| “ | I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU! | ” |
"The Ring (But Not Scary)" is the premiere episode in Season 10, being the one-hundred-and-seventy-third episode overall.
Plot[]
When Gene loses Bob's surprise for Linda on their anniversary at a water park, the kids and Bob rush to the water park to find it. Meanwhile, Linda has to help her sister Gayle put in eyedrops.
Full story[]
At the restaurant, Linda is on the phone with Gayle, who is screaming due to a pink eye infection from letting one of her cats sleep on her face and won’t do the eye drops herself. Linda tells her that she promised to take the kids to the water park but can come over that night to help, and hangs up and Bob inquires. Linda wonders where the kids are as she wants to get s summer tan in the adults-only tanning area in one day, with Bob asking if she just wants to get sunburned, which she accepts. In the apartment master bedroom, the kids are looking for their swimming googles in the room, when Louise crawls under the bed and finds a wrapped box in the "super secret hiding place". Despite Tina’s hesitance, Louise unwraps it and finds a ring with a small diamond, and wonder who is it for, as their parents are already married.
Linda leaves the restaurant to get the kids; Teddy asks if the next day is Bob and Linda’s anniversary (9/3), with Bob concerned that Teddy has his anniversary and other info lie his birthstone on his phone. Teddy offers to help with a badly written song, but Bob says he remembered and got her an engagement ring; he explains that when he proposed, he could not afford a ring, but now he can, and bought a $329 ring with a diamond on it (which he will pay over two years with interest). Teddy excitedly asks where it is, and guesses in the "super secret hiding spot". Bob then leaves after teddy notes he has a dangling booger in his nose and tries to swat it out of Bob’s nose.
In the master bedroom, Tina tries on the ring before Gene does,when Linda enters the room. The kids hide the ring and the box, as Linda tells them to go so they can go to Wetty, Set, Go. Gene however finds that he cannot remove the ring off his finger. In the car on the highway, Gene still cannot get the ring off and the kids whisper about what to do. Louise says they will get the ring off when they get there. At the water park, Linda goes to get her tan while the kids try and use her sunblock to get the ring off, to no avail. Tina suggests asking a grown-up for help, but Louise refuses, saying that they are already there and the ring is stuck, they should just enjoy the water park and get the ring off that night.
The kids decide to do the lazy river ride first, and bump into Nat, who is also on a tube in the river. She dropped off a guy at the airport who had never heard of Tom Cruise and came over for a "daily lazy", as she knows one of the ticket sellers. Louise heads to the crazy slides while Tina decides to look at Speedos first, and Gene stays floating in the lazy river. Linda lays in the tanning area all day as Louise goes on the slides, Gene falls asleep in the river, and Tina looks at boy’s butts in the wave pool. At the end of the day, the family gets in the car, when Tina sees the ring is off Gene’s finger, and Louise figures it must have fallen off in the water. The kids realize they are in big trouble.
At dinner, Bob notes Linda’s very red sunburn must be painful, which she admits but dismisses as she thinks it will settle into a tan so she looks like a "hot, young leather couch." Bob brings up that it is their anniversary the next day, and which shocks the kids and Linda, as they had all forgotten. Bob teases that he got something special for her as a gift, with Linda wildly guessing as the kids stare in horror. Tina’s groan is noticed by her parents, and the three kids head to the bathroom (by claiming Tina has diarrhea and needs help) to figure out what to do.
Tina is horrified that the ring was the anniversary present. Gene suggests they get another ring to put in the box, he desperately then suggests they stab their father to make it look like a burglary but keep him alive, so that Linda forgets about the anniversary. Louise likes it but thinks maybe for another time. Linda leaves the apartment to do Gayle’s eye drops. Tina suggests hey call the water park to see if they could find the ring, but Louise says that it’s already closed for the night. Just then, Gene suggests calling Nat, whose friend works there, and the sisters agree, as then they might be let in to look for the ring.
On a cell phone in Louise’s room, she calls Nat at home, and explains the situation with the ring, which Nat soon figures out and agrees to call her friend to open the park for a search. She also has flashlights and snorkels, and agrees to be there in 15 minutes, but Louise says to come by in an hour so the kids can pretend to go to bed first.
At Gayle’s apartment, Gayle screaming and fighting away in fear whenever Linda gets the eye drop bottle close to her, and eventually topples Linda to try and get the drops in her mouth as revenge.
Later in the night, the kids sneak down the dark stairs in their swimsuits when an angry Bob turns on the light while holding the empty ring box. He demands to know where it is. Gene and Tina don’t want to explain how the ring went missing, while Louise says they know where they lost it and were on the way, when Bob sees they are in swimsuits and realizes they lost it at the water park. Just then Nat’s limo pulls up outside, and Bob goes with them, not wanting to leave them alone with a total stranger in the middle of the night. Before they leave, Bob says he has never been this angry, that they are grounded for the rest of their lives and none of them are ever to talk to him again, going so far as to state they are not his children and not allowed to come to his funeral.
In Nat’s limo on the highway, everyone sits in silence as Bob, still mad, refuses to talk to them. Nat states that she is good at finding things, and goes over the plan with Bob again: her friend will let them in, and they cannot wait until daylight as someone may then see it and take the ring for themselves. He attempts at singing classical music fail to cheer him. At the water park, Nat’s friend Josie opens the gate for them and says that she looked in the lost and found and another employee’s drawer where the “good lost and found” is kept, with Bob feeling hopeless at finding he ring in the dark. Just then, a bus for the "Puff Divers", an all-female group of scuba and cannabis enthusiasts whom Nat used to belong to before going sober, pulls up, Nat having called them to help. Bob thanks her and asks why she’s doing all this; Nat says she is a fan of Linda and his kids are not bad either, which Bob doesn’t agree with.
The kids, Bob and the divers search the water park for the ring, with no luck, while Linda keeps trying to find and chase Gayle as she hides and runs from the eye drops. Bob surfaces from the lazy river and answers his ringing cell phone from his pants. Linda is calling, saying she is going to go home as Gayle won’t let her do the eye drops, but Bob nervously says to keep trying and not to come back home just yet. Linda agrees to try one more time when Gayle exits her bathroom in a shower curtain. Linda asks if she has any wine or beer, which Gayle doesn’t, and admits she doesn’t relax when Linda asks how she does. Linda suggests going to the grocery store to get some wine to clam Gayle, so when they get back she can get the drops. Gayle agrees, but keeps the shower curtain on (even as Linda points out she’s not wearing pants or underwear).
The kids keep searching in the lazy river, while Bob gets his arm stuck in a filter alcove and has to be pulled out by Nat. Nat starts to leave to start looking in places like bushes and grates in case gene lost the ring on the way to the car, but Bob stops her and says that while he appreciates her and her friends helping, the park is so large that he just wants to call it over, saying he’ll underwhelm Linda like every year. Nat goes to tell her friends, while Louise says that they can still find it, but Bob just wants to go underwater in sadness, but the kids stop him. Gene apologizes and Louise asks if he wants hem to live somewhere else like an orphanage when Nat yells that they may have found it.
In a liquor store in town, Linda shops for wine while Gayle still wears the shower curtain (now wearing a skirt). She cannot see well through the plastic curtain, and Linda says she did not bring the medicine so Gayle can take the curtain off. Gayle refuses as she doesn’t have make-up on and worries got guys there may see her. Linda convinces her to take over the shower curtain, as well as her glasses. Then, she distracts Gayle by saying a balloon floated to the ceiling; as Gayle looks up, Linda sneaks the eye drops out of her purse and tries to give some to Gayle, who again fights backs and screams murder. At the Belcher apartment, Linda goes to her room to get Bob to help hold Gayle down for the eye drops, but notices the bed empty. She looks in the kids rooms and find them empty as well (With Gayle asking if she was lying to her about being married and having kids).
At the water park, everyone is gathered around a drain grate. Nat has tried 14 times to grab the ring with a hook and string, but succeeds this time, only to discover it is a novelty keychain reading “Ooh La la” in the same color as the ring. Just then, the floodlights of the park come on, and Eddie Wetty, the owner of the park and Josie’s boss, approaches and asks Josie what is going on. Bob says it is his fault, as he bought the ring and the kids lost it, and his wife deserves something nice for once, since he was never able to buy her a real engagement ring and running the restaurant left them poor. Everyone came to help him look for the ring and hopes that this does not get Josie in trouble, as she was just trying to help.
Before Eddie can speak, Linda interrupts, having brought Gayle along. Bob asks how they figured to come there, so she read Tina’s diary for the location. Bob asks if she heard all he said, and she affirms. Bob apologizes for messing up another anniversary, and that she deserves a good one in her life. Linda tells him that he doesn’t need a ring to prove he loves her, and she doesn’t need one then or now; their love is set since she agreed to settle for him, before kissing him. Nat says she saved another marriage, but bob is momentarily confused as her real name, "Nat Kinkle", sounds like “Nat King Cole.” Linda says to hold Gayle down for the eye drops, but Gayle jumps into the lazy river instead to escape. Eddie tells Josie to open up the slides and lets everyone stay to celebrate the anniversary, with more people jumping in the river as Tina asks if they will get pink eye. Bob and Linda tube down the lazy river and express their love for each other as Linda notes that the structure is shaped like a ring.
A flashback shows earlier in the day, that the ring came off and fell on the ground, and while being swept up with garbage, was picked up by a bird that flew off with it. The bird returned to its nest that evening where its mate is, coincidentally on top of the burger sign outside Bob’s Burgers.
Videos[]
External links[]
- "The Ring (But Not Scary)" on IMDb
- "The Ring (But Not Scary)" press release via The Futon Critic
- "The Ring (But Not Scary)" script via Springfield! Springfield!
- "The Ring (But Not Scary)" at the US Copyright Database