Tina Gone Wild

Bob's Burgers, S02E08

Tina became friends with a new girl named Tammy who began to have a negative influence on Tina.  Tina just wanted to get closer to Jimmy Jr., but Tammy was blackmailing her with Tina's erotic stories about their classmates and forcing Tina to hang out with her while breaking school and home rules.  Tina ended Tammy's terror by beating her to the punch and reading her stories to the whole school herself.  She was ridiculed only until Tammy stole the spotlight through her uncontrollable farts.  Bob also was obsessed with patty cake after seeing a Cake performance with Linda.

I don't know if I've ever watched someone be so unnervingly awkward doing their puberty.  Her stories of grabbing butts is just so uncomfortable to see.  I mean, I guess it's better than something truly erotic and nasty, but finding out that Tina has tons of stories written in this fashion is unsettling.  But I'm impressed by the way Tina could express herself creatively and didn't find anything wrong with her works until Tammy made her think that if Jimmy ever found out about it, he'd never speak to her again.  Leave it to another kid to undermine a person of an unique style or mind and make them feel like a freak.  But I'm glad that in the end, Tina did things her way and didn't turn into a Tammy clone.

As much as Tina makes me cringe, I would have hated to see someone like Tammy change her and take away what makes her special.  At first I thought Tammy would make Tina less of a pushover and build her confidence with Jimmy Jr, but she soon revealed that she didn't care about what was good for Tina at all and would have kept pushing her to steal bottles of margarita mix and cut class until Tina was a delinquent whore that Jimmy would probably hate.  Even though Tina was laughed at by the other students, at least Jimmy thought her stories about everyone she knew touching each others' butts was cool.  I was happy to see it wasn't a makeover or wild parties with fake highs from cocktail mixes that made Jimmy pay a little more attention to Tina. 

The part that was the funniest for me was the tension between Linda and Tina as she started to change.  She kept throwing random slang at her that Linda took offense to, but didn't understand what it meant.  I didn't know either what a "boob punch" was, but I loved Tina calling her mother that and Linda getting mad about it.  I think I may use that on someone and see if I can get such a rise out of them.

I quite liked this episode because it focused on how Tina handled peer pressure and maintained her individuality.  I don't know if she'll ever get together with Jimmy Jr., but I hope that no matter what happens that she won't try to change herself too much to impress him.  Her eccentric personality is one of the top reasons I continue to watch this show, after all.