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Recap / Bob's Burgers S 12 E 11 "Touch of Eval(uations)"

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Louise realizes that Mr. Frond's new plan of students evaluating their teachers has shifted the balance of power at school from teacher to kid. Meanwhile, Bob and Linda discover that they don't agree on where they want their final resting place to be.


Tropes of Evaluations:

  • Appease the Volcano God: Mr. Fischoeder sings a song in the credits about how he'll be tossed into a volcano postmortem.
  • Bad Review Threat: The students quickly start using the threat of receiving a bad evaluation to force their teachers to let them do whatever they want.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Rudy is just as exploitative of the evaluation system as Louise is, perhaps she is rubbing off on him.
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: Ms. LaBonz believes Louise is a genuinely bright kid, which is why she grades so harshly when she barely tries on certain assignments. Louise begins to feel guilty for evaluating her so harshly.
  • Brutal Honesty: Ms. LaBonz acknowledges her tendency to do this.
  • Burial at Sea: Linda's ideal resting place is having her ashes scattered at sea.
  • Call-Back: Bob mentions the time he was in Mort's crematorium as the reason why he doesn't want to be cremated after death.
  • "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Once it becomes clear the students have taken control thanks to the evaluations, Frond doesn't cancel them or come up with a new strategy, like moving up the deadline to turn them in or requiring the students to put their names on the evaluations. This would also allow him to take them with a grain of salt depending on the student.
  • A Day in the Limelight: Ms. LaBonz has a focal role in the episode.
  • Didn't Think This Through: Louise realizes that because the evaluation forms don't have to be turned in until the end of the school day, the kids have a day of freedom and the teachers can't complain so they don't get bad evaluations. Ms. LaBonz calls Mr. Frond out on how poorly planned this was.
  • False Friend: All the teachers become this to their students because of the evaluations they need to get from their students in order to keep their jobs or gain a better parking lot (which Ms. LaBonz seriously needs because her parking is several streets away).
  • Foreshadowing: Starting with this episode, a sinkhole appears to be forming in front of the restaurant, which will kick off the plot of The Bob's Burgers Movie.
  • Gilligan Cut: Mort tells Bob and Linda that they can take their time in deciding who gets what assets. One minute later, they're done, because they have no assets to bequeath.
  • Handcuffed Briefcase: Mr. Frond attempts to turn his normal briefcase that he keeps the evaluations in into one by tying some red yarn to the handle and to his wrist, although he mainly did it so that he doesn't forget the briefcase somewhere instead of actually thinking it could seriously stop someone from stealing it and it's shown to work for that purpose at least when he tries to walk away from Louise when she tries to get her evaluation paper back.
  • Hidden Depths: While Ms. LaBonz is an Apathetic Teacher, this episode demonstrates she does know how to motivate her students to do better in school. For example, she notes that Louise runs on “revenge and spite” so she gave her the crappy grade for her crappy diorama to motivate her to put more effort in her next project. Sure enough, Ms. LaBonz’s prediction proves right when Louise’s outstanding oral report on Latvia, including piradzini to share, earned an A-.
  • Hypocrite: Frond creates the evaluation forms so students can give their teachers constructive criticism, yet he makes a point of telling the students that the forms can't be used to evaluate him.
  • I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: At the end of her announcement, Louise stresses again that she's just an anonymous student, and Tina adds that they all are in case they aren't supposed to be in there. Tina then says, "Good job, Louise!" while the intercom is still on. Gene adds, "You did, Tina, you totally turned it off." to which Tina replies, "Thanks, Gene."
  • Is This Thing Still On?: Mr. Frond has trouble turning off the PA system after his announcement. Later, Louise uses the PA system as an "anonymous student" to revise her evaluation of Ms. LaBonz, and also has trouble turning it off, letting Gene and Tina accidentally identify her (even though it's obvious to everyone who it was).
  • Jerkass Realization: Louise begins to feel bad for grading Ms. LaBonz so harshly when she learns the latter thinks of her as a bright student and thinks she can do better.
  • Last-Minute Project: The reason LaBonz gave Louise a failing grade on her animal diorama is because all she did is put a cotton ball inside an unadorned shoebox and call it a polar bear in the snow. Tina even points out that it took her a minute to make.
  • Lost Will and Testament: Mort's most recent client didn't have one, leading to a fight over an autographed Patrick Swayze photo.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The Wagstaff faculty are all unusually happy and helpful. The kids already take note of this, but when Ms. LaBonz is suddenly cheerful, Louise immediately realizes something is up.
  • Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: The Pesto twins don't get the reference when Ms. LaBonz calls them The Shining.
  • Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: On Touch of Evil.
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story: Played for Laughs; after all their arguing over where they get buried, Bob and Linda immediately abandon the topic when they see how expensive burial plots are.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Suddenly Voiced: Ms. Twitchell, Gene's teacher, speaks for only the second time in the series. Her first speaking role was her debut, "The Gene & Courtney Show", after which she was limited to non-speaking cameos.
  • Together in Death: Discussed; Bob claims that no matter what happens to his body postmortem, he doesn't care as long as it's with Linda’s body. Linda agrees.

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