Well boys and girls, let’s just put this out there. If you ever decide to build a device with someone in hopes to contact extraterrestrial life? Well…take Henry Haber’s advice and do the opposite of the Nike campaign, don’t do it. Just don’t do it. In this week’s episode of Bob’s Burgers, Tina and her science partner decided to build a satellite to contact with extraterrestrial life, only for them to end up playing with fire while Bob is having trouble selling what appears to be miniature coat racks that he got from the internet in my spoilerific review of the Ninth Episode of Season Nine, titled “UFO No You Didn’t”.
So after two episodes that got really high praise whether it’s saving a turkey that was just pardoned from becoming food at the dinner table or losing your best friend to roller skating and dealing with a woman with agoraphobia, this week’s episode…we’re back to the basics with a main plot that seems watchable where as the subplot going nowhere once it progresses.
The main plot was alright. It was good, despite having some flaws, some holes in the walls that somewhat needed to be patched up. It was somewhat predictable but does that ruin the excitement from the episode? Or maybe beginning to dislike it the moment the episode kicks off? No, no it doesn’t. It’s mostly Tina and her science partner building a satellite in hopes to contact with aliens, only for Henry, because of paranoia over aliens wanting to kill us all, to not let them do that and even enlists Gene and Louise to get them back for playing with fire. I knew that this seems familiar with the whole getting back at someone with alien contact in play and messing their minds. I even speculated this over at Discord while talking to some people about this episode. Another episode where I got it right.
The subplot…Jesus, there’s something I want to say about this subplot of the episode because it seems like it was going nowhere with this. Sure, Bob got something on the internet, in which it fell to shit just like that with the coat rack that turned out to be only for like if 5 year olds were to use that as practice when it comes to entering a warm room on a very cold day, like here cause it’s about to be very, very chilly this week, and use their coats as target practice. Same thing with the toy helicopter in Season 5 and the stools a season later. But it’s the duration of the subplot that boggles me to the point of saying “What’s the point of this, really?” But I guess I’ll somewhat touch on that as the review play out as we now get on to the main plot.
It’s the big day for Tina because Ms. Jacobson is about to pair up people for the upcoming science fair for their grade. And of course, when it comes to Tina and the partnership for the upcoming science fair, you may probably think that it’s gonna be Jimmy Jr. Cause why the fuck not? But…there is also a chance that she might be paired up with someone else and at least create a new friendship as the two come up with an idea for the event. And so, she did.
Enter Susmita. A new character on the show…that may only end becoming a one-shot. Because it’s Bob’s Burgers, every time there’s a new character…they’re gonna end up being a one-shot unless that character had a fan following. So unless you’re some of the charcters that were brought back despite being one-shotted characters…good luck. Unless a miracle happen and she ends up coming back. Maybe in the upcoming movie. Anyway, Tina and Susmita becomes science partners and the two are trying to come up with ideas for their project in hopes to get a good grade. Tina wants to do a science fair project about…peanut butter. And about why the peanut butter is all butter and no peanut. I don’t know Tina, why don’t you like go back in time and go ask George Washington Carver about it when making it. Maybe then you can like go get the answers. But Susmita have other ideas and decided to have her and Tina create a device that can contact to the depth of space including of course, extraterrestrial life. Think of it like a telescope but with the ears so you can listen through the cosmos and…yeah, that’s called headphones. That’s what Tina been saying about that. But that’s not the point on what Susmita is saying and instead, they’re going to have to build a satellite, add some wires to a laptop for communication, and lo and behold, you get contact to the realm to any alien creature out in the deep depths of space. And that’s where Tina now agrees to the idea and thus, the project is all set and ready to be used, but of course, they need to build it first. And while whole satellite contacting aliens thing is a good idea for both Tina and Susmita…
Henry on the other hand, while eavesdropping, warns Tina and Susmita to not do the whole satellite alien contacting idea for the science fair because, paranoia. Paranoia over the idea of not wanting to piss any alien race off and have the fate of the human race falling on their hands. Somebody’s been watching a lot of sci-fi shows and movies that involves aliens invading Earth and destroying it for…no reason. Thinking that there are like a boatload of alien species that are thousands of years in advance and could wipe out the planet from the solar system with a single blast like it’s the freaking Death Star. That’s one worry coming from Henry. But Tina thinks that maybe they’re not threatening and they are some alien creatures that can somewhat helpful and peaceful and all that. I don’t know Tina. Unless you meet a blonde alien time traveling woman in a blue police box or a black haired male who was supposed to exterminate life when he was a child but later have a pure of heart and somewhat of a boner for fighting whoever’s the strongest in the universe, then…uh…you’re pretty much out of luck. But of course, Tina and Susmita decided to ignore Henry’s paranoia and do the project. And that of course, cause Henry to do some damage to their work. As in, getting back at the two and ask Louise and Gene for their help on getting back at their sister. All for a gift card over at the frozen yogurt shop. Oh frozen yogurt, the things to do with you when it comes to ending a fake relationship, helping your frienemy with her crush, saving a failed business, or getting back for ignoring the paranoia, you’re always there to cause havoc. By the way, any frozen yogurt shops around the Houston area, holla at your boy.
On to both Tina and Susmita on their science fair project and now, we have Teddy, exiting out from the subplot for a bit, helping the two build the satellite…well, him building it because they’re kids and this is highly advanced. Not like getting outside help would result in them getting a failing grade? Right? And I am not playing that game again, so let’s get a move on here. Anyway, the satellite is all set and done. Meaning that it’s now time for step number two in this science fair project in setting up the messaging board. And so they did. But of course, speaking to the aliens isn’t going to be a total cakewalk since, of course, they’re aliens, human language isn’t their prime language. So it looks like the next step to get contact is to go full on moors code. As in the moors code where whenever you get in stuck in a life or death situation or having a nice little chat without waking anyone up or draining the battery life on the phone. But of course, the moors code idea is now what got Henry, Louise, and Gene got to do in hopes for sabotaging Tina and Susmita’s project.
Have Louise stall the duo as Henry messes around with the wires, not in the form of hacking cause you need one computer to do damage to another. It’s more of messing around the connectivity so that Henry’s computer can connect to the computer that Tina and Susmita are using so they can contact the aliens. And what Gene’s doing? Mostly watching over the computer. Watching if Tina and Susmita, if the chips are down and Louise failed to stall the two, would get Henry to get out before they come back. But they did got out of their way and of course, head over to the classroom as they are now preparing to watch over both Tina and Susmita do their thing.
And it was go time for the two as the project now begins to take it’s full swing to try to contact with other life around the cold, outer depths of space and the entire universe, but when the thing comes on…no luck. No contact. Not even one! For Tina and Susmita as they waited and waited for alien contact. And as they await for their first contact with extraterrestrial life, Susmita decided to pass the time and asks Tina for some advice. Romantic advice when it was revealed that she has a thing with someone but having trouble getting to him and have no confidence to get her feelings out. And that’s where Tina comes into play. Congratulations Susmita, you come to the right girl who has experience when it comes to a boy. Despite that she’s been crushing on every other boy since the Colonial Era. But yeah, having Tina around as your science fair partner and having trouble with liking a boy, for Susmita, her troubles of getting someone to like her won’t be a worry. So things might be going smoothly.
But just as the advice is about to take place, it looks like they finally got a message. Thus turning away from the romance advice to looking forward to an alien message and trying to respond. Not knowing that Henry is the one who is pulling the strings, begins to read the message. And if you think they’re first message from the “aliens”, yes, adding the air quotes around the term because these two didn’t even know that there’s someone, in the background, fucking with them mentally when getting contact, you think that their first message would’ve been, “Hello, we come at peace.” Or “Welcome to Space McDonald’s, may I take you order?” Nope, instead, they got a threatening message from the “aliens” and they were going to go ballistic when the message they received read “Hey, dumbasses. The fuck are you doing?! Transmitting and shit like that. You’re lucky my boss didn’t eavesdrop over this. Oh…you know what? Maybe I should tell my boss about this. Don’t know what you two might be doing tomorrow? But have fun on what could be the Earth’s last day. Later.”
And that right, got both Tina and Susmita in full on panic mode as Henry watches over like he got a front row seat to the biggest dumpster fire in the history of his life. Giving a smirk on his face as he watches the horror unfold. That and of course, handing Gene and Louise a gift card to Fro-Yo Mama. Guys…this is basically Drake and Josh. This is basically Drake and Josh. If don’t know what I’m talking about? Here it is, there was that one episode of that series where the sister, Megan, want to look at the stars through a telescope and both Drake and Josh spotted the perfect opportunity to strike back and pretend that she’s actually talking to aliens as them getting back at her for all the torment that she did to them in the past. That’s actually what I’m getting at when watching this episode. But wait a minute, wasn’t there a historical piece, or in this case, based on a novel, in this when it comes to an alien invasion terrifying groups of people? You know, 1938 when there was a radio broadcaster decided to mess around with a lot of people. Interrupting everyone’s normal day with a terrifying bulletin that there’s an incoming alien invasion ready to wipe humanity off the planet. That got everyone in full on panic mode. This is basically that, but instead of a radio, is over at the computer. And instead of a lot of people, it only directed towards both Tina and Susmita. Jesus, this is what we call an April Fool’s prank gone terribly, terribly wrong.
So, pop quiz. You just find out that you have only a day left to live after playing with fire with making an alien race pissed off and thinking that they’re about to create major havoc. What will you do on your last day on Earth? For Susmita…no word on her. I guess she wants to spend her last day, other than telling her family that she loves them, wants to find the boy that she likes and tells him that she has feelings for him. But Tina on the other hand…
Six-hundred and fifty-eight. 658 is the number of days that we last saw both Tina and Jimmy Jr kissed on screen. February 12 of 2017 in “Bob Actually” to right now, this week, on December 2 of 2018. And despite that she’s in full on panic mode, the Tina/JJ shippers finally got their wish, just in time for Christmas, well, this episode aired on Hanukkah, so…consider this a Hanukkah miracle. And that’s something that the shippers need after going through that ugly mess of a Valentine’s Day episode back in January, their opinion, not mine, that made Jimmy Jr into an ass hat following him choosing Becky over Tina the day before Valentine’s Day and then breaks Becky’s heart while on a date, just as Tina was about to waive the white flag. Remember that Entertainment Weekly article that I quoted last week with Gene, Alex, and Courtney in major play? Well, Bouchard also said that I guess it’s later on in the season, or maybe series, that Jimmy Jr is gonna get a redemption following of course, that ugly mess. And of course, just to put this out there…uh…dude better not fuck it up. I’m still railed up over what Jimmy Jr did to cause major damage to both Tina and Becky. And that episode better prove me wrong. Better change my mind. Because one fuck up, just one, coming from him…I will never, ever forgive him.
Oh yeah, and Tina also kissed Zeke for no reason, mostly due to panic. Yeah, for Tina, it’s full on panic mode. But Zeke on the other hand, after being kissed by surprise coming from her, he felt surprised over that. Awestruck over it. Like “The Hormone-iums” back in April 2016, which I did a review on, go check that out, I said that with Tina kissing both Jimmy Jr and Zeke, it looks like both sides have won their night. But Zeke…oh boy, Zeke. What to say about you and let’s just say…we’ll get to that once the main plot of the episode is dealt with.
On to the next day, as in the big day where they were to expect an incoming attack from the “aliens”, with Tina telling Susmita how she spent her last day. With Susmita telling her that other than telling her family that she loves them, she wrote a note to her special guy, but of course, having trouble getting the confidence that she needed and didn’t even put it in his locker or give it to him in person. Last day on Earth…and you didn’t even have the cajones to do that? I don’t blame you. They got another message from the same “alien” that they pissed that off. Where this time, that “alien” said that he was supposed to take the message to his boss, but his shift ended and that they got lucky this around and warns them to never do that again. That right there, of course, gives both Tina and Susmita a huge sigh of relief.
And more sigh of relief, and of course, wanting to get some payback, when Louise and Gene, after got their bargain from Henry, begins to feel bad and tells the two that, “Hey, uh…Henry hired us to mess around with you two because you ignore his paranoid of a fear of an alien attack and we got bought in all because of a gift card. Sorry.” But yeah, Gene and Louise apologize to both Tina and Susmita about Henry’s actions in sabotaging their project all because of paranoia and they really want to get back at Henry for pulling that stunt. This is the same guy who pulled the strings during the school’s election in order for him to be the last one standing and win by default. So you could say that Henry got his way whenever if it’s winning an election by eliminating the candidate with the most support or telling both Tina and Susmita not to piss off an alien race enough to play payback.
They want to get back at him, but the project must come first as Tina said that despite that Henry messed around with them, the show must go on and contact actual aliens. Susmita, on the other hand, following that whole fiasco by Henry, decided to not continue doing that and follow Henry’s paranoia and not continue to talk to aliens. Even though she was the one who brought up the idea of that back in the beginning of the episode when coming up for the science fair with Tina. And now that she’s backing out from it following Henry’s little prank, that right there cause the partnership between these to break away. And I don’t think Gene’s song to Alex last week would help both Tina and Susmita this time around.
Tina’s on her own and going back to her original idea…of peanut butter. And of course, at the last minute as she needs the essentials for her project. No luck on getting the peanuts, so she has to get almonds as an alternative. Yeah, I mean, not like they’re gonna notice right? Ha-ha…oh god, this is slowly turning into a dumpster fire.
Finally made it, not missing anything, as Susmita finally finish her project of why talking to aliens is a bad idea. Jacobson noticing that the two had a major falling out, thanks to Henry, and that’s where Tina decided to get a turn. And just as she goes off on the limb when it comes to why there’s butter in peanut butter if there aren’t even peanuts till she decided to head off-topic and talk about the destruction of the planet. Yeah, so that’s a thing. Because this now seems topical because oh look, our planet is fucking dying. Whether it’s talking to aliens that may result in an incoming invasion or bees dying off from left to right, sea levels rising, overpopulation to a result that this is a massive problem if we don’t do something about it. And thinks that yeah, maybe we should talk to aliens. Sure, they might kills. Experiment on us. Dissect us for no goddamn reason except for research, or in Gene’s case, harvesting penises. I don’t know why, but…okay? But Tina also states that if maybe we like don’t piss them off, maybe they can help us at least make the world a better place. Way to talk about our mortality thanks to things like climate change and overpopulation. This would’ve been somewhat of an Earth Day special. And let’s just put this out there, the main plot looks like it was going well with a promising start, then it tanked. Come the end. Oh, and if anyone wondering who’s the boy that Susmita was crushing on that she’d been babbling about throughout the episode? Dun, dun, dun, dun…
It’s Henry. Henry Haber is the guy that Susmita has a crush on but unable to gain the confidence to talk to him. Okay. Though, it was plainly obvious. Once the first hint is dropped from Susmita’s mouth about a certain boy, everyone and their mother knew that it was gonna be Henry. Even I knew that it was gonna Henry. It was straight up predictable. But can you blame her? The girl tried to get her crush to notice her but unable to have the strength to do so. And who knew that a simple alien message of a prank cause these two to at least fall in love. So it was kind of cute. Kind of cute. Also Zeke…
Zeke. Zeke. Zeke. Yeah, Tina kissed you in the lips, but that’s mostly because of Henry’s prank of thinking that aliens are about to come down and kill us all and that got the Tina/Zeke shippers cheery like they just won the lottery for the Powerball. He said that he would go for round two if there were ever another fiasco like this one in this episode. And that kind of got Jimmy Jr concerned. And before you go down towards the comments and call me a Tina/Jimmy Jr loyalist, let me tell that it’s fake news. You’re fake news. I would rather eat romaine lettuce following an e. coli outbreak than fall in line. And besides Zeke, you want a peck in the mouth, there’s a guy wearing a yellow shirt and a bowl haircut available. Even though that guy in the yellow shirt and bowl haircut, yeah, I ship him with another guy with a very long brown hair with glasses. There, I said it. Fight me. Parking lot after the new episode in January.
The subplot of the episode. My god, the subplot. We’re back the basics, as in what happened in the subplots for each episode from the season premiere all the way to the third episode. Nowhere. So we have Bob getting a package that he ordered online. And the thing he ordered from the online store, that may or may not be either Amazon nor eBay, is of course, a coatrack. Not for himself or for the house. It’s for the restaurant because reasons. Well no, it’s mostly because of people, having nowhere to put when taking their coats off, just in time for the Fall and Winter seasons, put their stuff over at the rack. And not hoping for someone to jack their shit. What Bob didn’t know is that…whenever he orders something online…let’s just say…Bob has no good luck when it comes buying stuff over at the internet. In Season 5, it’s a toy helicopter…that easily broke into pieces once being used. In Season 6, it was stools where the cushions are like they were accidentally made in a whoopie cushion factory. And then, here we are at Season 9…
The coat racks…are little. I mean, that’s not a coat rack for normal people. That looks like coat racks for five year olds…for practicing not to lose their things. That mostly a coat rack that is made for hats and hats only. So yeah, Bob, the bad luck from online shopping continues. And now, with a no returning the rack thing, which, bullshit because whenever there was a problem with the package you received, send it back for a refund or get a new one. The coatracks that Bob got on the other hand…not so much. And now he’s stuck like buying a new car but you don’t like it but didn’t read the agreement and you’re ending up stuck with. That’s now Bob’s situation and now, he has to sell it.
And Bob is really having trouble selling the damn thing to one customer. ONE! He tried to get someone to buy a coatrack along with the burger that the customer, but when the price of the rack comes up at a brutal $59. That of course, scare off the customer. And if that didn’t work...
On to the next day when Bob and Linda have to sell the coatracks outside of the restaurant, only to be berated by Jimmy Pesto and of course, going in his asshole-ish ways and mock Bob and Linda over them selling coatracks. And okay, okay, okay. L-let’s just…I don’t want to interrupt the subplot of the episode, recapping and shit, but good god, it’s the chicken subplot all over again with this episode. Going nowhere. Now of course, there are some bright spots that made the subplot somewhat avoidable from getting the poor rating that it should’ve been reserved. I could say that it’s somewhat time wasting but…hey, that’s your opinion.
I like that little scene to close out the subplot with Bob and Linda kissing in the rain after Bob got his victory and got some people onto buying the coatracks and of course, telling them as they were about to enter over at Jimmy Pesto’s place that, “Hey, don’t fall to his bullshit. The only coatrack you can find over there is a chair.” But other than that, this subplot pretty much sums up as a potential dumpster fire. There were a lot of flaws with this subplot, possibly the episode in general. But does those flaws ruin the enjoyment of this episode even after we just got out from a very well done episode last week? To be fair and balanced, I don’t think so. There are some moments that seems somewhat enjoyable. Mostly with the main plot with Tina and Susmita going ballistic over them thinking that they were playing with fire and of course, if you’re a shipper who ship Tina with either Jimmy Jr or Zeke, congrats on winning the night. But around all else…it…it pretty much a dumpster fire.
Reaction/Thoughts:
So all and all, what do I think about this week’s episode of Bob’s Burgers? Despite that the main plot of the episode is somewhat enjoyable, around let’s say around 40:60…love is a strong word…let’s say…admirable. Because while the episode seems somewhat of a massive train wreck, it somewhat doesn’t me from saying it was a decent episode.
While yes, the whole “someone is playing a prank on Tina and Susmita with alien contact” was predictable in my watch, speculated over this over chatting with some people when information about the episode was out, I really like how Tina and Susmita were reacting to the whole thing. Thinking that they really played with fire a lot and now there are burn scars that cannot be erased. Even though it was Henry who was the one pulling the strings because of his paranoia. And of course, for the Tina/Jimmy Jr shippers, it takes them 658 days since their last on-screen kiss back in “Bob Actually”, you know, the whole sky kiss thing where Tina had to deal with diarrhea following eating chili that fast. And of course, a major breather since that whole ugly fiasco back in January with “V for Valentine-detta”. That and of course, that surprise kiss that Tina gave to Zeke despite being in panic mode. Just putting that out there.
Susmita. Susmita, Susmita, Susmita. She’s not a bad character. Her voice actress did a pretty good job voicing her in this episode. It’s how the writers been executing throughout the episode. She’s the one who came up with the idea to contact aliens for the science fair, despite that Henry warns both her and Tina to not do that but ignores it either way and ends up being a part of the paranoia. And even after finding out that it was Henry who was responsible for pulling the strings with the prank and all that, she decided to think that doing all of this was a bad idea and come up with an idea of a science project on why talking to aliens is a bad, bad thing. Despite that she’s the one who came up with the idea in the first place as an alternative to Tina’s peanut butter idea. But she did nothing wrong. She fell to the paranoia. Thus resulting in a major falling out between her and Tina. She’s an alright character. And of course, her troubles in confessing her feelings to a boy that she likes, which later turned out to be Henry. Yeah, it was predictable to the point that everyone already knew who’s the lucky boy that Susmita was talking about. Once the first hint is dropped coming from her mouth, everyone, and I mean everyone, including myself, thinks that it was gonna be Henry. Yeah, it was predictable, but it was cute. It was cute. Mostly with Susmita having trouble getting her feelings out and asks Tina for romantic advice. And when she thinks that she has like 24 hours left to live because of that alien message, she wrote a note and was about to put it in his locker but of course, no luck. So that of course, lead up to the end. So the main plot seems like it was going to what looks like a promising start…till it falls flat on it’s face. Anyone seen that GIF of the mascot of the Toronto Raptors falling flat on its face?
That is this episode. Falling flat on its face and never came back up. Both plots. The main plot, like I said, faceplanted following what was supposed to be a promising start and the subplot, let’s just say…it’s somewhat of a complete dumpster fire. So overall, this episode seems like an absolute mess like seeing debris covering parts of the road on your way to work from a truck that crashed to let’s say, the middle part of the road. But I guess the question is this, does all the flaws noted in this episode ruin the enjoyment out? And I gotta keep it 100, I don’t think so. It’s not like a really, really bad episode, per se, I’m just stating the facts that there were some flaws that are shown in this one. But it doesn’t mean that one flaw would result in this automatically being a bad episode. That doesn’t work that way. So I’ll give “UFO No You Didn’t”…
…a mere low-end 7 out of 10. Again, both plots of the episode fell flat on its face as it plays out. But despite all the flaws, there are some parts whether it’s Susmita telling Henry that she has feeling for her at the end of the main plot, Tina and Susmita going ballistic over a threatening alien message, that surprise kiss between Tina and Jimmy Jr and later Zeke, or that rain kiss between Bob and Linda, it doesn’t mark it as a very bad episode. So a low-end 7 out of 10 might’ve been a safer choice when it comes to the rating of the episode. But tell me what you think about this week’s episode of Bob’s Burgers? Do you…tolerate it? Do you hate it? Was this episode predictable to you? Do you like Susmita as a character? And what do you think the idea of Susmita and Henry as a couple? Tell me what you think in the comments below. And tune in this upcoming Sunday for the last episode of the year 2018 and it’s a Christmas episode and we have ourselves a turf war in the snow. So basically, it’s Braveheart in the snow.
Yeah, so there’s that and of course, Linda racing against the clock of making scarves in the Tenth Episode of the Ninth Season, the Seventh Episode when it comes to Christmas episodes, and of course, the last one for the year before heading off for the winter hiatus, “Better Off Sled”. If you want more of me, which I know you don’t, follow me on Tumblr (which could be eliminated in a few weeks thanks to its stupid new rules), Twitter, or Instagram for updates, fandom birthdays and history and all that. And of course, if you haven’t done this for a while…
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Feel free to donate today to help the page out. I need the money, I’m not holding people hostage. Feel free to do so. And yeah, that’s that with this week’s review of episode number nine of Bob’s Burgers. That’ll be it from me and next week’s episode better not be a full-on disappointment like…this. So yeah, that be it for me and I’ll see y’all later.
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