Nestled among FOX’s “Animation Domination” programming, between The Simpsons‘ 130th season and Seth MacFarlane‘s over-inflated presence on North American airwaves, Bob’s Burgers usually acts as a refreshing breath of fresh air. (In actuality The Simpsons is still capable of producing quality episodes and American Dad is pretty hilarious, give both a try).
On this week’s episode, Linda (voiced by John Roberts) is surprised that her fragile sister Gayle (Megan Mullally) is in town. The Belcher’s family burger joint is Gayle’s first stop on her “eat, pray, love” tour around the world. Gayle is happy to see the family and proceeds to give the Belcher kids the gifts she acquired from truck stop including a cassette tape, a four-hour energy drink, and a jawbreaker. Gene (Eugene Mirman) and Louise (Kristen Schaal) proceed to fight for the jawbreaker leading to escalating competitions between them with the oldest sister Tina (Dan Mintz) being the judge.
Meanwhile, Bob is at the dentist with the obnoxious Dr. Yap (Ken Jeong). Linda is busy watching both the kids and the restaurant so Gayle volunteers to pick him up. During his visit Bob gets medicated with anesthesia and so when Gayle meets up with him, in his grogginess he mistakes her for his wife and sloppily kisses her. This unfortunately leads Gayle to become infatuated with Bob.
After waking up from a nap Bob realizes his mistake and decides to confesses to Linda. Surprisingly, she actually supports this mix up since she believes this will give Gayle to confidence to find another mate.
Bob doesn’t like playing pretend with Gayle and decided to speed the process along by introducing her to Dr. Yap. Interested, he invites the whole family up, including Gayle, to his time share for a weekend of skiing and seduction (for Gayle) but unfortunately for both Bob and Dr. Yap, Gayle seems dead set on Bob.
‘Dr. Yap’ was a pretty good episode that played out more like a romantic farce than the family comedy Bob’s Burgers is known for. H. Jon Benjamin (who also does the voice for Sterling Archer in the cartoon Archer) did a great job (as usual) playing a nervous wreck. H. Jon Benjamin‘s best work usually comes out when his character is pushed to his limit.
Gene and Louise’s B-story of competing for the jawbreaker provided a few laughs here or there but it never really progressed into something more substantial. Even though that may have had a weak story line, the voice work of Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schaal faithfully replicated the childish behaviour you would expect from a young brother and sister competing for candy and so their work here should be applauded.
Ken Jeong played a great sleazy and annoying dentist. If he wasn’t dropping his patients to spontaneously play guitar, he was bragging about his time share or the medallion he earned for completing a course on picking up women and Ken Jeong did a fantastic job portraying that character. Basically, Ken Jeong‘s Dr. Yip stole the show.
“That’s right, Bob. Your negligent flossing habits are funding my one-way ticket to pound-town” – Dr. Yap
“It’s biologically proven that children lead to sexual intercourse and vice-versa. Children lead to intercourse” – Dr. Yap
By the way, the Prince of Persuasia’s instructional video on the “three steps to persuading women” was the best part of the episode. This of course is a satirical nod to the real advice some professional pick-up artists sell everyday. Here’s the step-by-step lesson of his video:
Step One: Trap Your Princess – physically corner her in a room and eventually, in your life.
Step Two: Insult Your Princess – insult her face, her body, her brain, her car. The lower her self-esteem, the higher your chances bro. It’s been biologically proven, by me.
Step Three: Brag – not lying, but close. Make up a story of how you single-handedly murdered a wild animal. Your story is going to release a hormone deep inside her body called “insatia.” It makes women ovulate for sex!
Pure comedy gold. Make sure you listen carefully during the show’s credits as more hot steps are revealed audibly.
All in all ‘Dr. Yap’ was a charming episode with funny moments in the always delightful Bob’s Burgers. Here’s hoping they found their place on television and rightfully get renewed for another season.
