Review: Bob’s Burgers ‘The Land Ship’

Spoilers Below:

The town was celebrating the anniversary of an important revolutionary war battle with a festival (the Land Ship Parade) and Bob was horrified to find out that port-a-potties would be placed in front of his restaurant during it. He, Linda, and Teddy schemed to move them under cover of night, but were unsuccessful.

The kids’ school was having a problem with graffiti, and Tina discovered who the culprit was, but decided not to turn him in since she was recently made fun of for being too bland. Instead, she decided to join him (a kid named Jordan, voiced by Nathan Fielder) in his mischief. However, Tina was a bit hesitant about his big plan: graffitiing the sail of the symbolic Land Ship, but participated anyway. Feeling guilty, she, Louise, and Gene secretly painted over it afterward. Although Jordan (who had a crush on Tina) was upset when he realized her betrayal at the event, her friends were impressed by her bad streak, and also the fact that she did the right thing in the end – especially Jimmy Jr.

Also, the location of the port-a-potties ended up boosting business at Bob’s Burgers, so everything worked out.

In Case You Missed It:

1) Next door store: Resisting A Rest – Sleep Therapy

2) Burgers of the Day: The Yam Ship Burger (comes with yams), You Can’t Fight City Challah Burger (comes on a Challah roll), Snipwrecked Burger (comes with parsnips),

3) Tina was called a goody two-boots, an unsalted pretzel, and “if school and news had a baby.”

4) Jordan’s potential nicknames: Jor-Jo, J-Jams, and Dan-Jam.

5) Before speeding off and ditching them, Teddy called out: “Love your dress, Linda!”

6) Linda called the kids “my little ship-heads.”

7) The scene with Tina sleeping on Bob’s outstretched hand was one of my favorite extended Bob’s bits of all time.

One of the reasons Bob’s Burgers is a successful show is because although it’s essentially a sketch show (a situation comedy is basically a series of related sketches), it doesn’t feel that way, because the characters and the world in which they live are so complex that you get lost in them. Like The Simpsons, Bob’s has a whole town full of interesting people and places to discover, and a whole slew of traditions that are unique only to their city. We had the Turk-tacular Turkey Town Festival from “Dawn of the Peck,” we saw the Chalk of the Town event in “Eat, Spray, Linda,” we even had Lobsterfest in “Lobsterfest,” and now we get the Land Ship Festival, complete with a fictional history lesson.

In the end, the whole ship event is just a vehicle (ha, get it?) for the Belcher Family’s numerous shenanigans and the writer’s jokes, but it adds to the viewer’s immersion into the story, as the episodes become less interchangeable and the experiences become more like, well, real life.

When you examine the plot, not much really happens. Tina tries to be bad, but she realizes she’s not that person. We actually already saw that with season two’s “Bad Tina.” This was a bit of a different situation, but the themes were the same. And with Bob and Linda’s story, they tried to move the potties a couple different ways, failed every time, but it ended up working out.

So let’s go back to that humor. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the best episodes are the ones that focus on the kids. Not just because the kids are the most entertaining part of the show (Gene was particularly on-point last night with quick little lines like, “Let’s go un-paint the town!” and “Ahh! The British are coming!”) especially when they are getting into mischief, but also because they allow Linda and Bob to have their own story and show their true selves, which often also involve some kind of mischief. This was a great example.

The next best episodes are the Tina-centric ones, which “The Land Ship” started as, but as has happened in the past, Tina ended up needing a little help from her siblings. We kind of got the best of both worlds here.

So after a character changes her personality and has a fling, and others scheme over several days to make a big event successful for them, and we’re along for the whole rollercoaster ride, where does that leave us in the end? Like any good sitcom, right back at the beginning. As always.