The Empathize Glide
"I need to fold!"
—Bob
When an embarrassing video featuring the Belcher kids made by Mr. Frond goes public, they join forces with Upskirt Kurt to get their revenge. Meanwhile Bob, Linda and Teddy get wrapped up with paper airplanes in preparation for a contest at the air show.
Trope and Let Fly:
- Actually Quite Catchy: The "Empathize Glide" is seen as a corny and embarrassing song to anyone listening to it but Mr. Branca can't help but hum the song to himself while working.
- All Part of the Show: The air show announcer tries (very unconvincingly) to pass off Kurt and Laverne's behavior as something planned for the show.
- Bait-and-Switch: Linda calls her cousin Marie a hooker. Bob (and likely the audience) assumes she means that Marie's a prostitute, but according to Linda she just means that her paper airplanes hook to the side.
- The Bus Came Back: Upskirt Kurt returns for the first time since Season 4's "Seaplane!".
- Butt-Monkey: Kurt, just like last time, is made a mockery of.
- Chekhov's Skill: Kurt is forced to successfully pull off the Dice and Slice in order to abort the Belcher kids' revenge scheme on Mr. Frond.
- Comically Missing the Point: Bob points out that the washing machine smells like something died because a mouse literally died in there. Linda instead assumes the opposite, that the mouse died because the smell was so bad.
- Continuity Nod: Counsel-Con takes place at the Spinnaker Hotel, the same hotel that has the rotating restaurant called Pie in the Sky.
- Cringe Comedy: The Empathize Glide music video is this both in-universe and out.
- Ear Worm: Mr. Branca considers the Empathize Glide this. Just when he finally gets it out of his head, he spots the kids again and is immediately reminded of it.
- Epic Fail:
- Both of Kurt's known attempts at one-upping Laverne. The first time, he pooped the pit. The second time, he completely misses the mark and just looks like an idiot (although he at least doesn't poop the pit this time).
- Teddy gloats triumphantly when Linda throws out her arm, and throws his paper plane expecting to get a free washing machine. The plane flies a few feet, hooks downwards, and crashes. Though he does hit something... a woman's baby.
- Foreshadowing: Bob tells Linda she might not want to overwork her throwing arm. Sure enough, on the day of the competition she throws out her shoulder.
- Gone Horribly Right: The Enerny patriarch successfully fostered a Sibling Rivalry between Kurt and Laverne... that was so intense and spiteful it lasted decades, and is implied to have outlived Mr. Enerny himself.
- Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Jokingly referenced, but not actually an example. Linda calls Bob this word for word when he ends up having to throw the paper airplane at the contest instead of her. Of course, in Lindanese, "Hooker" just means "someone who curves their paper airplane throws".
- Hope Spot:
- At first it seems that Kurt successfully pulled off the Dice and Slice. Then the announcer points out that he missed the ribbon entirely, by about 50 feet.
- Linda was going to throw the paper airplane because Bob can't throw straight, but she blew out her arm by training too hard, so now Bob has to throw. He bends one of the plane's wings to compensate and throws it. They cheer as it heads straight to the washing machine... and flies right over it. Fortunately, it lands on a blender, so they don't go home empty handed.
- Hypocrite: Mr. Frond complains about how his fellow guidance counselors are egotistical divas.
- Instant Humiliation Just Add Youtube: Mr. Frond gives the Belcher kids the option to help him film an embarrassing rap video about empathy he was assigned to make for the guidance counselor convention in exchange for writing off their 5 hours of detention and promises Louise that the counselors are going to be the only ones to see it, only for him to leave the computer he was editing the video with unattended, logged in and easily accessible for a passing kid to view and share with everyone, which naturally ends up happening and making the Belcher kids the laughingstock of the school. Louise's plan to get even with Mr. Frond is to upload a video of Mr. Frond complaining about and badmouthing his fellow guidance counselors and trick them into watching the video by getting Upskirt Kurt to fly a banner advertising a website link for the video past the window of the building the guidance counselor meeting is taking place in. She has second thoughts about it when using empathy, as featured in the video, ends up getting Kurt and Laverne to settle their differences.
- Jerkass: Per the norm for Mr. Frond, he has absolutely nothing nice to say about any of the other guidance counselors out there and apparently spent a long time bitching about them in front of the Belcher kids.
- Laser-Guided Karma: It's mentioned that Kurt's seaplane lesson gig went out of business, which is why he's started flying advertisements. Considering he used the seaplane as an excuse to be a homewrecker/predator, he kind of had it coming.
- Lotus Position: Barry B. Foldin sits on a cloud this way in the credits.
- Noodle Incident:
- Kurt once tried to stuff a banana in Laverne's tailpipe, which led to Laverne adding security near her plane.
- Linda once brought a stuffed animal to the zoo, which Bob considers a little redundant.
- Oblivious to Their Own Description: Frond complains about how his fellow guidance counselors are super uncool, completely unaware that every complaint he has applies more to him.
- Oh, Crap!: The kids realize that something has gone wrong when they see Mr. Branca humming the tune to the Empathize Glide.
- Old-School Dogfight: After failing the Dice and Slice, Kurt resorts to chasing after Laverne and trying to knock her out of the sky. The announcer tries to pass it off as a reenactment of a WWI dogfight (badly).
- Piss-Take Rap: The Empathize Glide. Making a rap video about feelings is about as terrible as it sounds.Let's swap eyes so we can empathize
Let's swap eyes over a bowl of Em-Pad-Thai - Potty Failure: When Kurt tried to do the Dice and Slice twenty years ago, he made the mistake of having eaten huevos rancheros beforehand—he ended up pooping on the cockpit just as he was passing the judges' stand. He makes the same mistake again, although he doesn't "poop the pit" this time.
- Punny Name: Upskirt Kurt's full name is revealed to be Kurt Enerny, and his sister is named Laverne Enerny.
- The author of the paper plane folding book is named Barry B. Foldin, though it's more likely than not a pen name.
- Schmuck Bait: Mr. Frond clearly never suspects that the Belcher kids are trying to make him badmouth his fellow guidance counselors on video, not even when Gene puts a bag with a camera in it on his desk and tells him not to pay attention to the hole in the bag. In fact, he speaks so long and so freely about his annoyances that they use up the camera tape.
- Second Place Is for Winners: Bob and Linda didn't win the washing machine they wanted, but they did win a blender which they were equally ecstatic about getting.
- Serious Business: Paper airplanes are treated as the most serious thing ever for Bob and Linda, who really want to win a new washing machine. The paper used by professionals is also considered this, to the point that Harold Cranwinkle handles it with gloves when showing Bob.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode title is a shoutout to Live and Let Die.
- The Store Next Door is "The Rare Itch Project: Dermatology".
- The Exterminator Van is "Flies Wide Shut".
- All of Barry B. Foldin’s paper airplanes - Bowfinger, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and What About Bob? - are named after Frank Oz movies.
- Bob’s dream sequence where he meets Barry B. Foldin is a parody of The Wind Rises (and a Call-Back to his Totoro-based dream in "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal").
- The air show announcer says "It's a bird, it's a plane... just kidding, it's a plane!"
- Sibling Rivalry: Laverne and Kurt have been feuding for years over who stole the Dice And Slice from who. Turns out neither did. Their dad taught it to both of them but didn't tell the other party that he did to foster a little competition.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Kurt is much more sympathetic here. Still not very sympathetic in the long run (if only because he's The Chew Toy), but compared to his previous depiction as an unrepentant Serial Homewrecker he's an angel.
