TV #29 of 2022:
Bob’s Burgers, season 5
Another strong year of Bob’s Burgers, albeit maybe a slight step down from the one before, if only because I don’t know that I’d include any of these individual episodes on an all-time favorites list. But they generally remain funny and confident explorations of characters, with the writers periodically coming up with new insights that still feel familiar and true to this wacky family and their even weirder extended town. So we get some deeper shading of Louise’s mixed jealousy and protectiveness of her sister in bits like “Tina Tailor Soldier Spy,” for instance, or a good look at Gene’s particular sort of eleven-year-old flightiness in “Best Burger” or “The Itty Bitty Ditty Committee.” While he continues to be more of a caricature than anyone else in the main cast, any further development on that front is most appreciated.
Sitcoms are hard to review, but this one reliably surprises me and makes me laugh, and by this point it’s rare for the plots to seem either derivative or predictable (although the water balloon fight in “The Oeder Games” surely owes quite a bit to Community‘s paintball adventures). For now, I’m happy to keep on watching.
★★★★☆
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