SUMMARY: Bobby, who’s going through a period of sloth and greed, is sent to Lucky’s church for religious intervention after skipping church to eat pizza on money stolen from Peggy’s pocketbook.

Lucky’s church, based out of a karate studio, promotes a fire-and-brimstone brand of religion that electrifies Bobby.He, of course, goes too far in his zeal and is eventually thrown out of the mall for proselytizing.

Meanwhile, Hank, Kahn, Boomhauer, Dale and Bill take part in guerrilla warfare with the citizens of a neighboring street, who consistently overshadow Rainey Street’s varying attempts at putting on a spectacular Fourth of July fireworks display.Hank goes to extreme measures and buys a truckload of illegal fireworks from John Redcorn, only to be outdone by the block captain’s more expansive plans.Hank and the gang retaliate by building a gigantic paper mache Uncle Sam.

A plot and B plot collide when Bobby, deciding that Hank’s worshipping false idols, hacks apart Uncle Sam to save his father’s soul.Hank blames his enemies and leads a recon mission to destroy his enemies’ decorations and food.The block captain promptly blows up the gang’s stash of fireworks, which they’d kept hidden in Kahn’s shed.A guilty Bobby tries to confess as he watches the war escalate around him, but no one’s willing to listen.He finally seeks advice from Lucky, who tells him to come clean.

He chooses to do so on the night of July third, while the entire neighborhood’s in an all-out food fight with the rival camp.Everyone seems willing to let bygones be bygones but Bill’s so into the war play that he thinks Bobby’s confession is a trick.He throws a lit firecracker into the firework stockpile, resulting in a neighborhood pocked with char marks and a fireworks display that consists of a single charcoal snake.However, most of the citizens of Arlen have finally decided to get along…and gang up on the folks a street over.

REVIEW: As I’ve stated before, you know it’s a bad episode when Lucky operates as its main moral center.A season ago, Lucky HAD no religion (drinking was his religion!), but I’m willing to accept this little plot twist; fatherhood can change a person, after all.

I’m not so willing to accept the utter character assassination going on with Bobby this season, unless the big reveal is that he’s FINALLY going to start growing up and this is the beginning of his independence from Peggy and Hank.Otherwise, it’s wildly OOC of him to be such a thieving brat.

This (and this is a rough total, mind you) the fourth episode in which Bobby’s taken on a religious identity only to be swept away by hysteria, and the theme’s a little old.Bobby was a God-fearing boy in earlier episodes; very confident.The writers have turned his confidence into arrogance, and it’s not good for a character in such a pivotal role in this show.It’s as if Bobby and Hank’s characters have been sacrificed to prop up Lucky.

The Hank versus the neighbors subplot took the unusual twist of making Hank morally inferior to Bobby; this is the somewhat irrationally hotheaded Hank of old who wanted to kick the ass of everyone who offended him, and I don’t herald his return.I find it plausible that he could go this far around the bend over a neighborhood party, especially over the Fourth.It’s the execution that felt off; a little too extreme, wrong for a show that has such a strong basis in reality.

A rather disappointing episode, and not one of the season’s best.

RATINGS: “Reborn on the Fourth of July” drew a terrible 1.6, lowest of any episode in the animation block.The new seven thirty PM (EST) timeslot did the show no favors, as the episode was poorly promoted.

NEXT EPISODE: The show’s next new episode, the two hundred and fiftieth episode, “It Serves Me Right For Giving General George Patton the Bathroom Key”, which will air April twenty-sixth.Check back here on the twenty-seventh for a full recap!