Recap / Bob's Burgers S10E8 "Now Were Not Cooking With Gas"

"I'm sorry, Billy Joel, we did start the fire!"

"As much as I love you all, I might actually love this turkey more right now."

—Bob

Bob gets his hands on a fresh-killed heritage turkey for Thanksgiving dinner, but a gas outage leads Bob to resort to desperate measures to get his turkey cooked, even if it means getting the fire department involved.

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Now We're Not Cooking With Tropes:

• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: When sent to look for stuff to burn for the fire, Linda gets distracted looking at the kids’ old drawings and arts-and-crafts projects.
• Burn Baby Burn: Louise says this verbatim when tossing a basket into the fire.
• Didn't Think This Through: The kids manage to get a fallen log back to the alley, but Bob points out that it's too big to fit into the fire pit and they don't have anything with which to chop it up.
• Jerkass Realization: When Tina offers her father her gratefulness tree to burn, Bob nearly considers throwing it onto the fire before realizing that he's let his obsession get the best of him.
  Bob: I've gone nuts, haven't I?
  Tina: Oh, just a little bit.
• LOL, 69: Linda tells Bob that she's sure they paid the gas bill because "The check number ended in 69 and we high-fived."
• No Sympathy: While Bob is technically doing something wrong by setting up a fire in the alley, the fire department is rather callous towards him when they come to hose it down.
• Oh, Crap!: Bob says this verbatim when the fire department shows up to the alley.
• Pyromaniac: Louise is all over Bob's plan to cook the turkey in the back alley over an open fire because it gives her an excuse to burn things. Bob does take notice that she's way too excited about it, but is ultimately too focused on his turkey to care.
• Sanity Slippage: As usual, Bob goes totally off his rocker when it comes to Thanksgiving. He becomes downright obsessed with cooking the heritage turkey for Thanksgiving, setting up a fire pit in the alley and getting Linda and the kids to find things to burn.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Upon seeing Bob serenade his turkey in the fridge, Linda asks if he wants her to set up a little bed so he can sleep near his little friend. Bob assures Linda that he can do it himself. He then realizes she was being sarcastic.
• Serious Business: Riverbrook Lake Farms Heritage turkeys are freshly killed, never frozen, and must be cooked and served as soon as possible without interfering with either of the above. So when Linda suggests freezing it, Bob immediately took offense.
  Bob: (eye twitching) What did you just say?
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Subverted. Bob accidentally knocks the turkey into the bonfire while trying to prevent the fire department from putting out the fire, burning it in the process. Instead of it getting ruined, the turkey becomes perfectly cooked, with the Belchers eating it up at the end.
• Shout-Out:
  • Gene makes a Billy Joel reference after Bob starts the fire in the alley.
    Gene: "I'm sorry, Billy Joel, we did start the fire!"
  • Bob compares cooking the turkey to Independence Day.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Gene definitely didn't pee on anything usable as fuel.
• Tempting Fate: Bob declares that this is going to be the best turkey he’s ever cooked, just as the fire department comes to shut him down.
• Thanksgiving Episode
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The turkey falls on the fire and gets burnt badly. Bob is about to throw it away when he realizes that under the charred skin the meat is perfectly cooked. He and the family start eating from it, saying it’s perhaps the best turkey Bob has ever cooked.
• Twitchy Eye: Bob's eye twitches when Linda suggests freezing the turkey.