Bob’s Burgers Recap: Breadsticks and Butt Punches

Bob and Linda return from their date night at Rudy’s and while Bob thought they had a great time, Linda is decidedly less enthusiastic. In her opinion, their date nights have grown stale since they go to the same place and order the same place every time; she wants the type of adventure from their time together that Bob doesn’t, as he looks forward to the security that comes with their nights alone. The following day, Linda comes into the restaurant with a flyer for flying lessons that she picked up at the market, which she’s already signed them up for. However, Bob hates flying, so he decides not to go for the lessons, upsetting Linda in the process.

Linda arrives for the lesson with her instructor Kurt, who introduces her to Shoshana, the 45-year-old seaplane that she’ll be flying that day. Once on the water, it doesn’t take long for the vehicle to get up in the air and for Linda to become giddy from the adrenaline of doing something so out of her comfort zone. Back at the restaurant, Mr. Fischoeder comes in to use his cell phone and lets Bob know that the instructor who runs the lessons Linda’s taking is nicknamed Upskirt Kurt due to his ability to bed the bored housewives under his tutelage. And he even have the same routine every time – he fakes a plane problem (losing altitude, dead radio); he guides the plane to uninhabited Quippiquisset Island, nicknamed Quickie-Kiss-It; and he uses the adrenaline from the near death experiences to get the women to check on their husbands.

He does the first two steps with Linda and the two find themselves “stranded” on Quippiquisset, where she vomits three times after he successfully lands the plane on the water and scoots over to safety. For his part, Bob gets nervous about the possibility of Linda cheating on him and brings the kids to the docks; the family try to find a boat to take out to the island, with Mr. Fischoeder claiming that nobody in the area has a private boat for them to use. Once Linda calms down and gargles some mouthwash, she and Kurt get off the plane, picnic basket and Prosecco in tow. He claims that the basket was for a picnic with his mother while she downs the wine and eats the cheese before the two move to a shady spot on a nearby meadow. He starts taking off his shirt talking about the heat between them and telling her that she should take advantage of the adrenaline flowing through her veins, but she headbutts him for making a pass at her and elbows him when she finds out that the emergency was faked. However, they have bigger problems once Shoshana gets washed out due to the tide.

Bob and the kids eventually hitch a ride with a mail man at the King’s Head Island Post Office, though he never goes to Quippiquisset due to there being no mailboxes or houses on the island. As Linda spells out “HELP” in wine bottles, she divides the island into two parts to keep Kurt away from her, only to try and comfort him when he cries over there being nobody out there for him. But this isn’t a sudden moment of clarity; it’s him trying to get sympathy sex and when he tries to kiss her, she hits him in the throat. The kids find a rowboat once they hit the island next to Quippiquisset and an exhausted Bob rows them until they find Linda and Kurt. Just then, Mr. Fischoeder roars by in his speedboat, Shoshana attached to the back. The Belchers crowd in to the seaplane while Kurt rides along with Fischoeder up front and the two men decide to put the pedal to the medal to see just how many of those 1000 horses could be summoned at once. Unfortunately, this gets the seaplane enough moment to begin lifting off and a bridge is approaching in the distance.

Bob finds a wine opener in the plane’s tool box and climbs out onto the wine to cut the towrope, freeing the plane and allowing them the opportunity to fly over the bridge. As he does so, the door breaks and he tries to have a conversation with Linda where he apologizes for not doing anything about how uninspired their date nights were. Bob eventually cuts the rope and Linda flies the plane over the bridge before using the technique she saw from Kurt to land just before hitting the boardwalk.

Additional thoughts and observations:
-“Breadsticks. Breadsticks. Breadsticks. Breadsticks!”
-“Oh, my! She just rhyme-burned you.”
-“You’re not not on the rocks.”
-“Look at Castaway. Tom Hanks falls in love with a volleyball.”
-“And you should work in my coal mine.”
-“This guy thinks everywhere’s Key West.”
-“My endorphins think we should take turns kissing each other’s faces.”
-“Good day for neckin’.”
-The business beside the restaurant was Don’t Go There – Cautionary Signs.
-Gene thinks that Bob is just being really mean to seaplanes when in reality, he actually likes seaplanes. No hair pulling this episode, though.
-I would like a Bob’s Burgers spinoff where Teddy talks about movies. Or one with Gene as Daiquiri Zachary, mystery solver.
-I was a tiny bit disappointed that Tina’s Quippiquisset fantasy, which was already pretty delightful, didn’t include any zombies or horses. Or Jimmy Jr.
-Overall, I wasn’t a huge fan of this one. I do like it when a comedy will tweak its structure, but aside from potentially adding a new peripheral character to an already colorful world in Upskirt Kurt and reaffirming Bob and Linda’s love/appreciation for one another, it felt very slight due to not having a subplot featuring the kids to balance things out. I like Bob/Linda stories; I just think they’re best served when either prominently featuring one of the kids or when they have a bigger/broader/more energetic plot with the kids to bounce off of.
-Next week on Bob’s Burgers: Bob takes a part-time job as a fraternity house cook and participates in a prank.