Review: Bob’s Burgers “Boys Just Wanna Have Fungus”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

While at the farmer’s market, Bob and Gene come across a booth selling a unique blue mushroom called a Wooly Neptune. Bob remembers them fondly, but the price is too high, even with his haggling skills. So he decides to try his luck foraging for them in a nearby forest. Gene tags along, bringing some snacks in his socks for sustenance.

Back at the restaurant, Tina has gotten a new pair of glasses. They aren’t the charcoal color she was expecting, but they still allow her to see better, which Louise immediately starts to exploit. She convinces her that she has a kind of seeing superpower, and is the most qualified candidate to clean the floors.

In the forest, Bob and Gene run into a lady with bug spray and two guys who are also hunting for mushrooms. Despite receiving prank directions, Bob and Gene stumble into a patch of Wooly Neptunes and are ecstatic until trouble shows up in the form of the jealous veteran mushroom hunters. They strike a deal to trade Bob back his car keys for the mushrooms, but in a struggle, they all end up getting ruined. Until Bob and Gene are on the way back home, where it’s revealed they both have some saved.

Our Take:

The second episode of season ten of Bob’s Burgers is here, and it’s a sweetly sincere storyline of Bob and Gene getting some father/son bonding time. Bob and Gene episodes have happened before, but it’s not a very common pairing for the show. Bob is usually pretty mellow and grounded, whereas Gene is probably one of the most outlandish characters, so seeing them interact for an entire episode doesn’t always produce a winning result. In this case, though, it was a very good effort.

Bob and Gene’s time in the woods has a lot of great moments between them, both heartfelt and humorous. The side characters they run into I’m less enthusiastic about, but they provide a necessary conflict for the episode. The woman Bob dubs the ‘bug spray lady’ is my favorite, as her spraying into Bob’s mouth is great. The two guys had some interesting lines but didn’t feel quite as fully formed as many Bob’s guest stars do. The ending, too, felt a little off to me. While I can see how the bug spray lady’s double-cross makes sense logically, the added twist didn’t do much for me emotionally, and I really just was frustrated for the injustice that Bob suffered. He suffers so much, so it’s always nice to see him succeed. Luckily, the episode has its cake and eats it, because while the mushrooms are lost, Gene’s secret sock stash comes in handy. This addition really redeemed the episode in my eyes, because it brought it back around to Gene and Bob’s relationship. When Bob tells Gene he’s a “very capable boy”, it definitely struck me as one of the most heartfelt moments they’ve had recently.

The side story with Tina and her new glasses is a lot of fun, which is really all you can expect from a B-plot. I loved the gag about her potentially getting a new look, only to be reigned in by the cartoon limitations – no new looks here. It was great seeing Louise in full chaos mode, just doing as much mischief as possible. With Teddy and Tina, she can basically make them putty in her hands, and it’s very funny how she convinces Tina that she posses super sight. (Of course, Tina mainly uses it to stare at butts.) Even the side story ended with an emotional scene, as Linda’s silly song cheers Tina back up. And speaking of songs, the end credit songs for these first two episodes of season ten have been phenomenal; it feels like the show has leveled up in that department.

This episode had some extremely quote-worthy lines, like Gene’s comment upon seeing a jerky stall: “Shall we stock up for the apocalypse?” I love how he calls out the episode’s unusual activity, too: “Hunt for mushrooms? Doesn’t sound like something we’d do.” The rival mushroom hunters weren’t as memorable to me as I hoped, but they did have one amazing line: “There’s nothing like walking the mucky ailes of the forest floor grocery store.” “It doesn’t have to be saving the world. Maybe just fighting local crime or something?” Tina’s motives are pure, even if her gaze isn’t. “I’ll be back with a burnt mouth in twelve minutes!” Teddy and pizza balls; name a better combo.

Boys Just Wanna Have Fungus is a very good episode of Bob’s Burgers. It showcases Gene and Bob in a way that really makes you see what the two of them have in common, and why they get along even though they’re very different in key ways. While it didn’t quite hit the highs of last week’s premiere, it was still a great second episode that leaves me hungry for more. (Anyone else craving a mushroom burger now?)