Bob’s Burgers, Season 3, Episode 7: Tina-rannasaurus Wrecks, Review

The Belcher kids are growing up…Tina is getting driving lessons!  Look out!

After picking up napkins from a restaurant supply store, Bob decides to let Tina practice driving in the near-empty parking lot. She moans the entire time, heading toward the only parked car as Bob freaks out, trying to get her to turn in one direction or the other. She smashes into the lone car, giving it just a ding while wrecking the entire front end of Bob’s car. She insists on leaving a note. Bob says, “You’re so honest…who raised you?”

It turns out that the car that was hit was Jimmy Pesto’s. He calls Bob and tells him they’ll have to go through insurance. Bob offers to pay him off, but Jimmy refuses, knowing Bob doesn’t have the money. Bob insists on covering for Tina, which makes her completely uncomfortable…until she is allowed to develop a back story involving an imaginary boyfriend who loves lacrosse.  

Mort the mortician offers to drive the family around until they get their car back; he takes Gene and Louise out while he’s on his way to a funeral. Gene, being his gross adolescent self, moons one of the motorcycle cops, then yells, “GO GO GO!” That doesn’t exactly work when you have a motorcade following a hearse.

Back at the restaurant, the insurance adjuster, Chase Kaminski, shows up…and Tina starts moaning again. Bob and Tina make up a story about him driving, swatting at a butterfly…and then a cormorant flies into the car, causing him to crash. Amazingly, the adjuster buys it, and asks Bob to cater his party that coming Sunday. Bob agrees and Mort ends up driving them there, with all the food in the back of the hearse. Ewww.

While Bob is trying to get Linda to stop talking about the accident, he lets Tina man the grill, which she immediately sets on fire…which sets Chase’s entire house on fire. Again, she freaks out, thinking she’s jinxed. Chase is surprisingly ok with his house going up in flames. When Bob and Tina go to his office to fess up about the accident, Chase tells them he saw through their story and arranged for his house to be burned down during the party. He ends up blackmailing them and trying to suck them into an insurance fraud scheme, which will soon include Bob flooding his own basement.

The family fakes the kids’ death in the flooded restaurant basement, but it fails to fool Chase. Mort shows up, ranting about playing chauffeur, only to have Linda inform him that they are getting the car back and they left him a thank you note and gift on his steps. Oops! Awkward…

Anyway, Gene has been using his keyboard to capture family phrases and bodily function noises…but then Tina uses it to record Chase admitting that he’s committing fraud, and it gets taken to the proper authorities. Tina says that she’s had the worst week ever. Louise, outraged, says, “You got to crash a car and burn down a house!” They all end up breaking plates, with Louise wanting to break the window as well and Bob yelling at them to stop.

Final review:

In its third season, Bob’s Burgers has hit its stride as a real contender in the Sunday night lineup, but this episode was not one of the funniest.The humor is always a bit twisted, which I love and it’s developed over the last few seasons.Tina is one of my favorite characters, so it was nice to see the focus on her…especially when she imagined going to “hell-jail” for her lies.

Best lines:

Tina saying, timidly, “Let’s make this kitten purr,” as she starts to drive the car.

Jimmy Pesto telling Bob, “You drive like a fart.”  

Best of the rest:

Gene and Louise making Mort stop at an open house so they can use the bathroom.

Gene ends up taking a shower and running around in a towel, while Louise makes up stories about the deceased owner who was murdered inside, scaring the buyers away.

The final funny moment…Linda singing the “Diarrhea Song” during the end credits.