The Story
Tina, Gene, and Louise are sentenced to a record-breaking detention session with most of the show’s juvenile supporting cast. Mr. Frond brainstorms a way to effectively rehabilitate the kids, all of whom want to leave detention early because there’s a cotton-candy festival at the wharf. Since the kids landed in detention thanks to a fashion-related kerfuffle, Frond turns Bob’s Burgers into one of those fashion competition shows, complete with homespun outfits, crude challenges, and harsh judges. Back at the restaurant, Linda and Bob battle a little girl’s magazine scam.
The Highlight Reel
As the Belchers — and everyone else and their mothers — pull up to detention, the kids wail about the cotton-candy festival they’re missing out on. Linda silences her clan with one of her signature one-liners:
Linda: Good kids eats cotton, bad kids eat nuttin’.
[+1 point to Linda for always being the wittiest mom; +1 to Tammy’s dad for being an overly dedicated hero; +1 to Zeke for ruining Mr. Pesto’s cool-guy peel-out moment.]
So how did everybody get detention? And what is this music? Well, here’s the answer to the detention question: It was all because of a sparkle jelly bracelet that found its way onto the wrists of two bitter rivals.
Tina: If you wanna dazzle, you gotta take razzles. That’s a dazzling way to say risks.
[+1 to Louise for giving Tina the high-five just because; +2 to Tina for our WOTD: razzles, as well as for the classy Tammy burn; +1 to Jocelyn for pulling the fire alarm like a young, spastic Wonder Woman; +1 to Tammy for owning up to her flatulent shortcomings.]
While Tina & Co. are learning the importance of letting go of grudges, pettiness, and material objects, Bob and Linda are introduced to a girl named Sally — the resident gem and monotonous robot (she makes Tina look like Richard Simmons) — who’s trying to sell magazine subscriptions for a trip to something called Turtle Camp:
[+100 to Sally for existing in our lives; +1 to Bob for smelling a scam like Toucan Sam — he has done this whole magazine thing before, apparently; +1 to Teddy for showing such compassionate involvement with his belly and heart.]
Frond reveals that he has a particularly bad history with fashion disputes because he’s been the target of many a sweater-vest hate crime. He says, “Fashion should be a form of expression, not a weapon to tear people down.” Amen, sister. Now he’s overcome adversity and turned himself into a self-proclaimed fashionisto. His goal in this episode is to teach the kids sartorial prowess and some sort of valuable lesson (more on that later, because he doesn’t know what it is right away). The game plan, though: The students in detention will stage a fashion competition (dubbed “Scared Fabulous”), in which the winning team can leave detention three hours early. They’ll sketch their outfits, scrounge for materials, and then test them out on CPR dummies.
Gene: Good news for us because that dummy looks hot in anything.
[+1 to Gene, you dog.]
Tammy and Tina make a side bet that has the winner keeping her sparkle jelly bracelet and the loser throwing hers away. The judges, naturally, are the school secretary, P.E. coach, and janitor. Tammy and Jocelyn team up, as do Zeke and J-Ju, leaving the Belcher kids to fend for themselves. Most everybody is fine with this (except for Tina, probably):
Jimmy Jr.: Some day we’re gonna start our own men’s fashion line and then live in a van.
Zeke: Yeah, called fancy pants. You’re gonna fance the way you pants, I guarantee it.
Tina: Don’t underestimate us: Our family’s motto is maybe we’ll get lucky this time
[+1 to Zeke, for … making the English language his bitch; +1 to Tina for the undying family loyalty and optimism.]
Sally’s voice is too much. Unrelated, Linda tells her that her life is a lie and that she’s working for a con artist. Her departure isn’t pretty:
The rest of the detention component of this episode truly plays out like a surreal episode of America’s Next Top Model mixed with, maybe, Chopped. The first challenge is to create a couch-friendly outfit for the school’s secretary:
Gene: I’m like the Steve Jobs of sitting on the couch for three days.
Louise: Tina, you can be our model.
Tina: I don’t know, I’m not very good at walking.
Louise: You’re getting better, just keep your head high, pick your knees up, and make every step a glamorous stomp.
[+1 to Tina for admitting her weaknesses, but then turning them into strengths with a horse-themed acid trip.]
Tina clips, clops, and knocks over Ms. Schnur’s nephew desk photos. Here are the outfits:
Ms. Schnur: Zeke, Jimmy Junior, I found your look incredibly offensive. I am not a couch. Tammy, Jocelyn, your flirty outfit would send the wrong message to the Chinese food delivery guy. His name is Enrique and he’s already really forward with me.
[+1 to Ms. Schnur for playing hard to get with her Seamless romance.]
Tammy wins. Boo. Maybe that means Enrique is getting more than just the tip this weekend. The next task is to create a versatile outfit for the P.E. coach that will allow him to coach in the morning, get his driver’s license back at traffic school in the afternoon, and then go salsa dancing at night. Here are the outfits:
Nobody wins because the principal cancels the competition. Boo. Meanwhile, Sally’s mentor comes to yell at the Belchers and forces them to buy 20 magazine subscriptions. Her ammo is a touching childhood story about a lisp:
[+1,000.]
The kids are determined to get out of detention early, so in a wild turn of events, they persuade Frond to make the competition him versus the world. They have to make a fashionable trash suit for the janitor.
Frond: I’m a knitter not a quitter.
[+1 to Frond for giving that motivational poster company an idea for what could be one of the greatest posters of all time; someone make it please.]
In the competition between the fashionista and the detentionistas, surprise, surprise, the kids win. Although Bob’s forced to buy a ton of magazines he doesn’t want — and will never receive — he also kind of wins: He psychs the ever-competitive Jimmy Pesto into buying double the number of subscriptions with his restaurant’s profits. Dick move, but we’re not mad at you, Bob.
Bob: We got screwed, but Jimmy Pesto got screwed more.
[+1 because Bob > Jimmy.]
The kids obviously get to go to their cotton-candy wonderland, and everything in life at the wharf is once again FRONDERFUL. THE END.
The MVP
Tina. She was the moral voice of this episode, letting us know that we can ALL DAZZLE if we put our minds to it. It doesn’t matter what kind of sparkle jellies we have, and it doesn’t matter if we’re liars with or without hair dryers. Except you probably shouldn’t lie. Also, as Mr. Frond says, it was because of Tina’s epiphany that all the kids collaborated and built a bridge to friendship; in other words, they kind of rehabilitated in detention and learned an important lesson about not being superficial. Tina, you go, girl. Bow down, Tammy.
Bob’s Bonus Sliders
- Chimichurri cotton candy sounds interesting.
- I hope Gene doesn’t get arrested for public indecency when all those greens fall off.
- Tammy didn’t fart enough this episode.
- How was there no Regular Size Rudy in this one? MISS YA, BUD.
- Someone issue an Amber Alert for Frond’s dignity. SOS.
- Do you think the P.E. coach is going salsa dancing with Ms. Schnur? One can only hope.
- J-Ju should’ve tried out some more dance moves with the couch costume on. Missed opportunity.
