- “ You never go against the family. Never.”
"Mission Impos-slug-ble" is the twentieth episode in Season 8, being the one-hundred-and-forty-ninth episode overall.
Plot[]
When Louise's extensive Burobu card collection gets confiscated at school, she devises a tricky plan to get them back. Meanwhile, Bob must give a eulogy for an old acquaintance named Harry, despite an unfortunate incident that happened years ago.
Synopsis[]
At the apartment, Louise is showing her siblings her Burobu game card collection (which as Tina notes is Pokemon but everyone is a slug). Louise’s collection is nearly complete except for three missing Slugodactyl stages, and impatient after two-and-a-half years of collecting and trading, she’s decided to “speed things up” with blurry bootleg Mega Ultra-level Burobu cards she got online, with the plan to take them to school to trade and get the last three Slugodactyls. Tina points out that the cards were banned at school after students kept trading them during Ms. LaBonz’s class. Louise says the trade will only happen after school, but Tina feels the whole plan is dishonest, and wants to talk about how they will all be study buddies the next day.
At dinner, Tina brings up how the eighth-graders will be helping the other students with math homework, to her parent’s distress as she is not good with math. Tina tries placating them by demonstrating her “Mathy Cathy” persona, which is her without glasses sounding tougher.
Bob gets a call at dinner informing him that Harry, the pickle dealer they used to go to, has died, and his will requested Bob speak at his funeral, which confused Bob due to an “incident” he does not want to talk about.
At school the next day, the kids are all having study buddy time in the library, with Mr. Ambrose barely paying attention while LaBonz goes outside to smoke. Zeke tries drawing on Jimmy Jr.’s arm with a pencil, Tammy gets her hair braided by Jocelyn, and “Mathy Cathy” knocks over a stack of books. Louise tries to wait two more hours until school is over for the trade, but simply cannot and convinces Rudy, Large Tommy, Andy and Ollie to do the trade there and then behind a bookshelf. Louise gets Tina to be a lookout despite her worrying about getting in trouble, telling her to make a fart sound if there’s trouble.
At the restaurant, Mort is explaining the service is on Tuesday night for the other farmer’s market people to appear, which make Bob more uneasy. He explains to Mort and Teddy that he bought from Harry at the farmer’s market for ten years until one day, four years prior, he told Harry that his latest batch of sweet pickles was a little too sweet, which made Harry mad enough to start throwing small pickles at Bob, who retaliated and threw a large one into Harry’s face.
At school, Louise and the kids are trading with the bootleg cards Louise brought when Mr. Frond comes in to ask Ambrose about faculty Martini Tuesday but is rejected, when Ms LaBonz comes in and notices that the fourth graders are missing. Tina makes a weak fart noise but cannot get Louise’s attention when LaBonz interrogates her. Louise and Rudy have made the final Slugodactyl trade when LaBonz catches them all and thanks Tina for telling her, infuriating Louise.
At the restaurant, Gene and Tina are explaining to Bob and Linda. The former explains that Louise should not have brought the cards to school, but Linda chastises her for ratting on her sister. Tina tries making up a story about LaBonz slapping her for info, but the others don’t fall for it. Tina tries apologizing to Louise in her room, but Louise is too angry and refuses, declaring both her and Gene dead to her (Gene because he was scared to take a side).
Bob tries working on his speech to stick to safe topics, but Linda and the patrons point out that the farmers, who all saw Bob throw the pickle at Harry, will be there watching. Lind and Mort suggest he do pickle puns while Teddy says he should sing “Danny Boy” but replace the word “pipes” with pickles.
At school the next day, LaBonz leaves her room for Tuesday cafeteria duty, so Louise decides to break into the classroom to get the cards out of her desk, recruiting an uncomfortable Rudy to stand watch as she picks the lock. In the cafeteria, Gene and Tina sit with LaBonz, with Tina aksing if the fourth graders can get their Burobu cards back. LaBonz adamantly refuses and reveals that she keeps the cards in a drawer by her front door at home. Lousie does not find the cards at school and sneaks into the teacher’s lounge with Rudy on the chance they are there. The cards are not there, but they hide and overhear Ambrose telling Coach Blevins and Mr. Branca that she will be along with them at Martini Tuesdays at his apartment while his roommate Joyce donates a kidney (but dismisses Frond arriving due to his “killjoy” nature).
That night, Bob and Linda leave for the funeral at Mort’s. Louise calls Rudy trying to figure out where the cards are when Tina tells her through the door to her room before trying to work on their rebuilding their relationship. But Louise has her bag and lockpicking kit and tells Rudy on the phone to meet her at LaBonz’s house and goes, to Tina’s horror. She and Gene run after her in an attempt to stop her from getting in trouble.
At the funeral home, Harry’s cremated remains are in a pickle jar. Bob is nervous and sees everyone else is looking at him and questioning his nerve showing up while insulting him.
At LaBonz’s house, the lights are out, and Louise and Rudy are standing in front of it, Louise ready to pick the lock when Tina and gene catch up. Tina points out to Louise that breaking and entering is a crime, but Louise feels she has to do it since Tina ratted her out in the first place. They hide when they see cars approach, which are LaBonz, Branca, Blevins and Ambrose showing up to drink since Ambrose’s roommate was not a match to donate a kidney and is at the apartment. They follow the faculty to the backyard, and see through holes in the fence that LaBonz plans on them playing a drinking game using the Burobu cards.
At the service, another vendor, Al of Leafy Greens, eulogizes Harry and calls out Bob for the act, which causes everyone to look at Bob again and Linda to claim they’re divorced.
The faculty play games of slugging down martinis when they have a card with low health, which frustrates Louise as they’re not playing by the rules (while Gene asks if they’re aways drunk since they’re not acting different than usual). Louise plans out that if the kids could get them out of the backyard, they could tie a rope around Louise’s waist and lower her down onto the backyard table using a tree going over the fence, to pick up the cards.
Louise goes to get a hose in the front yard when she sees Frond spying on LaBonz’s house from his car. She confronts him, and he admits he stalked Martini Tuesday because they didn’t invite him since he doesn’t drink, goes to bed early, and told them all he’s concerned about their drinking, and his insecurity of them not thinking he’s cool. Louise gets an idea for a distraction, and tells Frond to play 90s dance music from his car while dancing to “show how cool” he is. The teachers take the bait and go to watch Frond from the living room windows, while Louise ties the hose around her and climbs the tree, preparing to switch out the cards with her bootlegs, which Gene accidentally blurts out to Rudy.
They lower Louise down but run out of hose with the cards out her reach, and she is pulled back up. Louise ties the hose around Tina, who is lowered above the table. As the other adults film Frond dancing to “Groove Is In The Heart”, LaBonz goes back to the yard for her drink when she sees Tina. LaBonz angrily asks Tina why she is hanging from a garden hose in her backyard, and figures out it is about getting the cards back, but is too drunk to stand on a chair and look for the other kids as they hide behind the tree. Frond sees the others have left and drives off. Confronted by LaBonz about who put her up to this, to Louise’s surprise, Tina lies and says she did and Louise tried to stop her. LaBonz questions this as Tina would have to climb up the hose herself, which Blevins points out she is terrible at from gym class. Louise is bout to come clean when Tina actually climbs the rope to the tree branch. LaBonz sarcastically congratulates her but points out she forgot the cards, and to report to the principal’s office the next day, but LaBonz will call in sick and just tells Tina to not forget.
At the funeral, Bob is giving his eulogy speech with everyone looking at him judging. After being booed for doing pickle puns at Linda and Mort’s suggestion, he gets angry and points out that Harry started it by throwing the pickles, and saying that they all knew the pickles were too sweet but he was the only one brave enough to say it before wishing he hadn’t thrown the pickle. The other mourners tell him to apologize to the pickle jar of Harrys’ ashes, which he agrees to. He feels sorry for throwing the pickle, and sad about how things turned out, before Harry’s lawyer, following the instructions of the will, flicks a pickle in Bob’s face and says “Now we’re even. Love you, buddy.” Bob happy and sad, and says he loves Harry too before singing a rendition of “Danny Boy.”
Tina, Gene, Louise and Rudy walk home, with Louise amazed that Tina did all that for them(although Tina now has trouble moving her arms). Louise laments about the cards, but Tina manages to pull out the real ones out of her shirt, revealing that she made the switch-out. Given all of Tina’ heroics, Louise comes clean to Rudy that the card she traded to him was fake and gives back his Slugodactyl card. Rudy admits he suspected due to the smell and having a Minion printed on it. Louise promises to give the others their cards back as well, and apologizes to Tina for calling her a “scaredy-butt banana rat.” Tina (and “Mathy Cathy”) both thank Louise before trying to stop Rudy from pulling Gene’s finger.
Videos[]
External links[]
- "Mission Impos-slug-ble" on IMDb
- "Mission Impos-slug-ble" press release via The Futon Critic
- "Mission Impos-slug-ble" script via Springfield! Springfield!
- "Mission Impos-slug-ble" review at The A.V. Club