Season 2 of Bob’s Burgers is a strange and wonderful creature. While it took big strides toward adjusting the show to the lovable warm-hearted masterpiece that it would shortly become, Fox did a weird thing where it greenlit 22 episodes but only aired nine of them while holding the rest back for season 3. So Season 2, therefore, gets the dubious award of “shortest Bob’s Burgers season.”

Yet even in nine episodes, we can see that this is a different and improved Bob’s Burgers. The animation is more on point, the “edgy” humor excised, the characters come into their own, end credit songs become the standard, and a lot more of the expanded cast is introduced.

In particular, I love that Wagstaff School filled out with a lot more characters. The kid side of Bob’s Burgers is, by far, my most favorite side, and in season 2 we get Zeke, Tammy, Ollie, Andy, Darryl added to the mix. I could gush for hours over these characters, but they are just so, so good in different ways, from Zeke’s bluntly observant bon mots to Tammy’s extreme narcissism.

With only nine episodes, season 2 had to make each count — and by and large it did. Only two of the I dislike, and both are because of too much internal conflict. Moody Foodie has Bob acting out of character by kidnapping a food critic, and Beefsquatch pits Bob and Gene against each other on live TV.

But if you ditch those two, you’re still left with seven absolute gems. The season kicks off with a great Goonies rip-off (complete with a Cyndi Lauper song!) and goes up from there. Bob gets into a wacky hostage situation (and makes a new friend), the family invests in a food truck, Bob gets obsessed with beating a video game, a love triangle opens up between Bob, Gale, and Dr. Yap, and Tina falls to the dark side as a new girl corrupts her.

So this brings me to a list of three reasons why I truly love this show, because by season 2, we can see all three of these factors working in tandem:

1. It’s got a genuine heart. These characters aren’t there to make fun of or to be nasty and mean. The Belcher clan really likes each other and often wants to hang out together even when they have other options. They’re weird, but they’re not dysfunctional, and that’s an important difference.
2. It looks at the nooks and crannies of life that a lot of other shows miss. I can’t think of any other shows where a freshman girl is shown writing “erotic fan fiction” as an expression of her growing sexuality while being a total dork about it, or a restaurant owner placing too high of hopes on an ice cream machine, or kids swapping a jawbreaker while they think of contests to win it back. The best stuff here is often the really small stuff.
3. Characters are allowed to act like real people. And that’s kind of big, because TV characters are often anything but real. They’re too perfect or too simple. Bob’s Burgers is full of characters who have cross-talking goofy conversations (which is possible due to the cast recording together), odd traits (Bob’s pill addiction, Gene’s single-minded enthusiasm, Linda’s tendency to stick out her tongue and make raspberries), and relatable reactions.

Plus, all of this is usually really funny. I busted a gut when the food truck episode did a thinly veiled parody of Tori Amos going over the top in a 1994 stage performance. Who would parody that in 2012? Seriously!

Let’s wrap this up with a top 10 quotes:

1. “If boys had uteruses they’d be called duderuses.”
2. “And I told you I have a raging staph infection under here. You touch this hat and we all go down! “
3. “Are we just going to ignore the fact that Louise just pooped in the pool?” “Ignore it? I named it. Jezebel.”
4. “When you get into an elevator with a woman, press a higher number than her and then make a big deal about it.”
5. “Don’t have a crap attack!”
6. “Who better to do math than a robot? They’re made of math!”
7. “Burn, you beautiful bench, burn!”
8. “When he’s looking at my molars, it’s like he’s looking into my soul.”
9. “And when you’re done here, clean my litter box. And don’t tell mom and dad about my litter box.”
10. “It’s like watching two monkeys at the puberty zoo.”