Mannequin Love

Bob's Burgers, S03E09

Bob was left a storage unit from a deceased relative and found a man named Chet living there.  The family took him in until Christmas and got a lot of business thanks to Chet's talent for making eye-catching window displays.  The family was forced to help find Chet's mannequin wife when Bob refused to believe's Chet's story about being a mannequin and the town was expecting a final Christmas Eve display.

First of all, I was really reminded in this story about how broke Bob is.  He couldn't even afford to give Tina a dry-erase board, the most financially feasible of his kids' Christmas requests.  I think sometimes I forget how poor they are until something like this makes it obvious.  In the end when the kids were happy to get things like exit signs and shoe sizers, you can really see how they are low on funds but imaginative enough to appreciate such meager gifts.  The family may be annoying, but at least they're not spoiled.  After all, they gave up their Christmas money so a crazy man could have his "wife" back.

Second, I'm glad that Bob at least didn't believe Chet's story.  It would be cool if he was an actual mannequin (and possibly explain why he is so good at creating displays), but people just tend to be insane in the town where Bob lives.  I sort of wished that there would have been some good evidence to prove that Chet was just crazy, so that Bob wouldn't look like a jerk.  I mean, why does he have to humor the guy?  Yes, he was helping their business tremendously, but surely that kind of behavior has to be destructive.  Bob was trying to help him, as Chet had helped Bob.

Third, I sort of liked Chet's displays for some reason.  I guess it was because the kids got involved and were forced to freeze-frame in a holiday-themed pictures.  My favorite was when they were elves.  I guess the kids just looked cute.  Then again, when Chet was depressed about Nadine and made this horrific scene of a disemboweled snowman and reindeer below an elf that had hung itself, I really loved it too.  I don't know if I could technically call it a display since they never used that one.  Still, as sick as it was, it was pretty good.  Especially the ketchup bottle squirting to make it look like blood coming out of the snowman's neck.  My least favorite was the nativity scene because it turned out to be a "love-triangle" fight and a make-out session with a head.  The latter was especially gross.  I don't mind if the guy wants to love an inanimate object, but no one should have to watch him actually kiss it.  I mean, it's a little funny he was doing that while dressed as Joseph and the mannequin dressed as Mary, but not more so than it was gross.

My favorite joke in this story was when Chet kept pointing out that Bob and Linda were loud whisperers.  They also needed to back up a bit if they were going to talk to someone because both times Chet mentioned this, they weren't that far from him.  I also thought it was sort of funny when Bob was yelling at the kids to stay when Linda tried to make them go so she could scold Bob for hurting Chet's feelings.  Linda won in the end, but the kids were at odds at which parent they should listen to for a while.  Plus, I just like H. Jon Benjamin yelling sometimes.

I would say I liked this episode, but I think I was mostly annoyed that Bob was treated as heartless because he wouldn't believe a ridiculous story.  Still, I liked the displays Chet made and the fact that the kids showed that they could be selfless to help someone.  If anything else, at least this episode was different.  You don't see many Christmas stories about mannequins, I guess.