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.

The Fall Of Chang, The End Of Trobed

Community, S03E21

Jeff and the study group implemented a plan to save the dean from Chang.  After getting information about the extent of the Chang's army around the school, they were able to remove the dean from the basement Chang was holding him, but Chang stopped them before they could escape and locked all of them up.  Troy got them free by agreeing to be part of the AC school, and they stopped Chang from blowing up the school with fireworks.  Just when Jeff and Chang looked like they were going to go head-to-head with tasers, the school board came and informed Chang the jig was up.  Chang ran away before he could be prosecuted and the dean was reinstated.  Troy had to leave his apartment for the AC school housing and said goodbye to his friends.

I liked how Chang was looked upon as a savior of Greendale, and there was some kind of video at the beginning of the episode about how enrollment was up and tuition was more affordable.   I expected that Greendale would have turned into some kind of hellhole where order had been totally cast aside.  In truth, Chang was running everything into the ground (most apparent from his excessive spending to cover his birthday party), but at his party the board was treating him like a hero.  Chang was aptly dressed as Napoleon, the clothes making him look both hungry for power and off-balance.  I'm a little sad that he had the appearance of a king (with an elaborate throne in his office), but in reality he didn't seem to have heavily established his power.  In fact, I felt like he was just using his power to fund his random whims and get himself pampered.  I sort of wanted to see him hanging a blanket of doom over the students.  I think only the security detail outside that looked more like a militarized border control and his black suited mini-guards patrolling the halls were the only example of that.  But maybe Chang didn't have enough time to "chang" things.  Then again, if he had any more time as the leader of Greendale without opposition, he would blown it up.

As far as the gang's heist, I think it was clever that they pretended to fail so that they could get the jump on Chang, but I wished they had made their escape with the real dean a little faster.  They were strolling out of the school like they were in freaking Oceans Eleven.  I groaned when Chang caught up with them.  Chang would have been an idiot not to.  But at least thanks to Troy he got them out.

Speaking of Troy, it's looking like they truly are going in the direction of Britta and Troy.  Not exactly the biggest fan, but I'll see how that pans out.  The return of the dean wasn't that emotional for me, but it was when Troy had to say goodbye to his friends.  I liked that Pierce said something random about condoms, and Jeff followed it by saying that Troy should never listen to Pierce.  I might have gotten a little in favor of Troy and Britta when Britta gave him a lock of her hair and his response was:

Aww, creepy.

 But I'm probably more in favor of Troy and Abed as a duo because I was tearing up when they had to say goodbye.  Troy leaned into Abed's ear and whispered something and then they did their special handshake.  Annie later asked Abed what Troy had said:

He said, "I know you hate it when people do this in movies." ...Sorry for getting so emotional.

It just broke my heart to see Troy and Abed have to be separated!  If I had to wait a whole week to see what happened next, I would have died with anticipation.  How can they do their talk show without the other one or all of the other amazing things they do??  It's just not right for them to be apart.

I liked this episode, but obviously not as much as I loved the previous one.  I'm disappointed that Chang didn't take his leadership as far as he could, but I'm glad we got to see him enjoying himself as a self-proclaimed king for a little while.  I nearly cried watching Troy leave the gang, but I know that they can't possibly leave him out of the circle for long.  There just wouldn't be a Community without Troy and Abed together.  And if there was permanently, I wouldn't want to watch that for very long.