Best Friend Toilet

Bob's Burgers, S03E15

Gene, after losing his chance to care for a flour baby, happened upon a super-intelligent toilet and befriended it as he began to care for it.  Their friendship was compromised when a dangerous man started stalking Gene, wanting to take the toilet back.  Bob also found that while wearing a suit he had gotten from the funeral home, he was more popular and attractive than he ever was without it.

Gene taking care of a bag of flour was doomed from the start.  An egg would have just been impossible--he has the grace and delicacy of an a drunken ox.  Now, Gene and a toilet are about the best match I could think of, without considered something imaginary.  It having the ability to speak and do things like play music is just a bonus.  It felt very natural for Gene to be out in the middle of the woods talking to a toilet like it was some random kid he had just met.  The only thing I thought was weird was that the toilet was able to work fine without being hooked into anything.  I mean, it was charged and all, but how would one actually use it to relieve fluids?  Where would those go if flushed?  I don't know.  I kept wondering about that the whole the time.  Good thing Gene never used it to pee.

I thought Gene assembling his friends and family to help the toilet escape Max Flush was pretty cute.  It was a nice parody of E.T.  It was definitely thinking outside of the box by replacing the alien with a toilet.  I haven't seen that version yet, so it helped keep my interest throughout.  I also liked how the kids managed to lure Max away with one of their friends dressed as Gene and by leaving a decoy on the ferry.  Those kids are good.  They would have been rid of the guy for good if he hadn't been able to swim back to shore.  You would think that Max would have caught up to them sooner, but they are damn smart.  I like when they band together to do some kind of operation, like when they were selling peeks at the nude beach.  They need to do more projects that involve the kids plus their friends.

It was almost sad when Gene had to part with his new best friend, and when he told it that he loved it, the toilet kept saying "Vomit now."  No matter if you felt a twinge of sentiment for the bond Gene seemed to have formed with the toilet, you couldn't possibly not find the tiniest bit in humor in their final exchange.  It was almost as if the toilet wanted to vomit from Gene getting overly emotional at the end.  I'm glad it happened as it did with Gene yelling futiley to express his feelings and the toilet just thinking he needed to toss his cookies.

I liked Bob's story as much as I did Gene's--that was a pleasant surprise.  Bob isn't the most respected or good-looking guy around, so to see him have people nearly treating him like a celebrity because of a suit was bizarre, but an entertaining story.  It was amazing that he was being given free drinks and women were flirting with him.  The same guy who looks like a hairy bowling pin.  I thought Linda might spoil his fun, but she seemed just as dazzled by Bob in his suit as strangers were.  I felt sadder when he had to part with the suit more than Gene had to with the toilet.  I mean, that suit really improved his life.  It's a shame that police officer recognized the suit--Bob deserved to live in the glory of his clothing a little longer.  I think it's the best thing that's happened to him in a long time.

There was also a line earlier in the story that I liked.  Louise had an amusing reaction to his suit:

Wow, Don Draper's kinda fat this season.

Suggesting that Bob even looks like a fatter version of Don Draper is a pretty damn good compliment.  I mean, Louise isn't known to say very nice things in general, so that's as about as good as he's gonna get.

I liked this episode.  It was one of those rare ones where I wasn't irritated at anyone and the story wasn't centered around events of bad luck.  Gene having a best friend that was a toilet was a surprisingly good match, considering how unusual Gene is.  It was also one of the better E.T. spoofs that I've seen in a while.  I wish that Bob had a little more time with his suit, though.  He's never going to get the money or success to be as respectable and beloved as he was on his own, so it feels like that was his one opportunity to shine.  But I guess since Gene had to say goodbye to something he loved, it was only fair that Bob would have to do the same.

Abed Is The Sanest of All

Community, S03E19

Abed had to see a psychiatrist to avoid trespassing charges from the "dean."  Jeff and the other accompanied him (he hates to see doctors on his own), and they all defended Abed's eccentricity by showing their own and proving that he was no crazier than any one else.  The doctor not only determined that Abed should be committed, but revealed that Greendale was not a school but an asylum they had all attended for 3 years.  Everyone believed him for about a few minutes before they got the truth from him--he was working for Chang and the dean had been replaced with a lookalike (as Abed kept telling them).  They planned to get the dean back.

I'm happy that the gang was still finding a way to see each other after two months have passed since their expulsion.  Troy had a really interesting dish that had Bagel Bites, Doritos and a deconstructed Hot Pocket mixed in it.  I probably would try that no matter how odd the combination sounds.  It was also good to see Abed up to some mischief, wearing his Inspector Spacetime outfit, but unfortunate that it led to him having to go see a psychiatrist.  Especially because he was probably trying to find evidence to prove that the dean had been kidnapped and replaced and no one was paying attention to his theories.

I loved that Jeff and the others went with Abed to the psychiatrist.  On one hand you could think that they had nothing else better to do (being ex-students with no jobs), but on the other hand, they all really love Abed so much that they wouldn't let him go alone.  They didn't let the doctor step over Abed and make him sound insane, but instead made themselves sound just as crazy (if not crazier) than Abed through stories of their own lapses of sanity.  Now that's friendship.  But I really liked when they were recalling some highlights of Abed's weirdness.  Troy had a really good quote about him regarding that:

You have to understand about Abed, he’s usually adorable weird like Mork from Ork but since we got expelled he’s been creepy weird like present day Robin Williams.

Some of the best Abed memories were Shirley's and Pierce's.  In the former, he got pissed that Shirley claimed someone was the "new Speilberg" and called her a  "bad person."  I could see him shoving the tray in her face if she wasn't his friend.  I love angry Abed.  But the latter, where Abed was narrating Pierce's life, was absolute gold.  I couldn't stop laughing at that.  He was saying such rude stuff and Pierce was getting so angry!  And it was great that he even narrated when Pierce spoke to him, but made it seem like Pierce was talking to himself.  Abed is so damn good!  That was my absolute favorite scene.

I got a little scared when the doctor said that Abed needed to be committed, but I was glad that Jeff was trying to joke his way out of it.  It was cute when he told Abed to do his Don Draper impression and all Abed really did was pose and say "cigarettes."  Adorable.  But what I liked best is that they didn't readily accept that Abed should be locked away as if he were a maniac on the rise.  It made my heart smile to see them fight for him.

It was also a little cute how they noticed how the dean always used to have their back, even for the most trivial things.  He's creepy and odd, but he's most certainly their friend, whether they want him to be or not.  He's at least less of a negative existence in their past Greendale life than Chang was.  If anyone needs to be committed, the guy snorting corn chips up his nose like crack is a better choice.

It was a good trick that the doctor pulled on the gang to make them think that Greendale was never a college.  They are a little guillible sometimes, so I'm not surprised they began to believe it at first (plus they are a little co-dependent at times).  I almost thought that would be a great twist (though kind of a cop out) on this show, but I was happier that they caught the doctor trying to sneak out and called him out on his shit.  If they hadn't, Chang would have been able to keep them oblivious of his plan (save Abed) for longer, and he might have come up with a better plan to eliminate them.  Plus, it was really funny when the doctor tried to come up with another lie on the spot about Greendale being purgatory and Jeff slapped Troy for falling for that.  Oh, Troy.

It's also funny that Chang was plotting to take care of them now that they were on to him.  He is really starting to look a villian!  I like how he's changed from an unqualified Spanish teacher who used to make their lives unnecessarily miserable to a power-hungry mastermind.  I wonder what will happen to him if he's fired from that job?  Someone as crazy as him can't be left to his own devices for very long.  He's needs to have some kind of task or we might see him setting off explosives somewhere.

It's wonderful how the gang all hugged each other when they realized they weren't crazy and that they had something they needed to do (aka save the dean).  Chang may have one foot in the crazy house right now, but his horrible plan is really bringing them all together.  I thought they were tight before, but they are really proving that their bonds go deeper than a shared class or school.  I can't imagine anything ever breaking them apart.

This is one of my favorite episodes.  It's been a while since I've liked one that wasn't a more adventurous tale of battle or chaos in the school.  This time I just really enjoyed the depth of everyone's friendship and the hilarious memories they could look back upon.  Abed, although being silent throughout most of the doctor's appointment, was really funny through his friends' eyes.  Finally, everyone has seen that their enemy Chang needs to be taken down and the dean needs to be rescued.  Can't wait to see how Chang plans to stop them and how Jeff and the others manage to take him down.