"I'm going to show you who's been murdering your business."
Mr. Fischoeder: And though I found the lack of ham and legs disappointing, I did enjoy the part where they used a play within a play to get whoever it was to admit to killing, uh, whoever that other guy was.
Linda: That's what Hamlet is about? I thought it was about Romeo and Juliet.
Mr. Fischoeder: And also, there was a ghost.
Linda: That's what Hamlet is about? I thought it was about Romeo and Juliet.
Mr. Fischoeder: And also, there was a ghost.
The Belchers help Mr. Fischoeder put on a play to get his brother Felix to confess to a theft; Bob weighs the merits and drawbacks of expanding his business; Louise is jealous of Tina's hands.
To Trope or Not to Trope:
- Anxiety Dreams: Bob's dream of owning the Store Next Door is sure as hell not helpful in his decision to take the offer to expand or not. The Bedsheet Ghost doesn't help at all and keeps telling Bob to avenge him...for reasons unknown that the ghost can't describe either.
- Bedsheet Ghost: The ghost that appears in Bob's dreams is just a sheet with eyeholes.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Among the attemps Calvin tries to get Felix to admit he stole the trophy are hypnotism, spanking him and lacing his food with LSD.
- Continuity Nod:
- The stretch of road outside the restaurant is still fresh, referencing how it was recently filled in at the end of the movie.
- Like he previously did in Season 5, Bob calls himself a man of action.
- During the play, Louise’s melted Kuchi Kopi from several seasons ago is used as a prop to represent the trophy.
- Cross-Cast Role: The Belcher kids play "characters" that are the opposite genders to themselves in Calvin's play. Tina and Louise play the Fischoeder brothers, while Gene is cast as the buxom German house maid.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Calvin gets his tenants to attend the play by threatening to cancel their leases.
- Evolving Credits: The opening credits change for the first time since Season 3 to include the sinkhole and "Grand Re-Re-Re-Re-Opening" sign featured in The Bob's Burgers Movie.
- Group Hug: The Belchers do a family group hug at the end of the episode after the kids make Bob a trophy made out of (slightly rotting) vegetable scraps. Teddy trips over the counter trying to join in.
- Hypocritical Humor: When the Belchers are musing over the Store Next Door closing down, Bob talks about having never gotten the tanning session they offered. Gene tells Bob not to make it about himself... then immediately asks if they'd give him some lotions if he went over himself.
- Malaproper: Calvin ended up seeing a play of Hamlet because he thought it was actually a burlesque called Ham Legs.
- Noodle Incident: One of Calvin's attempts at getting Felix to confess involved drugging him with LSD, which isn't further elaborated on.
- Opening Shout-Out: The Store Next Door that always gets taken down during the opening credits is shown getting taken down for real in the first scene of the episode.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: After the play Teddy says, "Best play I've ever seen...in a store, with non-actors, written by a guy who, you know, doesn't care about structure."
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode title is a reference to the title character's famous speech in Hamlet.
- Saying Too Much: Felix accidentally confesses to the theft by asking Calvin how he hasn't figured out where Felix hid the trophy if he's so confident he took it.
- Shout-Out:
- The Store Next Door is "Tan in Real Life".
- The Exterminator Van is "Merchant of Vermin".
- The first Burger of the Day is the "I Like Walnuts and I Cannot Lie Burger".
- The second Burger of the Day is the "Mid-cucumber Nights Brie-m Burger".
- The third Burger of the Day is the "Dirty Rotten Tendrills Burger".
- The fourth Burger of the Day is the "Cauliflower Me Maybe Burger".
- The fifth and final Burger of the Day is the "All The World's a Sage Burger"note .
- Louise imagines herself sitting on a knife-based variant of the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones.
- Status Quo Is God: The episode teases the idea of upgrading the family's small restaurant when Bob and Linda toy with the idea of expanding their business into the Store Next Door, but both eventually realize it's not something they really want to do and drop the idea. Aside from Bob's usual dislike of change, he also implies at the start that he's worried expansion won't bring enough success to offset the cost of two buildings' rent, since they're already barely making enough for one building and Calvin's free rent offer is only for one month—and that's without mentioning the Store Next Door is a death knell for most businesses. Meanwhile, Linda only goes along with it because she thought Bob wanted it.
- Stylistic Suck: Calvin's play was clearly written at the last moment, full of silly lines like "Come, my largest and best son!" and performed by complete amateurs who only had a few hours of rehearsal time. The Belchers didn't even learn their lines and kept reading them in front of the audience.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Felix ends up revealing where he hid the trophy by asking Calvin why he hasn't figured out where he hid it and when he insists he didn't hide it in the swan pond, unprovoked.
- Take That!: Calvin calls his play “Hamlet But Good This Time” because he wasn’t impressed with the real Hamlet.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: The B-plot has Louise wanting to sharpen the knives, which Bob has entrusted to Tina. While it's partially about being treated like a little kid, Louise's main motivation is just wanting to be around knives. Bob is understandably unsettled by the thought of his nine-year-old daughter playing with knives and potentially harming herself. She ends up learning in secret how to sharpen knives, revealing that, while she didn't get injured, she ruined a lot of them, much to Bob's dismay.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Seeing the Hamlet play by accident (he mistook it for a burlesque named Ham Legs), Calvin decides to do a play to convince his brother to confess, just as Hamlet did. Bob is also visited by a ghost in his dreams who keeps telling him "Avenge me!"
