"Oh shut up, 'Ms. Fischoeder'!"
Tina: She's a magnate magnet.
Linda: More like a home-wrecker.
Mr. Fischoeder: That's why I need to give her a home to wreck.
Linda: More like a home-wrecker.
Mr. Fischoeder: That's why I need to give her a home to wreck.
Mr. Fischoeder hires the Belchers to be his pretend family, so he can woo an old flame.
Tropes:
- Assurance Backfire: When the kids beg Shelby not to shoot their father, she insists she won't. Unfortunately, she's still under the assumption that Mr. Fischoeder (who she never intended to shoot) is their father, while the kids are begging her not to shoot Bob (who she fully plans to shoot).
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
- All three kids immediately blow their covers as Mr. Fischoeder's kids when they realize Bob is now in danger, though Shelby doesn't catch on. Even Louise is horrified.
- Additionally, when Bob is shown to be depressed after being neglected the entire episode, all of the Belchers seem to feel genuine guilt and give Bob a heartfelt hug. Yes, even Louise.
- Bad "Bad Acting": Linda and Tina's attempts at acting like they love Mr. Fischoder aren't as convincing as Gene and Louise's. The facade also slips a couple times even before Bob snaps (when Linda tells the kids to hug their father, they all go to hug Bob).
- Comically Missing the Point: Even after it becomes obvious that Bob is the kids' actual father, Shelby seems a bit unsure of if he's Linda's actual husband or extramarital lover, to the point that Mr. Fischoeder tries to pass it off as the latter until Linda clarifies it for her.
- Companion Cube: As he gets increasingly shitfaced on absinthe, Bob names the turkey "Lance" and becomes his pal.
- Complexity Addiction: Based on everything Mr. Fischoeder says about Shelby, Linda was the only necessary part for his plan. Adding the kids while isolating Bob entirely only causes more planning and more problems. Worth noting is that (shoddy acting aside) Linda is the last Belcher to blow her cover, meaning Mr. Fischoeder's plan probably would've gone better if she was the only one involved.
- Disproportionate Retribution: When Bob runs off with Lance, Shelby's first reaction is to try and gun him down.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Shelby assumes the kids are talking about Mr. Fischoeder instead of Bob when they beg her not to shoot their father, completely unaware that the kids are indeed talking about Bob and are revealing themselves as his kids to try and save him. Even when the kids are completely, unambiguously referring to Bob, all this does is make her question it for a second before continuing the hunt.
- Dropping the Bombshell: Repeatedly, in fact. Bob's outburst at dinner somehow wasn't enough to make Shelby realize the truth, but the kids constantly addressing Bob as their father as Shelby tries to shoot him is a dead giveaway as to Bob's true relation to the Belchers.
- First-Name Basis: Shelby is the first person to consistently call Mr. Fischoeder by his first name of Calvin (and until Felix Fischoeder's debut a season later, she's the only one).
- Gun Nut: Shelby is more than a little nutty, as the Belchers (and especially Bob) very nearly experience the hard way.
- The Gunslinger: Shelby is an expert sharpshooter. Lucky for Bob, she has trouble hitting a moving target.
- Has a Type: If you're not married and rich, Shelby Schnabel doesn't want you.
- Karma Houdini: Shelby gets away scot-free despite attempting to gun down Bob.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Mr. Fischoeder claims schlong is German for snake. It actually comes from schlang, the Yiddish word for snake. The German word for snake is Schlange.
- Late to the Punchline: Bob recites his Thanksgiving toast from the previous year, with the pun "if you want to open the door to this family, use the tur-key," and Louise replies that she just got the joke.
- Literal-Minded: Bob asks everyone to raise their glasses. Tina raises her eyeglasses.
- Long List: The kids list off all major holidays by order of importance to show Bob how little they care about Thanksgiving: Louise's birthday, Christmas, Halloween, Easter, Hanukkah, Snow Day, Amateur Night, Veterans Day, Tooth Fairy Eve, St. Patrick's Day, May Day, Groundhog Day, season premiere of Game of Thrones, Opposite Day, Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Carnival, Angela Lansbury's birthday, Bath Night, Black Friday, and finally Thanksgiving.
- No, You: When Linda calls Bob drunk, Bob instead retorts that Linda is drunk. As it turns out, Bob's right—she's had a lot of wine to drink.
- Oh, Crap!: Linda and the kids once Shelby cocks her rifle with the intent of going after Bob.
- Operation: Jealousy: Mr. Fischoeder hires Bob's family to be his to attract the attention of his old crush Shelby, who has a thing for seducing married men.
- Pocket Protector: Linda is horrified when she thinks Shelby shot Bob, but fortunately Lance the turkey "took the bullet" for Bob.
- Sanity Slippage: Bob's loneliness drives him to drown his sorrows with absinthe, which in turn causes him to suffer vivid hallucinations and befriend the thanksgiving turkey.
- Serial Homewrecker: Shelby will only date married men, which is why Mr. Fischoeder needs Linda and the kids to pretend to be his family. Linda flat out calls Shelby a homewrecker and Bob thinks she's nuts.Shelby: I respect myself too much not to be the other woman.
- Shout-Out:
- Bob's hallucination with his family, Lance the turkey, and the tree made out of Thanksgiving food spoofs My Neighbor Totoro.
- Bob's special tradition with Louise is called "Turkey CSI: Miami".
- At the end of the episode, Louise uses her prize tickets from Fischoeder to win the family portrait he had commissioned of the "Fischoeder family." She says it will age while she'll stay nine forever, like The Picture of Dorian Gray.
- To Serve Man: Discussed during the ending, when the kids ponder on what would happen if Bob got shot instead of the turkey:Louise: Good thing a bullet hit Lance, or else we'd be eating Dad.
Gene: He'd taste old and bitter.
Tina: I bet Dad would have made a great dinner.
Bob: Thanks, Tina.
Tina: Yeah, you're so plump.
Bob: Oh. - The Unreveal: The kids speculate on what sort of weird things are in Fischoeder's mansion. Louise thinks there are actual skeletons in the closets, Gene thinks there is a dungeon of Dungeness crabs, and Tina thinks the water in the toilets evaporates and forms a rainbow. Fischoeder replies that two of them are correct, and Tina later says she was right about the toilets. We never find out if it was Gene or Louise who was right.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out if the Belchers got their promised five months of free rent from Mr. Fischoeder.
