Sometimes a cartoon show takes you by surprise. Sure, it handles a lot of topics, social situations, etc. But sooner or later they are sure to stumble onto GOLD! .. aka. A topic that is relevant to A viewer! Its PROBABLY from personal experience, but this episode just hit home. Sure, who hasn't been seeing someone, who has a sibling that is somehow very interesting... for whatever reason. So, they stumbled onto Linda's SISTER, who shows up and a doped up Bob think she is Linda, resulting in this pantomime-like "farce". It might help, that some viewers might also hate dentists. This is the Sister-Dentist episode. So good. I am watching it again!
2 Reviews
Uncomfy
ophelia_brock27 March 2023
Warning: Spoilers
While I think the character Gale and the character Dr Yap are funny, there wasn't nearly enough laughs to win back the goodwill this ep needed from me.
The premise is clearly meant to be "Gale thinks she's in a relationship with Bob and Linda won't call it out" which is funny only if you ignore the OTHER way you could rephrase that "Bob gets sexually harassed and no one cares".
It's a dumb joke in a comedy cartoon where weird stuff happens. A lot of the comedy is based on Bob suffering in outlandish ways- I'm not clutching pearls here. I can squint past that premise. I like this show and I like dark humor.
But they just lean into it so HARD.
Bob spends like 1/3 of this thing openly begging to be left alone and for help from his wife and others. He's not begrudging, he's actively distressed.
And it just keeps ramping up.
The climax of this episode is Bob getting thrown to the ground and pinned by Gale. He broke a tooth and he's clearly asking her to let him up- I swear to god his lines include "please I'm in pain" and he's wrestling to be let up and she's keeping him down and trying to undress.
Linda and Dr. Yam are there and he's again- begging for help and not only does no one help- they yell at him and hurt him.
I SWEAR to you I'm not playing up a weird vibe or just counting sins out of context- this is so straightforward I'm kind of at a loss. It's being shown like just another "bob screwed up and is frazzled" episode but he's genuinely hurt and was asking his wife to get him out and I just- ???
He ends up tied to a table while Dr Yam yanks his broken tooth out without painkillers while his family watches and Linda eggs it on because she's angry Bob was assaulted in front of her and- idk it's so weird and victim blaming and it was actually kind of hard to watch.
There weren't any jokes, and I mean that sincerely. Not in a "I find assault jokes distasteful and it wasn't funny" I mean it in "this scene was played totally straight with zero levity" way- he was screaming and then he passes out and the hilarious misunderstanding part of this episode reaches its conclusion.
I guess maybe the problem is that the structure of this episode is pretty brainlessly chugging along to the usual formula, but that formula is deeply incompatible with sexual harassment.
This episode is over ten years old and sometimes what was okay pre MeToo can really jump out at you. I don't think it's representative of the content or even the tone of much more recent seasons- just something off color that didn't age well.
But either way, I think this episode is devoid of humor and full of genuinely triggering distress and caution anyone against including it in a rewatch.
The premise is clearly meant to be "Gale thinks she's in a relationship with Bob and Linda won't call it out" which is funny only if you ignore the OTHER way you could rephrase that "Bob gets sexually harassed and no one cares".
It's a dumb joke in a comedy cartoon where weird stuff happens. A lot of the comedy is based on Bob suffering in outlandish ways- I'm not clutching pearls here. I can squint past that premise. I like this show and I like dark humor.
But they just lean into it so HARD.
Bob spends like 1/3 of this thing openly begging to be left alone and for help from his wife and others. He's not begrudging, he's actively distressed.
And it just keeps ramping up.
The climax of this episode is Bob getting thrown to the ground and pinned by Gale. He broke a tooth and he's clearly asking her to let him up- I swear to god his lines include "please I'm in pain" and he's wrestling to be let up and she's keeping him down and trying to undress.
Linda and Dr. Yam are there and he's again- begging for help and not only does no one help- they yell at him and hurt him.
I SWEAR to you I'm not playing up a weird vibe or just counting sins out of context- this is so straightforward I'm kind of at a loss. It's being shown like just another "bob screwed up and is frazzled" episode but he's genuinely hurt and was asking his wife to get him out and I just- ???
He ends up tied to a table while Dr Yam yanks his broken tooth out without painkillers while his family watches and Linda eggs it on because she's angry Bob was assaulted in front of her and- idk it's so weird and victim blaming and it was actually kind of hard to watch.
There weren't any jokes, and I mean that sincerely. Not in a "I find assault jokes distasteful and it wasn't funny" I mean it in "this scene was played totally straight with zero levity" way- he was screaming and then he passes out and the hilarious misunderstanding part of this episode reaches its conclusion.
I guess maybe the problem is that the structure of this episode is pretty brainlessly chugging along to the usual formula, but that formula is deeply incompatible with sexual harassment.
This episode is over ten years old and sometimes what was okay pre MeToo can really jump out at you. I don't think it's representative of the content or even the tone of much more recent seasons- just something off color that didn't age well.
But either way, I think this episode is devoid of humor and full of genuinely triggering distress and caution anyone against including it in a rewatch.
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