Review: Bob’s Burgers “Prank You for Being a Friend”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Louise’s pranks with fake roaches have gotten her in detention a lot this week, but one more prank and she’ll be forced to join the Thinkgineers, a dorky after school group punishment. But she’s soon recruited by Kaylee Morganstern (remember her from ten episodes ago?) who wants to get in trouble so she’ll be taken out of school and be home-schooled. Louise mentors her well, but then oddly gets told by Frond to snitch in case Kaylee really starts acting out. Louise then recruits the Thinkgineers to help pull off an amazing trash catapult prank which is all set to go, but then she learns Kaylee’s real reasons for wanting to be home-schooled: she just doesn’t want to deal with people, which Louise thinks is the wrong way to handle things, so she sabotages the prank. Though Frond sees this as a win as it’s shown Louise can be responsible for herself and others, so Kaylee decides to join the Thinkgineers.

Also, Bob starts taking medication to Jimmy Pesto, who’s recovering from surgery. The meds make him drowsy, which gives Bob the chance to play with Jimmy’s slot cars. This goes south when he tries Jimmy’s inversion table, which gets stuck, forcing Linda to come over and help. But Jimmy is nice and lets them play with the slot cars.

OUR TAKE

Ah, whoops, miscounted the episodes left. But yeah, here’s the season finale for Bob’s Burger’s first decade on television. It’s a Louise episode, which are often pretty good at showing how Louise has her hidden depths beneath her need to cause chaos and anarchy. I just didn’t expect the subject of that would be through Kaylee Morganstern, a character who only just showed up in this season not even a dozen episodes ago. I do sort of applaud this show for being willing to add new characters periodically, but it almost seems like the newer additions leave little to no impression on me, so whenever they show up I’m all like “wait who is that? Oh right, I vaguely remember them showing up before.” I guess it leaves more room to flesh out the ever expanding cast at their own pace instead of overusing fan favorites to death, but…yeah, we should really work on making these newer ones more dynamic in Seasons 11-20. Not everybody has to be a Nat Kinkle, but they could at least aspire to be a Gretchen.

The subplot was also surprisingly heartwarming. It’s nice to see Bob and Jimmy Pesto let down their feud for a bit to show how their rivalry has actually almost made them friends. Or at least, that’s about as Jimmy can get, since his only real friend seems to be Trev, who’s really more of a lackey than friend. Bob is at least a peer in the food industry, even if they’re constantly competing against each other from across the street. And Bob’s sad childhood also comes into play regarding not being able to play with slot cars as a kid. I have to wonder if Jimmy Pesto’s forced bravado is also from having an unpleasant childhood that he’s constantly trying to hide. We know that he’s not authentically Italian and just like’s the lifestyle and veneer of it all, but I guess we’ve never really gotten a good look at what past he’s really trying to escape. I could see that being a good episode, especially since I don’t think we’ve gotten much time to see the Pesto family AS a whole unit in recent years. That would certainly be on my wishlist for the next season or two, which is the best as I’ll do as of right now because Bob’s Burgers Season 10 is officially now in the books.