Review: Bob’s Burgers “Steal Magazine-olias”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

It’s time for the Belchers annual-ish dental checkups! While Linda takes her turn, the kids obsess over a magazine. Gene bested Louise in a dots and boxes puzzle game while Tina has the hots for a sexy cartoon fox scientist. When it comes time to leave, the magazine disappears with them.

Dr. Yap follows them back to the restaurant where he confronts the kids about the missing magazine and threatens to rat them out to their parents and get their new, later bedtime privileges revoked. They quickly come up with a plan to unload the stolen goods — but even brilliant plans don’t always work out perfectly.

Our Take:

This week’s episode of Bob’s Burgers is a pretty standard outing for the show. There’s plenty of laughs to be found and a little bit of sentimentality underneath the surface, but for the most part it plays like a prototypical Bob’s Burgers episode — except for the addition of Doctor Yap.

Bob’s always has some of the best side characters around, and Dr. Yap is definitely one of the weirder ones who has stuck around over the years. He plays the role of the antagonist this week and it works pretty well. The kids’ theft of the waiting room magazine is no major crime, of course, but Yap is insane, which makes his desperation for payback make a decent amount of sense.

What makes less sense is the connection the show tries to make between Gene’s rare win and Yap’s underwhelming business practice that pales in comparison with that other dentist who has rabbits in the waiting room. Yap becomes very understanding of Gene in the end, saying he gets his need for a win. This ending scene didn’t really land for me, but it was still great seeing the world’s craziest dentist again.

Speaking of crazy, Bob and Teddy’s debacle with the bird poop window dressing was great. I swear, sometimes the random side plots can make or break an episode, and this one definitely kept Steal Magazine-olias on the right path. Teddy’s utter disappointment with Bob for not waiting for him while he went to get the pressure washer is great. (It’s yelling out of love!)

Bob’s Burgers may not have put up the funniest or most unique episode this week, but it was a solid premise that had some great bits (Tina’s fox crush killed me, although it may have been leaned into a bit much.) and some sweet moments with Gene finally getting a win over his family. And seeing Doctor Yap’s familiar face return definitely filled a cavity in my heart.