I know what you’re thinking right now entering the final five spots of the countdown, it’s two days after Christmas. Why is there a Christmas episode on the list? Christmas has come and gone, why are you talking about this Christmas episode? Well...fuck you, it’s my list. I can do whatever I rank. Entering the top five portion of the countdown and what a way to enter the final five as we soon prepare to say adieu to 2022. Coming in at number five is a last-minute entry that made it to the list and that is Bob’s Burgers with “The Plight Before Christmas”.
Now...this was a last-minute entry into the list leading up to the start of the countdown. Originally, before this episode aired, I had the list ready to go. Supposedly, Episode 7 of Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War with the Ichigo vs Yhwach fight and the twist regarding Ichigo’s lineage was supposed to be the number six spot with The Owl House and “Hollow Mind”, which was yesterday’s spot, was supposed to be at this position. Thought we were ready to go for the countdown. That was before Loren Bouchard decided to cash in with the money in the bank contract and inserts the episode that he teleplay, not written, there’s a difference apparently, into the countdown at the very last minute with this episode. And what an episode it was.
I reviewed it back a few weeks ago and here we go again. This was an amazing episode to close out the year for Bob’s Burgers. And a Christmas episode no less. As I said in the review, I had some concerns about the episode leading up to its airing the night it came out. Mostly because of how Season 13 so far had performed. Look, Season 13 before this episode came out, with the exception of “Show Mama from the Grave” and I guess “What About Job”...it underperformed if I have to keep it 100. Mostly from each episode ranging from below average, borderline average to what is pretty much the equivalent of items being littered across the highway due to a truck falling with the tractor-trailer breaking open or being flipped over. So you could say that I had some concerns about this episode when the press release came out weeks before its initial airing. Especially after how the Halloween and Thanksgiving episodes panned out and how they performed. And here we are with the recent Christmas episode and man, it exceeded my expectations with how it performed.
Especially when the premise of the episode happens to be two parents had to go back and forth to attend three of their kids’ performances in one night. With Gene at school for his sixth-grade performance of playing the xylophone in front of the crowd that he and his peers have to go through with a sub filling in as the conductor, Tina with her Thundergirl troop in front of city hall with her performance, and then, of course, you have Louise at the library with her poem that she is set to read in front of the crowd. And I might as well get that out of the way because it’s the most-talked side plot of the episode that everyone is not going to shut the fuck up about and that is, of course, Louise.
You could say that she may have carried this episode and uh...yeah, that’s one way to put it to describe it. The poem that she’s carrying. The tension and suspense that was building up as Bob ran across town and Linda wanted to leave backstage but being held up in doing costume duty for the Thundergirls...they did not drop the ball. Originally, Louise thought it would be a good idea to just leave her be because the poem she was carrying was going to be about poop and let Bob and Linda attend Tina and Gene’s performances since hers will most likely be going to be Louise being Louise in making a joke with the poop poem. But once Tina put two and two together when noticing that Louise was hiding something after being dropped off at the library, you’re in for a treat this past holiday season. With Tina finding out that Louise wrote a serious poem in her possession and is expected to read it to the audience, with no one in attendance to see it because Bob and Linda agreed with Louise to do what they’re originally planning on doing for the night, that was an “oh shit” moment that no one ever expected when watching this episode.
Sure, Bob and/or Linda not calling in back-up still annoys me when dealing with the mess they’re in on the week before Christmas, on the night when all three of their kids have to do their performances at the same time because that would’ve at least helped with their situation while having their hands tied. But I can see that some people across the community making a valid point in why Bob or Linda didn’t call in either Teddy or Gayle or Big Bob to name a few to help with their situation because it would result in cheapening the moment leading up to the final act of the episode once Louise steps up to the stage to read her poem. And it was already built up with the drama and the suspense with Bob trying to make his way to the library but ending up on the wrong side of town. And Louise being nervous throughout the night as she awaits her turn, you could say that it’s out of character for her to feel nervous because normally, she’s not the type of person who would have butterflies in her stomach and worry about what people think, especially during the holiday season, but the fact that this was being used in this episode to build up the suspense throughout the episode was handled perfectly once her name is called up to close out the third act. I did say that Louise carried the episode with everything that had been played out but let’s not forget the other person who decided to carry it as support.
That being Tina. Coming in to save the night to see her sister’s performance at the lone family member to show her support. Yeah, Linda made it too but that was when the performance was wrapping up. Tina listened to the whole thing from start to finish. And someone had to step up. Linda can’t do it because her hands were tied when doing costume work despite Tina’s calls to get to the library despite Ginny not wanting to do the work by herself when doing the costumes. She didn’t notice that Bob had gone to the wrong side of town, went to the wrong library branch, and decided to throw in the towel and film Gene’s performance (though missed the first half, which wasn’t the kids’ best performance). So Tina has to be the one who steps up to the plate to serve as the family member to see Louise’s performance. Switching places with Harley to don the star costume that she wanted to wear throughout the episode despite the given roles leading up to the night of the performance, but if it means helping the family out by stepping in to see a family member perform, then she did her job.
Listening through the entire poem and as I said from the review a few weeks ago, I’m in the minority where I didn’t bawl my eyes out when seeing and hearing Louise’s poem about having her family around on Christmas morning and opening presents. It doesn’t mean I hate the episode because I didn’t shed a single tear. I had chills going through my body when watching this scene. The moment Linda took off the top of the star costume and revealed to be Harley in the costume and Tina stepped up to see Louise perform was perfect. The song of choice as Louise speaks was beautiful as the scenes go back and forth between the poetry reading and Gene’s performance. The emotion and sentimentality from Louise. Not to mention the visuals and the tone of the final act of the episode...what else to say but pretty fucking amazing. That’s all I have to say about the Louise aspect of the episode.
Though we couldn’t even forget about Gene’s part in the episode because his side with him and his sixth-grade peers are overshadowed by Louise’s poetry. Not a good start for Gene and the others the moment they find out that Merkin would be sent into the IR due to a family emergency and then a health emergency after that, which results in the substitute, Miss Bisslebender, filling in the role...a role that she has no experience in conducting a performance. Which explains why the first half of the performance from the sixth graders became a hot mess as if they don’t know what to do like they were lost at the store.
But leave it to Gene to save the night by coming up with an idea to wow the crowd before the night is over. And you have to give Gene some credit for what he’s doing to save the show. It didn’t downplay the episode. No annoying acts. And you could say that he slowly mastering his craft as a performer, especially right after the events of the movie. Saving his peers and Bisslebender to have a good night and uh...yeah, despite an abysmal first half of the night, it’s Gene to come in to save everything and quite the performance they pulled off, even though the background music isn’t them playing the xylophone in-between this scene and Louise reading her poem. Also, Bisslebender wasn’t too bad of a character. Still think that she’s a one-off character but it’s any given Sunday and there’s a low chance for her to make a return. A low chance but it’s not zero. Anything can happen.
But other than that to describe the episode, other than the ending with the background music doing all of the work without any dialogue from Bob reading the poem while being treated for his bloody knees, Gene showing Merkin the performance that Bob filmed while recovering from surgery, all the way to Christmas Day with the kids opening their presents with Bob and Linda overseeing them as the camera pans away to close out the episode...what else to say other than that this was an amazing episode. And what an episode to close out 2022 for the show.
I know that y’all are giving me the stink eye for why an episode that I gave out a 10 out of 10 rating be this low on the list despite giving out the positive notes being thrown into the post. But can you blame this year for an active year where most episodes from most shows going mental without giving any one of us a warning on what is about to come. But besides that, it’s a pretty damn good episode to close out the year for Bob’s Burgers. This is pretty much top three when it comes to ranking any of the Christmas episodes of the show.
The visuals, the emotion, the tone, the sentimentality, as well as the drama, the suspense...some of the comedic moments, it’s there. The attention is mostly on the final act of the episode with Louise reading her poem and that’s going to be talked about throughout the fandom for quite some time but there are other moments to make this an amazing episode. Especially during the holiday season and I guess you could say that you could consider this a holiday classic. Hopefully we can see more of this trend in later episodes because we still got a second half of the season to get to. But for now, this was an amazing episode and a favorite from the show’s current season.
And that concludes the Number 5 spot in the Top 12 Countdown of 2022. What do you think about this episode? Should it be higher, lower, or stay put on your list? Put it in the comments below as we prepare to go into the Number 4 spot of the Top 12 Countdown. Which episode and series will be taking the fourth spot? Find and see sometime tomorrow. Follow me on Tumblr, Twitter, Mastodon, and Instagram for updates and behind-the-scenes stuff. And y’all should know the drill by now...
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