Bob’s Burgers Season 16 Episode 7 Review: Tube for Tina

Bob’s Burgers Season 16 Episode 7, “Tube for Tina,” is full of quotable lines, callbacks, and bold fashion choices.

Season 16 is not at all starved for Tina content, and as the title indicates, this latest episode is no different. However, “Tube for Tina” is just as much a Linda episode as it is a Tina episode.

Tina and Linda are at the store, shopping for an outfit for the premiere of the Boys’ For Now concert movie. It’s fun to see the fictional boy band come back, and they even have a song in the credits.

Tina ends up falling in love with a “fireball fuchsia” sequin tube top.

There is something inherently hilarious about this tube top. The top looks very dated, but even so, it is 100% something a middle schooler experimenting with fashion would love.

Either way, Linda hilariously does not like it.

She thinks it shows too much skin, which is a typical parent reaction. However, the episode doesn’t stop there. Linda is no pearl-clutching helicopter mom, so the episode needs to explain why she doesn’t like it, and fortunately, it delivers.

Linda remembers being that age and being told by her mother that what you wear broadcasts who you are to other people (not in those exact words).

While she internalized these words, Linda also spends the episode trying really hard not to give Tina the same complex. The Belcher parents are always fun to watch because they’re believably flawed but still doing their best.

Linda’s distaste for Tina’s tube top could be a lot meaner than it is. Instead, we get a believable depiction of someone trying not to stifle their child’s expression while still clearly holding onto their own biases.

Basically, instead of telling Tina “no, you can’t wear that,” Linda is trying to gently steer Tina towards literally anything else.

Tina eventually realizes she doesn’t like it and blames her for the top going missing. While this isn’t the case, and it’s good that it isn’t, Tina’s mental image of Linda holding it and saying, “I’m going to kill you,” is so much funnier than it needs to be.

They eventually tracked down the tube top, and the resolution that follows is sweet. But we must admit Edith would have killed it in that tube top.

Meanwhile, Bob’s window killed a bird, and now, they’re going to bury it in Teddy’s backyard.

Teddy’s pet cemetery is morbid, especially when you contrast it with the episode’s other main point of interest: a sequin tube top. Fortunately, that contrast works to great comedic effect.

There’s even another callback to Teddy’s dead guinea pig, Francis.

In general, it’s tough to make dead animals, especially pets, funny.

So when you find out that the dead bird is in fact someone’s pet, you’d expect it to become upsetting really quickly. Fortunately, the joke is less about the bird being dead and more about how the bird’s owner, Phyllis, treats him as if he’s a person.

The scene of her finally finding Zeus’s remains is bittersweet, while the tweeting at his body is laugh-out-loud funny.

“Tube for Tina” is a solid episode that makes two very different plotlines work. May Zeus/Tweet Ulrich/Jonathan Tail-or Thomas rest in peace.

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Bob’s Burgers airs Sundays at 9:30/8:30c on Fox.

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