or two from.

The A plot’s underlying message is a little more confusing. It seems to be that you shouldn’t swear off human contact and run away with your secret bestiality lover when things get tough, but I somehow imagine that one’s a little less universally relatable. It’s not that interesting to watch Tina vent to Bruce, but there are some truly funny moments here as well—for example, Gene calling Tina’s story about Bruce “hot” and then claiming he can “still taste” the bathroom he had to clean. I especially enjoyed a bit where Tina’s school receptionist acted like a lettuce E. coli scare is a ridiculous fantasy—hitting a little close to home with that one, aren’t you, Bob’s Burgers?

At times, the animation in this episode is a little wonky—Gretchen’s eyes appear to bulge out of her head, and her facial expressions can be pretty distorted when she’s in profile. But it’s great how the two subplots follow the same main theme—just two girls out here trying to get a date—and they’re both delivered with the signature Bob’s Burgers heartfelt wit.