Welcome to TV Recap, in which we look at modern shows and analyze them on an episode-to-episode basis. This one focuses on the cartoon sitcom Bob's Burgers, a very funny show that is capable of rivaling old school Simpsons in terms of irreverent humor and off the wall zaniness. With a cast of modern alternative comedian heroes, the story follows the Belchers as they run a burger joint. Join me as I take part in dissecting the show in its first full season. Check back on Tuesdays for the next exciting installment.
One of the high points of last season was that Bob's Burgers managed to redo the Halloween concept to near perfection by parodying the Warriors in "Full Bars." The question, if they chose to go through with it, was how do you top or let alone match the amazing success that was that episode? Sure enough, "Fort Night" proves that the satire well for the series is deep, and once again they take on Halloween in clever, brilliant ways that make me glad that this show got expanded to a full season. In fact, this potential annual tradition may end up being more successful than recent Treehouse of Horror episodes and maybe on par with Community's. But I digress to focus on yet another masterpiece in Bob's Burgers cannon with "Fort Night" and the introduction of psychopathic Millie (Molly Shannon).
The episode begins with the Belcher children at Wagstaff Middle School. Tina (Dan Mintz) is getting worried that as she goes from tween to teen that she will no longer enjoy Halloween. Darryl (Aziz Ansari) has a map planned out of houses to hit called the Candy Trail. Louise (Kristen Schaal) is worried that her friend Millie is going to ruin things. Millie is an overenthusiastic girl who seems overly obsessed with Louise and wants to dress up as dust and a bunny for Halloween. As they prepare for the trip in store with Gene (Eugene Mirman), Andy (Sarah Silverman), and Ollie (Laura Silverman), they decide to stop by a fort for some supplies.
The fort is located around the corner from the Bob's Burgers restaurant, where Bob (Jon Benjamin) and Linda (John Roberts) are busy making a costume for the Belcher kids. It is a dragon covered in sequins and with fins going down the back. This helps the capacity for multiple people to dress up. Bob is growing tired of it, but Linda claims that it is important for them to make their kids costumes. Teddy (David Herman) even chimes in with Mort (Andy Kindler) to get it done, but finds that they are low on supplies.
At the fort, the kids get ready for a fun night while getting a tour of the place. A two story building with rooms for each of the kids, it is an impressive dig with doors and drawn on furniture. While inside, a moving truck backs over the fort, blocking the exit and placing the tail bed over the roof, as to not allow any exit. With everyone stuck inside, Millie discovers this and takes advantage of the situation. She throws fake spiders inside and even blocks the exit that is found in the neighboring trash can, which has rotted a hole into the fort.
She is on top of things and closes the roof. Darryl reveals that he ratted them out and that he just wanted to get out. The kids finally see an exit when they discover that there is a button on the side of the truck. With a wire coat hanger, they manage to press a button only to realize that it lowers the tail bed even further. In the process of exiting after the truck creates a hole, Ollie loses his shoes.
Bob gets sequins from the store from a reluctant old shop keep. Finishing the design, they decide to go looking for the kids, who they figured stopped by the fort. Millie says that they went trick or treating without a costume, which leads them to go door to door in the dragon costume. It becomes embarrassing when everyone notices them.
With the kids now out of the fort, they run into the streets and attempt to find candy. This backfires when all of the house lights are turned off and there is nowhere to go. Halloween is gone. Tina's faith in the season is restored and she looks forward to next year. Millie returns to the fort to discover that Ollie's shoes are in the form of a suggestive position of a crushed child. Abusing the design of the alley that the fort is in, the Belcher kids decide to make pretend to be ghosts to mess with Millie. Bob and Linda got more candy than the kids, though they never explain why that is.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Here is what makes this particular Bob's Burgers a pinnacle episode in the satirical genre. Yes, "Full Bars" set the entry level a little high, but instead of going after similar tropes, they decided to attack something different: the haunted house. The only difference is that the house isn't haunted, they are just stuck in a fort with no way of getting out. The tropes play out in similar fashion as a haunted house, but through the conventions of the horror subgenre. It is almost made more sadistic and fun by Millie.
While I find the general idea that the kids being stuck underneath a truck in such manner to be ludicrous, I do think it is fine once you get into the heart of the episode. These are kids wanting candy, and to be trapped away from candy almost feels too mean. I notably love the way that the fort plays as a character, slowly revealing pointless problems. Darryl is a snitch, and that means nothing in the long run, but it does raise tension, and with the lack of payoff, it makes it all the more rewarding. It is almost like the show is punishing everyone by Darryl's misstep.
Of course, the real surprise of this episode is Millie, who was suspicious from moment one. Her voice is hear before she is seen, which is almost always a mythic way to present a villain. It is hard to fully conceive of a child going full on dark from light hearted in an episode, but this comes pretty close. From the rabbit costume that suggests too much Louise obsession to her actual plan, it was all kind of brilliant. When she licked candy outside of the fort and managed to keep them locked in, it also turned into a tale of captivity that felt a little too surreal. It was just as much a predator movie as it was about the fort, and that is a brilliant dynamic.
Of course, the other payoff at the end is how it managed to play out just like a haunted house movie. The final act has to involve the house's destruction, and sure enough it does. After teasing us with imagery of people talking through walls and spiders harming kids, the payoff comes with the destruction of the fort. Not by the hands of Millie, but by a wire coat hanger. Even if you know that they escape, the stakes are high and the final moment of freedom is met in ways that almost feel like a recollection of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The world is scary and different, almost isolated. It is madness and Halloween is ruined! It is interesting and rather audacious for them to tackle Halloween without actually placing the kids in the position of celebrating Halloween.
I even like the parents story. Last season saw them take on a less interesting story involving bad costumes and awkward party situations. Here, they are forced to make a costume that will never be worn. I love the dedication of the parents as they try and make it work but essentially end up wearing it just so that they don't feel like their efforts are wasted. True, it does leave to question what happened to the trick or treaters who went to Bob's Burgers, but it was still great to see Bob eagerly trying to make the costume work. I also like to think him dropping the sequins in the street was another slight nod to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, though I will settle with the story just being a great haunted house story.
The dynamics worked in this episode not only because of the satire, but because it managed to show cooperation at its finest. Louise being in charge of strategy was rather impressive and while Millie managed to block things at every turn, the laughs were high. I enjoyed the return of Darryl as well, who probably remains one of the better underused characters in the series. I just wonder if they plan to do this with every holiday again. It would feel redundant, but if it is half as great as "Fort Night," we may be open to some exceptions.
The episode begins with the Belcher children at Wagstaff Middle School. Tina (Dan Mintz) is getting worried that as she goes from tween to teen that she will no longer enjoy Halloween. Darryl (Aziz Ansari) has a map planned out of houses to hit called the Candy Trail. Louise (Kristen Schaal) is worried that her friend Millie is going to ruin things. Millie is an overenthusiastic girl who seems overly obsessed with Louise and wants to dress up as dust and a bunny for Halloween. As they prepare for the trip in store with Gene (Eugene Mirman), Andy (Sarah Silverman), and Ollie (Laura Silverman), they decide to stop by a fort for some supplies.
The fort is located around the corner from the Bob's Burgers restaurant, where Bob (Jon Benjamin) and Linda (John Roberts) are busy making a costume for the Belcher kids. It is a dragon covered in sequins and with fins going down the back. This helps the capacity for multiple people to dress up. Bob is growing tired of it, but Linda claims that it is important for them to make their kids costumes. Teddy (David Herman) even chimes in with Mort (Andy Kindler) to get it done, but finds that they are low on supplies.
At the fort, the kids get ready for a fun night while getting a tour of the place. A two story building with rooms for each of the kids, it is an impressive dig with doors and drawn on furniture. While inside, a moving truck backs over the fort, blocking the exit and placing the tail bed over the roof, as to not allow any exit. With everyone stuck inside, Millie discovers this and takes advantage of the situation. She throws fake spiders inside and even blocks the exit that is found in the neighboring trash can, which has rotted a hole into the fort.
She is on top of things and closes the roof. Darryl reveals that he ratted them out and that he just wanted to get out. The kids finally see an exit when they discover that there is a button on the side of the truck. With a wire coat hanger, they manage to press a button only to realize that it lowers the tail bed even further. In the process of exiting after the truck creates a hole, Ollie loses his shoes. Bob gets sequins from the store from a reluctant old shop keep. Finishing the design, they decide to go looking for the kids, who they figured stopped by the fort. Millie says that they went trick or treating without a costume, which leads them to go door to door in the dragon costume. It becomes embarrassing when everyone notices them.
With the kids now out of the fort, they run into the streets and attempt to find candy. This backfires when all of the house lights are turned off and there is nowhere to go. Halloween is gone. Tina's faith in the season is restored and she looks forward to next year. Millie returns to the fort to discover that Ollie's shoes are in the form of a suggestive position of a crushed child. Abusing the design of the alley that the fort is in, the Belcher kids decide to make pretend to be ghosts to mess with Millie. Bob and Linda got more candy than the kids, though they never explain why that is.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Here is what makes this particular Bob's Burgers a pinnacle episode in the satirical genre. Yes, "Full Bars" set the entry level a little high, but instead of going after similar tropes, they decided to attack something different: the haunted house. The only difference is that the house isn't haunted, they are just stuck in a fort with no way of getting out. The tropes play out in similar fashion as a haunted house, but through the conventions of the horror subgenre. It is almost made more sadistic and fun by Millie.
While I find the general idea that the kids being stuck underneath a truck in such manner to be ludicrous, I do think it is fine once you get into the heart of the episode. These are kids wanting candy, and to be trapped away from candy almost feels too mean. I notably love the way that the fort plays as a character, slowly revealing pointless problems. Darryl is a snitch, and that means nothing in the long run, but it does raise tension, and with the lack of payoff, it makes it all the more rewarding. It is almost like the show is punishing everyone by Darryl's misstep.
Of course, the real surprise of this episode is Millie, who was suspicious from moment one. Her voice is hear before she is seen, which is almost always a mythic way to present a villain. It is hard to fully conceive of a child going full on dark from light hearted in an episode, but this comes pretty close. From the rabbit costume that suggests too much Louise obsession to her actual plan, it was all kind of brilliant. When she licked candy outside of the fort and managed to keep them locked in, it also turned into a tale of captivity that felt a little too surreal. It was just as much a predator movie as it was about the fort, and that is a brilliant dynamic.
Of course, the other payoff at the end is how it managed to play out just like a haunted house movie. The final act has to involve the house's destruction, and sure enough it does. After teasing us with imagery of people talking through walls and spiders harming kids, the payoff comes with the destruction of the fort. Not by the hands of Millie, but by a wire coat hanger. Even if you know that they escape, the stakes are high and the final moment of freedom is met in ways that almost feel like a recollection of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The world is scary and different, almost isolated. It is madness and Halloween is ruined! It is interesting and rather audacious for them to tackle Halloween without actually placing the kids in the position of celebrating Halloween.
I even like the parents story. Last season saw them take on a less interesting story involving bad costumes and awkward party situations. Here, they are forced to make a costume that will never be worn. I love the dedication of the parents as they try and make it work but essentially end up wearing it just so that they don't feel like their efforts are wasted. True, it does leave to question what happened to the trick or treaters who went to Bob's Burgers, but it was still great to see Bob eagerly trying to make the costume work. I also like to think him dropping the sequins in the street was another slight nod to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, though I will settle with the story just being a great haunted house story.
The dynamics worked in this episode not only because of the satire, but because it managed to show cooperation at its finest. Louise being in charge of strategy was rather impressive and while Millie managed to block things at every turn, the laughs were high. I enjoyed the return of Darryl as well, who probably remains one of the better underused characters in the series. I just wonder if they plan to do this with every holiday again. It would feel redundant, but if it is half as great as "Fort Night," we may be open to some exceptions.
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