Good news: until December 14, Bob’s Burgers is on a regular weekly schedule.
Unfortunately, the show’s fifth season hasn’t gotten to its first classic episode yet. The premiere, “Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl” was ambitious, but not hugely funny. “Tina and the Real Ghost,” meanwhile, was very funny, but didn’t really do anything new (it was also undercut by a boring subplot).
Now, “Friends with Burger-fits” is somewhere in between the two, an episode with a good amount of charming and funny moments, but that also tries to do too much.
The episode begins with Teddy recounting his recent doctor visit, in which the doctor tells him that his cholesterol is off the charts due to him eating a burger every day. While Teddy isn’t fazed by this news, Bob is worried—and, worse, feeling guilty about contributing to his poor health. He tries to sneak in a veggie burger, but Teddy (obviously) can tell the difference. He then cuts off Teddy from the burgers completely, resulting in an angry, violent reaction—“Bob, if you take your burgers from me, I will murder you and your mouthy wife.”
I like the portrayal of the normally sweet Teddy as having an almost meth-level addiction to burgers, especially when it gets to the point where he’s paying a stranger $300 to buy him a burger. Also interesting is Bob, whose genuine care for Teddy comes out in the form of guilt, even though he can’t admit that Teddy is his best friend. His best friend is apparently somebody named Walter Russo, who we’ve never met and he hasn’t spoken to in six years. Teddy, on the other hand, is merely his “best customer.”
It’s realistic for Bob to not want to admit that his best friend is a customer in his restaurant. As Linda said in the season three episode “The Unnatural,” “He doesn’t like to talk about his feelings. He’s all stunted inside like a big dumb man.” Teddy, meanwhile, is too open with his feelings, to the point where he responds in an outwardly enthusiastic manner when Bob, trying to help him become more healthy, refers to him as his best friend.
The episode’s focus on Bob and Teddy’s friendship is definitely sweet, even if where it leads—the two of them going to a stuntman boot camp—isn’t particularly satisfying. There’s also the typical moment where Teddy has his heart broken after he overhears Bob admitting that he doesn’t consider him his best friend. While Teddy having his feelings hurt is a sad moment, this is too common a plot point to have the full impact that it should. In the end, when Bob admits that, technically, Teddy is his best friend, it’s a bit more effective, just because of how well Bob’s Burgers handles sentiment.
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The b-plot involving the kids turning the freezer into an ice rink is actually better than the episode’s main story, and it only gets better when Linda—who steals the episode—gets involved.
“Friends with Burger-fits” isn’t the great episode the season needs to really take off, but it does show that the series is still incredibly funny, even in its less memorable episodes.
Rating: 6/10
Memorable moments:
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My favorite moment in “Friends with Burger-fits”: the kids all getting into their parents’ bed with Linda after Bob leaves early. So simple, but an extremely cute scene that shows how close the family is—Bob’s Burgers excels at those kinds of moments.
“I should have worn my higher socks. You guys call them pants.”
“Oh my god! They’re doing drugs to each other!”
Linda’s best friend song is an instant classic: “You feed him soup when he breaks his jaw/You help him pee when he has that thing/He’s your best friend!”
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“That’s what killed the dinosaurs. That’s awful.”
“He has the biggest heart of anyone I know, both because he’s incredibly sweet, but also because it’s full of cholesterol.”
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