Review: Bob’s Burgers “Heartbreak Hotel-oween”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The kids are getting into their group costume while Linda asks Teddy about his Halloween plans. He explains he’ll be donating blood, since the blood donation truck goes all out for the holiday. The kids finally reveal their costume (“Snailed it!”) and Louise points out the hatch is large enough for an entire bowl of candy, which she intends to claim from a house that had stiffed her two years in a row. While Bob takes an order over the phone, Tina voices her hesitation about Louise’s plan for revenge, but Louise claims it’s candy justice. Bob reveals that the order was for delivery at the hotel down the street, and Tina volunteers her and her siblings in order to put off Louise’s holiday vendetta, and also hopefully earn a tip. They head to the hotel, and, finding no one at the lobby, bring the burger up to Room 313, where they encounter a woman chanting and excited that they’ve arrived with the “bait”. Fearful that they’re the bait, the kids bail, and Gene drops the snail shell part of their costume in the process. Set on going through with their plan, Louise implores them to retrieve it. When they go back in, they’re informed by the manager that the mysterious guest is Dolores, who books the room every year in an attempt to conjure her lover, Roger, who died in that room at a Halloween party 50 years ago. The kids head upstairs to retrieve the costume, where Dolores confirms the story, and adds that she does so in order to banish his spirit to hell after he cheated on her. Louise supports the vengeful actions, but Tina is unconvinced, and vows to figure out the truth of the night in order to avoid any candy crimes. Meanwhile, Teddy and Linda have lured unsuspecting (and highly squeamish) Bob down to the blood donation bus after discovering he’s a universal donor. He attempts to head back, but is convinced by the voice-changing phlebotomist to donate after being assured that they deal with “needle weenies” all the time. Tina is struggling to figure out the mystery and Louise is getting impatient, when the pictures and letters they’ve been inspecting disappear. But a bathroom-using passersby dressed as a beekeeper leads to an unexpected breakthrough that’s quite an (anaphylactic) shock.

Our Take

Although I was disappointed to hear the Halloween special was being delayed, this episode was more than worth the wait. The intertwining plots manage to skillfully pit more childish concerns, like candy stiffing and ghosts, against more adult fears, such as having wasted your life being hung up on your ex and incompetent phlebotomists. It also manages to fit in a nice “murder mystery” vibe while Tina tries to piece together what really happened to Roger, who she believes to be too sweet to be a cheater after reading some of the love letters he wrote to Dolores.

The voice cast is top notch, as usual, and gets an extra spooky boost from Lindsey Stoddart (who played Lauren on Scrubs) as embittered Dolores, who she manages to imbue with enough human longing to offset the expected sadness of this character. Andy Daly (fellow Big City Greens fans have heard him as the hilariously bumbling Officer Keys) also steps up to voice the hotel manager, who leads Tina to her Sherlock-level conclusion with his weird story about catching bees in his hands, before becoming allergic to them later in life. David Herman flexes his range by adding yet another character to his Bob’s Burgers repertoire (he’s also Mr. Frond, Mr. Branca, and Trev) by voicing the highly convincing (if not super competent) phlebotomist that gets Bob to donate. The blood-giving B-plot wraps up about how you’d expect, with Bob being unable to completely avoid looking at his blood, and in fact panicking and getting it all over himself, fainting as a result, and having his silence bought with an extra cookie (#worthit.)

This isn’t the best “Louise seeks revenge” plot in the show (that honor goes to “Ear-sy Rider”, of course) but it is a solid presentation of the kids’ respective priorities and plans when it comes to pursuing what they want. Tina was hoping for some major sibling bonding and Gene is focused on farts (as usual) and “tip me” butt, but they respect Louise’s anger, even if they’re not fully on board with her plan to get eve. Also, her retelling of the initial candy stiffing incident, which features attack leopards, is so in-line with her storytelling style from previous essay/Gayle tales/other clip show episodes, which is a nice bit of character continuity in my opinion.

I also appreciate that this show never goes fully supernatural, even if there’s an unusually well-timed gust of wind at the end of this episode that could be interpreted as having ghostly origins. It’s a solid Halloween episode, even if it aired the day afterwards, and a nice continuation of this current season. I’m excited to see what next week’s (regularly scheduled) offering has to follow up this thrilling (but not overly chilling) tale.