Review: Bob’s Burgers “Manic Pixie Crap Show”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

To get even with Millie, Louise helps her infiltrate a pixie event for girls to get a wand she likes. Meanwhile, Linda sees a small bouquet of flowers shaped like a dog she had as a kid and starts treating it like that dog.

OUR TAKE

Bob’s Burgers returns for what will likely be its second full season being released during a pandemic. Like most animated properties, this show’s production was virtually unscathed by the impacts and changes that had to be made when lockdowns began as it became pretty easy to transition development to working remotely, which seems to be the way they’re handling things now as well. The previous season began and ended basically on the same timeframe as the show usually sets out to have, and this one will likely be no different. Similarly, we begin this season with an episode that does not feel out of place among the usual pile of what one expects out of Bob’s Burgers episode. This week we have a Louise A-Plot with a Linda B-Plot, with Louise taking on a sort of heist for her on again off again frenemy Millie, with the mundanity of needing to sneak into a children’s event just to pick up a single specific plastic wand being right up the alley of how Louise’s stories go. Same with Linda finding herself regressing mentally as she starts treating a bunch of flowers like a dog that tragically died in front of her.

However, while Linda’s plot stays pretty consistently with its level of emotional involvement with the comedy, Louise’s kinda flounders a bit and stumbles into its main message right at the end. Apparently she’s been really hesitant to go to something so girly girly as a pixie gathering and so pushes the girls she gathers with the wands to throw them into the lake, but is stopped by Tina to get her to realize that it’s okay if other girls want to do these sorts of things and she doesn’t. There’s nothing wrong with her for having different preferences than others, which turns out to be what she was worried about this whole time. That’s a good and helpful message and all, but it really didn’t come across very well throughout the episode itself. Louise has often had trouble owning up to her emotional problems which come out in a lot of interesting ways, but while I can believe her feeling like there’s something wrong with her for not falling in line with gender norms, I would have liked to see that portrayed more in this story. Ah well, maybe we’ll have better luck with the next twenty something episodes in this season.