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Recap / Bob's Burgers S 12 E 18 "Clear and Present Ginger"

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Linda has a big day planned when her friend, Ginger, comes to visit. Meanwhile, Bob and the kids help Nat with her Limo competition.


Clear and Present Tropes:

  • Absurd Phobia: Gayle is afraid her new fold-out couch is going to eat her, is apparently trying to glue it open and claims she saw it licking its "lips".
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: Normally, Linda tells her kids to stay out of her room whenever she leaves the house. Louise turns the tables on her when everyone else is leaving.
  • Don't Look Back: When Nat tells her group not to look back at Peggy at the stands, whom she clearly wants to woo:
    Nat: Okay, don't look now, but that woman right up there in the stands with the teen daughter is Peggy. *the Belchers quickly look at Peggy, she looks back at them* Okay, so you're all just looking at Peggy?
    Tina: Yep.
    Gene: I'm waggling my fingers at her!
    Bob: Gene.
  • Freak Out: Tina is so worried that Jimmy Jr. won't take her to prom (despite it being three years away) that when her challenge turns out to be that she is a "prom queen" who was stood up, that instead of hiding behind a trashcan while her limo driver picks her up like she's supposed to as a part of the race, she runs past the trashcan, out of the track and locks herself up in the restroom.
  • Groin Attack: Nat tries to incentivize Bob not to drop his cup of coffee by telling him it'll burn his penis if he spills it. It actually works, as Bob and Nat win the first round without Bob having spilled anything.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Gayle accuses Linda of being weird for clinking wine glasses with her, and then takes her shoes off due to a bad foot fungus and proceeds to rub her feet on Linda's rug.
  • Musicalis Interruptus: Linda opens the episode by singing a song about Ginger. When she tries to sing it again, the rest of the family decides it's as good a time as any to leave for Nat's competition.
  • Overly Narrow Superlative: Nat says the limo competition is the most exciting night of limo racing... and the only night of limo racing.
  • Parallel Parking: The final challenge of the competition requires the limo drivers to do this, then carry their "prom queens" to the car. It turns out Nat is the only competitor who can parallel park, to the point that she wins the competition even after Tina running off costs her a lot of time.
  • Phoneaholic Teenager: Tina spends quite a long time texting Jimmy Jr. on the emergency phone. Louise remarks that it's probably a good thing she doesn't have a phone of her own.
  • Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode title is a Shout-Out to Clear and Present Danger. The exact same title was used for a Burger of the Day back in "Sit Me Baby One More Time".
  • Shared Family Quirks: Both Bob and Linda are shown having trouble with excessive armpit sweat when they're nervous: while Bob managed to do his part of the limo race without spilling any of the coffee, he was so nervous about doing so since the coffee was really hot and he was afraid of burning his penis with it that he sweat through the business suit he was wearing, causing the race commentator to take notice at it while announcing the results, and Linda is seen applying deodorant to her pits multiple times over the course of the episode when she's busy dealing with Gayle's and Gretchen's antics and while worrying whether Ginger will make it there tonight or not.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Staircase Tumble: Gretchen and Gayle fall down the stairs storming out of Linda's apartment. Gretchen says it didn't hurt as much as Linda's rejection.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Gretchen regularly calls her ex-boyfriends using *-6-7 to remain anonymous.
  • Unreveal Angle: Ginger does show up by the end, but the camera only shows her from the back, meaning nothing new is revealed about her appearance.
  • The Voiceless: By virtue of appearing onscreen for maybe five seconds, Ginger doesn't even get a single line.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: The second challenge of the limo competition involves the elderly participants (with Louise and Gene disguised as old people) shooting zombie cut-outs with water guns while riding limos, much to the kids' delight.

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