God, the Devil, and Bob 1.11 - Bob's Father

Plot: Bob's father is near death, but it hasn't softened him any. Which means Bob's attempt to settle unresolved issues does not go well. Bob gets frustrated, tells his father to go to Hell, and storms out. Then his father dies (after mimicking the EKG flatlining as Bob turned away). Bob asks God to bring him back, and God declines.

Back home, Bob is depressed and seeks out the Devil, hoping to be allowed to speak with his father's soul in Hell. As it turns out, his father didn't end up in Hell, though Bob does run into Che Guevara, twice. Confronted with the idea God allowed his asshole of a father into heaven, Bob declares morality to be irrelevant and embraces chaos. Disobeying traffic laws, stealing a sports car and leading the police on a merry chase, mooning nuns. He ends up in his favorite bar, where God is waiting. They chat, and God makes a somewhat questionable analogy to explain Bob's father's actions, before giving Bob a chance to speak with his father one last time.

There's also a sporadic subplot about Megan finding a dog in the park, fighting with her mother about whether she gets to keep it, and then struggling to make it mind her. It exists mostly so they can make a joke where Megan (as she details her frustrations) unwittingly describes exactly how Donna feels in dealing with Megan.

Plot: Che - 'Has Communism triumphed?' Bob - 'No, it's failed all over the world! There's a chihuahua doing an impression of you in a Taco Bell commercial!' Che - 'I live on!' 

Smeck Smacks: 2 (24 overall). Devil dropped a couple organs on him. I got the numbers on this screwed up like two episodes in, and I'm not sure whether I've straightened things out.

Other: The quote was the second time Bob encountered Che, when he was too pissed to lie. The first time, he told him that Communism had indeed triumphed. Che seemed pretty pumped either way, but I imagine after however many years of shoveling whatever he was shoveling into those furnaces, any news about the living world might have been welcome.

The Devil invented those difficult to open bags of airline peanuts. Also, he made up Purgatory. And "the light" you aren't supposed to go into is God's porch light. Which he now has to leave on all the time, and it attracts moths. Heaven has moths? I don't know. Bob's dad says the bars in Heaven are always open and you never have to go to the bathroom. So who knows what's up there.

I need to watch that episode of King of the Hill where Cotton dies, see if he was shittier to Hank than Tom Allman was to Bob here. It'd be close, but I don't think Cotton faked flatlining, and Bob didn't have Donna there to have his back (as I recall, Peggy told Cotton to hurry up and drop dead, which the old fucker deserved).

The service is a miserable affair, because the pastor giving the eulogy can't even get Tom's name right. That's the worst, get some schmuck up there doesn't know a damn thing about the person they're speaking of. That happened with one of my great uncles, my grandmother was so angry about it.

So, God's explanation about Tom is this image of a series of fathers in a line, each one passing a punch down to their sons. The idea is to pass down a softer punch, and supposedly Tom did that. I'm not super-impressed with an explanation for abusive parents that itself involves violence. It's still a punch, at least until you reach the point the father doesn't strike his child. God does acknowledge that Bob is right to be angry, though he also says it's his job, not Bob's, to forgive Tom. Which doesn't seem terribly relevant at first glance; whether God forgives Tom Allman or not doesn't resolve anything for Bob. But God does say it isn't Bob's job to forgive. Which means he isn't required to. He can choose to forgive if he wants, or not. His call. God, presumably has to forgive, in spite of Tom's actions.