Tina goes to see Josh perform in a tap show and suspects sabotage when he's injured on stage. Gene and Louise compete over who can make a new Burger of the Day.
Tropey Tropey Tropey Trope Trope Tropes:
- Baby Name Trend Starter: In-Universe; lots of boys are named Sawyer (the episode gives a total of six) because according to one Sawyer, "Lost was really popular when [they] were born."
- Better as Friends: Tina feels this way about Josh. The feeling is mutual.
- Blatant Lies: Teddy spends an excessively long time complaining about the kids' burgers, but when he finally lies and claims they're better than Bob's the kids believe him fully.
- Brick Joke: When forced to pick between a kid, Bob and Linda make an analogy to Gayle asking them to pick between her boobs and butt in a mesh bathing suit. At the end of the subplot, Teddy makes the same analogy.
- Brutal Honesty: Teddy immediately calls the kids' burgers terrible. He continues to rip on them without mercy until Bob finally gets him to lie about his true feelings.Teddy: It's like poison! Both of them! How could you kids do this to your father's delicious meat?
- The Bus Came Back: Seven seasons later, Josh and Douglas are back.
- Call-Back: Louise's interest in entering the restaurant business has been mentioned before.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Despite their ultimately platonic relationship, Tina can't seem to freely express herself around Josh. She even spends the entire episode chasing a fake case to avoid telling her true feelings to him.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: The result of letting the kids make burgers. Gene's had diced olives and licorice, while Louise had gum on hers.
- Derailing Love Interests: A variation - despite Josh being pushed as a possible love interest for Tina (and her potentially returning his feelings) throughout the middle episodes of Season 3, this episode abruptly has both characters deciding they're Better as Friends with little foreshadowing beforehand.
- Epic Fail: Gene and Louise's burgers are absolutely horrible. Not only are they unnaturally colored, but they contain ingredients such as licorice and chewing gum. Bob and Linda cannot believe the burgers turned out that badly despite all the time the kids have spent watching Bob prepare burgers. Even Teddy, a man who once ate a sponge with no issue, was scarred for life after trying their burgers.
- Everyone Has Standards: Teddy, who has and will eat everything Bob puts on a plate, was traumatized over tasting Gene and Louise's burgers.
- Foreshadowing: Early on, Josh notes that he doesn't think anyone would have it out for him to the point of sabotage. He's not just being naive, he's being right.
- Gasshole: The episode starts with Gene ripping a large fart, and a few minutes later, Linda interrupts Bob's Imagine Spot with a burp.
- Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement: Tina takes her sweet time deciding what to say to Josh multiple times over the course of the episode, which causes him visible confusion over her sudden long bouts of silence.Josh: You're taking a long time to say things back to me.
- Imagine Spot: When Gene and Louise volunteer to work in the kitchen, Bob has a fantasy about them running the restaurant (and renaming it "Bob's Kids' Burgers").
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: When Louise realizes Tina is getting the day off work to attend Josh's rehearsal; she says she needs to attend "Rudy's ballet fight", which Bob of course doese not buy for a second.
- Loved by All: Josh claims he is this, and that it's why nobody would have sabotaged him.
- Not Helping Your Case: Sawyer D. is innocent, but he doesn't help his image by running at the mere sight of Tina (turns out he ran because he saw Tina yelling at everyone else).
- One-Steve Limit: Josh's understudy is named Sawyer, but whenever Tina tries to interrogate him, it turns out to be the wrong Sawyer; there are actually six kids named Sawyer in the class — apparently there were a lot of Lost fans in town.
- Parental Favoritism: As much as they argue that they aren't going to pick a winner no matter what, Bob says he's sure Louise's burger will be better while Linda thinks Gene's will be the best. This is ironically a parallel to the kids themselves, as Louise favors Bob while Gene favors Linda.
- Bob actually has a valid reason to bet on Louise, though this isn't brought up—in "Carpe Museum", Louise revealed to Bob her desire to inherit the restaurant, and Bob assumed this meant she had more passion for cooking than Gene. Unfortunately, passion doesn't quite translate into skill.
- Red Herring: Tina finds suspects for the supposed sabotage of Josh's dance everywhere. There's Josh's friend Douglas, who early on says he hates tap and later confesses to auditioning for Josh's role; there's Josh's understudy Sawyer, who isn't even there that day and is one of half a dozen Sawyers in the class; and there's the teacher, who could have taken the central role for herself, but if she wanted to do that, she wouldn't have stopped the rehearsal. In the end, neither one is the culprit, as Josh inadvertently ruined the rehearsal himself by failing to lock the stairs since he mistook the "click" sound that his tap shoes made when pushing down on the lock bar for the sound of the locking mechanism being engaged.
- The Reveal:
- Josh accidentally sabotaged himself by not properly locking the stairs.
- Josh agrees with Tina's sentiment about being Better as Friends and is actually annoyed she didn't just tell him upfront.
- Running Gag: Tina saying "Suspect!" in her head.
- Shout-Out:
- The Burger of the Day is the "Better Cauliflower Saul Burger".
- A lot of children in the dance school are called Sawyer because of Lost.
- The prop stairs are named Fred, as in Fred A. Stairs.
- There are posters for Noises Off and A Hatful of Rain
in the lobby of Josh's rehearsal theater.
- The Show Must Go On: Subverted; after Josh's accident, Ms. Morris says "The show must not go on" and notes that unless Josh heals up in time for the show that night, they can't continue.
- Start My Own: After Teddy claims that both of the kids' burgers are better than Bob's, Louise says she wants to start her own restaurant with Gene and Teddy.
- Title Drop: The episode's title is the name of the recital Josh is performing in.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Douglas offhandedly remarks that the stairs have a lock on them, which causes Tina to spend the entire A-plot interrogating students over what she believes is an act of sabotage.
- Where Did We Go Wrong?: Bob can't fathom how two of his kids could've messed up a burger that badly.
- Whodunnit: Tina suspects that someone set up Josh to get injured. It was all an accident on Josh's part: he mistook the clicking sound on his tap shoes for the brakes on the stage stairs.
