Bob’s Burgers, "The Land Ship", (6.2) - TV Review

October 11th, 2015, 7:30 PM, FOX

The city’s annual Land Ship celebration parade stirs excitement in Bob – who presumes he’s going to get a business boost from the festival thanks to a rerouted gas line - until he leans two porta a potties will be parked right in front of the restaurant during the festival and then he must wage a one-man battle against the city to get them moved. Meanwhile Tina tries to change her image when her friends say she’s boring by tracking down and then following Jordan Kagan, the kid behind Ghost Boy, an anonymous graffiti-scribbler who’s been busy tagging the school and town with his signature spirit. As Tina starts losing sleep she nonetheless enjoys her rebellion, and Jordan’s affection, but must wage the ultimate battle with her Girl Scout instincts when Jordan decides to tag the mast of the Land Ship with the biggest Ghost Boy yet.

“The Land Ship” starts off with a charming bang, spotlighting both the origin of the festival and displaying easily what a goody-goody Tina can be. The plot spawns quite brilliantly from there, with Tina trying to live dangerously and enjoy her partner in crime’s weird smooching style (Jordan himself is quite a brilliant character, ridiculous and filled with overweening, awkward lover and rebellion). But the show remains quite aware that she’s a good girl, trying to fit in with her peers while trying to properly rebel against them and be seen as naughty and dangerous. The balance is quite hilariously out of whack here, and she remains relatable, funny, and appealing all the way through the entire tagging saga. Louise’s determination and Gene’s free-floating silliness add the perfect amount of spice to her romantic saga – and in the end there’s a re-appeared by Jimmy Junior that

Then there’s her parents plot: Bob and his Sisyphean struggle against the world around him, which is ever determined to smoosh him under its heel. In a lot of ways this revisits a typical tenant of the show; Bob struggling mightily against the slings and arrows of the world, against a grinding system that wants to use and throw him away. Bob’s response is stubbornness until the object refuses to yield, at what. It’s a theme the show’s visited repeatedly and yet to this day it continues to work and provide funny, wonderful stories. This week’s episode is rather lathered in poop jokes, but the charm of the episode in general makes it tolerable, as dose Bob’s eventual victory over the immovable object of his nightmares.

. The Land Ship is for anyone who’s ever had a strange home town with a quirky little backstory and odd traditions, and it’s for anyone who’s ever pushed against the odds to make a little headway – and for those who realized where their own personal limits lie and keep themselves carefully within them. It’s for people who wear smokey eyeliner to a porta-a-potty moving ceremony, and it’s for people who see the value in the ridiculous. In short – it’s another wonderful and well worth watching episode of Bob’s Burgers that will rock your world like a ship crashing into a sandbar.

Origin of the Land Ship Festival: Patience Ledbottom, a young girl wracked with tuberculosis during the war of 1812, made the successful suggestion to move the town’s sole warship onto land and rock it manually, forcing the British to misjudge the shoreline and crash their forces into it, leading to the troops’ slaughter and the town’s survival.

”I didn’t know cholera made you old and boring and a man!”

Tina has apparently been sneaking into the boys’ locker room, because of course she has.

This week’s credit gags: Building Next Door: Resisting A Rest Sleep Therapy, Truck: The MiceAnthrop Pest Control Chalkboard: You Can’t Fight City Challah Burger (on a Challah bread bun) Credits: the sailors and float riders from the parade appear and sing a sea chantey in the restaurant.

The original landing site of the Landship was at the Fashion City Outlet Mall.

That’s like the fourth bowl of something you’ve fallen asleep in!”

”YOU’RE JOINING AEROSMITH!?”

”We’re like Bonnie and Clyde!” “Didn’t they get shot at the end of that movie?” “Uh, uou should say ‘spoiler’ before revealing the end of the movie…” The joke pays off brilliantly when it turns out Gene doesn’t know anything about the fate of the famous bankrobbers either.

Nathan Fielder appears once again as Jordan. He previously voiced Beefsquatch in the same-named episode.

Only Linda would decide that she needs to wear a ‘smoky eye’ to the clandestine midnight porta potty moving.

This is one of many episodes centered on a town-specific festival solely created for the series, quite fitting since Bob’s Burgers is set in a seaside town that relies on outside tourism, like an Atlantic City or Plymouth Massachusetts. The others include Lobsterfest, taffy and the chalk art festival.

”They won. The port-a-potties won, Bobby. Come to bed.”

“Y’know what these port-a-potties smell like?! CHA CHING!”

NEXT WEEK: Louise makes the mistake of telling the family she’s never been scared before, which encourages the whole family to take a more-frightening-than-anticipated trip to a haunted house in “The Hauntening”.

9.8 MASTERFUL

A darn near perfect episode. Great jokes, good morals.