Review: Bob’s Burgers “Pig Trouble in Little Tina”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Halloween is here, and that means candy, costumes, and… hayrides? It might be for little kids, but Tina is determined to join her fellow eighth-graders on their Halloween hayride no matter the cost. So when Tammy starts making fun of the fetal pig Tina’s about to dissect, she joins in against her better judgment. She’s quick on her feet with the puns, which helps her land an invite to the ride. (Also, someone just found out they’re allergic to hay, so a spot opened up.)

But Tina is plagued by guilt over giving in to peer pressure and starts seeing visions of the pig in her dreams. Louise and Gene try to help her conduct a ritualistic burial to appease it, but it doesn’t help. By the time of the hayride, she’s so sleep deprived that she passes out just as she’s about to kiss Jimmy Jr. In her dream, she makes peace with the pig and wakes up to recant her quippy comments about it. And she still gets to lock lips with JayJu.

Our Take:

This is probably one of the weirder episodes of Bob’s Burgers so far. To my memory, it’s definitely the weirdest Halloween episode in the show’s run-up to this point. In an episode where Tina makes out with a fetal pig in her dreams, you know it’s going to be a good time. I enjoyed Pig Trouble in Little Tina a lot. Honestly, I was a bit grossed out, too. In a normal episode I might find this off-putting, but for a Halloween special? The extra gross humor and visuals found a good home, I think.

Tina is the star of the main plot, which starts out simply enough. She wants to join her friends on their Halloween night hayride. Tammy has been hyping it up as a time to get ‘kissy’, and Tina can’t help picturing Jimmy Jr. wearing overalls with no shirt underneath and one of the straps undone. “Our pumpkins will be bumping together all night,” she happily informs her entire family around the dinner table. It’s a sweet moment, made all the funnier by her loudly repeating it for Bob, who does a good job hiding his reaction.

Bob himself is the catalyst for the B plot. Or should I say, a part of him is, at least? Apparently, Bob’s starting to get old, and when you get old, things start falling out of your ears. He’s been stuffed up, and so Linda helpfully suggests holding his nose and gargling at the same time. They do it together, and then Teddy joins in so he isn’t the odd one out. It’s a hilarious sight gag, which gets even better once its revealed a customer was there for the entire spectacle. This weird method ejects wax from one ear, but the other is still plugged up, leading to a series of events in which Linda tries to ambush Bob in order to get it out. It’s gross, funny, and relatable. (Because I hate people sticking things in my ears and eyes, not because I have large amounts of wax build-up. I just wanted to spell that out.)

The episode had an overarching message about being yourself and not giving in to peer pressure to start bullying people. Or dead pigs. But mostly, it was just a funny episode.  “That jerk-o-lantern!” Linda fumes when she learns Tammy doesn’t want to invite Tina on the hayride. “That little piggy went to the market,” Tammy says upon seeing Tina’s unusual pig specimen, “and everyone there threw up and died.” I love Bob’s reaction when Tina told him all she had to do to get invited was impress the other eighth-graders by making fun of her fetal pig: “Teenagers are… odd.” The librarian always steals the scene when he appears, and this episode is no different. When he sees the kid’s looking up the weird pig demon haunting, he quips: “That’s my twenties in a nutshell.”

Pig Trouble in Little Tina is one of the grossest episodes of the show to date. I almost want to call it gory, what with all the pig guts spilling out throughout the run-time. And it even got a little horrific, like when the silhouette of the pig tried to burst through Tina’s pink wall. It was a fun change of pace for a Halloween episode. Even if the plot device of Tina changing herself to gain the affections of her fellow schoolmates isn’t anything new, it was wrapped in a fresh coating of candy, earwax, and pig intestines.