Together, the Belcher family gets together remarkably well for a sitcom family. There are the normal family squabbles, especially when the kids find themselves at odds with each other. For all the snarky comments, you never get the sense that the family is ever actually mad at each other. Instead, it is often the conflict between the quirky Belchers vs. the entire world that proves to be the plot driver. That’s what makes it so upsetting when two Belchers do end up getting on each other’s nerves, especially when it involves the nicest, most-laid back members of the family. Bob’s used to having to tell his kids “no” and the myriad of bon mots they use to describe his sad life, but Linda isn’t used to such rejection. Until the Heroine Conference.
As Louise explains, the Heroine Conference is a bad name for what sounds like an actually cool event. Mr. Frond and Linda are chaperoning an overnight trip to go to the girl empowerment conference and hear the keynote speaker, astronaut and karate blackbelt Bernadette Baker. Tina is so excited about seeing the honest-to-god heroine that she comes up with a decent question and gets picked by Mr. Frond to ask it to Ms. Baker herself (although Tammy’s and Jocelyn’s questions would have been at least as interesting, if not more so).
On the way to the conference, Tina and Linda are happy to be going on the trip together. Tina isn’t ashamed to say that she’s rooming with her mom and Linda is ecstatic to be involved in her daughter’s life. Then, Tina meet Dillon and everything changes.
At first, this looks like the start of a cute story. While Tina does hang out with the group that includes Jimmy Jr., Zeke, Tammy, and Jocelyn, she can’t really say that any of them are her friends. When she meets Dillon, a cool witchy teen who’s into tarot card readings, Tina looks like she’s found someone who might see her quirkiness as fun instead of weird. Everyone’s had that cool friend who seems miles more mature than you. And everyone’s had the experience of realizing that your friend wasn’t that cool to begin with, and was just trying to figure out middle school like everyone else.
While Tina is talking with Dillon, Linda meets Dillon’s mom, who is terrified of her daughter. This Ghost of Heroine Conferences Yet to Come warns Linda that it won’t be long before Tina will refuse to even make eye contact with her mother. Dillon’s mother copes (not well) by scrapbooking moments from Dillon’s childhood and watching her sleep.
Linda doesn’t believe in the dire predictions until Tina asks to change room assignments so she can be roommates with Dillon. All that’s left to console Linda is Dillon’s mom and Linda’s true best friend, a large glass of wine. Linda has room in her heart for a large number of weirdos and isn’t disturbed by Dillon’s mother’s obsession with her daughter. Instead, she wants to change her relationship with Tina before it happens to them.
Linda decides that the best way to do that is to be the cool mom (although you can argue that, compared to Bob, she’s always the cool mom). Linda pulls Tina and Dillon out of their room (despite Mr. Frond’s warnings) and starts a series of pranks around the hotel. It’s all boring and awkward and quite embarrassing for Tina, until Linda stumbles on to the idea of putting shampoo in the hotel’s signature water feature. The mess ends up flooding the hotel and Linda is immediately caught.
Bob probably thought that Linda was the one with the easier assignment that night. While Linda and Tina were supposed to have a nice, quiet heroine conference, he’s stuck watching Gene and Louise, who take Linda’s absence as a chance to do whatever they want. They finally settle on giving their father the bachelor party he never got, although neither is sure what a bachelor party actually entails. Luckily, Teddy is there to help and the four get hyped up on apple juice and loud music. It is unclear if Teddy knows that it’s a fake bachelor party or genuinely thinks that Bob and Linda are getting married again, but he’s game for anything involving his best friend and apple juice shots.
In the midst of the bacchanalia, Bob gets a call from Linda. Someone messed up and someone’s being sent home. That someone, of course, is Linda herself. Linda is no longer welcome at the Brewster Courtyards Garden Hotel (they’ll call anything a courtyard, Gene wisecracks).
After Linda gets banned (a lot), the family sans Tina checks into the ratty motel next door. Gene and Louise are still in bachelor party mode and tell Bob that as soon as he passes out, he will be drawn on.
Linda has a horrific dream about losing her close relationship with Tina and becoming a scrapbooker obsessed with scalloping shears. She decides to sneak into the hotel to see Tina ask her important question. Louise and Gene, who were out when the plan sounded boring, are back in when they find out that it involved disguises.
Despite Bob saying that there are red flags all over the place, Linda comes up with a disguise and successfully gets into the hotel. Louise susses out that there is more to Linda’s plan. Linda thinks that Tina needs some strong heroine to get through to her.
Linda finds Bernadette Baker. After she explains to Bernadette that her clever disguise is not, in fact, a bikini, she tells Bernadette to tell Tina that her mother was her main inspiration. Bernadette is weirded out and tries to get away from Linda as soon as possible.
Tina asks her question, and Bernadette does not give the answer Linda wants. In her desperation to seem cool to her daughter, she once again embarrasses Tina in front of the entire conference. Tina and Linda have a Q&A battle, but it doesn’t last for long. They immediately reconcile and even inspire Dillon to give her mom a tiny bit of eye contact.
Bob, who was deeply inspired by Bernadette’s speech, thanks his new idol as Gene and Louise rush him off to the fake altar. Best bachelor party ever.
What did you think of the episode? Let me know in the comments!
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