We've got two episodes of Bob's Burgers to cover this post, due to my vacation where I was able take afternoon naps on the beach every single day. I'm really happy to be back at work again. Really, I am. Totally.
Let's get going, first with the episode "Three Girls and a Little Wharfy," which centers around Louise and her two school chums (on purpose, haha!) Megan and Jessica as they go on an adventure to find Wharfy, the legendary sea monster that roams the waters near the wharf. Much like Nessie, Chessie and other similar sea monsters of dubious existence, Wharfy has a long history of being "seen," but little evidence to back up her existence. Yes, Wharfy is a lady sea monster, something of which Jessica is very sure of.
While Louise is the skeptic and Jessica is the true believer, Megan seems to be along for the ride, and she's the reason why Louise gets roped into the hunt to begin with. Worried that her friend was hanging out with unsavory characters (Jessica), Louise's original intention was to reveal Wharfy as a joke and save Megan from being sucked into Jessica's world of conspiracies. But instead of being validated, Louise has her own beliefs shaken when the fried dough that the girls thrown into the water to try and lure Wharfy to the surface disappears from view with ominous speed.
Now more of a reluctant skeptic, Louise continues the investigation into Wharfy with the other two girls, and they even add to their group when they track down April Busby, a savory candle store owner who, decades before, had taken one of the only known photographs of Wharfy. April is more than willing to jump back into the Wharfy hunt, even though the years since that photo had involved her life spiraling until all she had was the hunt and her therapist Ellen, who eventually convinced her to give up the hunt. So April probably isn't the best role model for these three preteen girls, but she has a boat, so she's in.
Louise constructs a trap for Wharfy, which she tests on Gene and Tina, luring them in with their most loved items: prosciutto and Jimmy Jr.'s sock (guess which was for each Belcher sibling). This gag was probably the highlight of the episode for me, from the way that Louise uses her knowledge of her family against them to the eager way Gene and Tina crawl into the trap, and then the slight contempt Louise showed to her siblings after.
The entire catalyst for the three girls meeting was their mutual dislike of Wagstaff School's Spirit Week. While plenty of kids were excited to wear their pajamas to school (fun fact, Gene sleeps nude), or show their best '80s outfits (Gene as Weeza from Steel Magnolias), Louise, Jessica and Megan instead opted to paint banners while the other kids do spirit things. At the end, the girls plus April fail to find Wharfy, but they do agree to continue the hunt because it was fun to hang out together with other spiritless misfits rather than going it alone.
Not very relevant to the main story lines, but very Tina.In the other major story line, Bob takes an online class taught by a legendary French chef whose teaching methods are bonkers. How exactly is one supposed to chew with their mind? And what exactly does "taste the everythingness of food" mean? I'm still in the dark, but Bob had an epiphany, set to a jaunty musical number, that seemed to show his third eye being opened to the universal interconnectiveness of food, where everything is you and you are everything. Or something like that. All the objects in the musical epiphany had Bob's face on them, which was cute and weird.
The second episode discussed today, "Wag the Song," is more of a learn a lesson type episode than "... Wharfy," which I'd place into the heartwarming realization category of Bob's Burger episodes. Personally I'm more fond of the heartwarming episodes, but when so much of the show focuses on three precocious kids there are probably lots of lessons to be learned. So while I enjoyed the "... Wharfy" episode more, that's not to say that "Wag the Song" doesn't have its own charms.
One of those charms, however, is not Mr. Frond. To put it bluntly, I just don't like that guy. Especially in this episode, where he corrupts poor, naive Tina into being his patsy. That's low hanging fruit there, Frond.
The source of my ire stems from Mr. Frond's totally ridiculous idea of having the students of Wagstaff compete to write a new school song, since the current song was pretty gruesome, with the winner chosen by the applause of their fellow students. Louise sees the downside of this arrangement immediately: kids will vote for the dumbest song, so she sets out with Gene to create the Poop and Pee (or Pee and Poop?) school song. See, even a child is smarter than Mr. Frond.
This is a perfect opportunity for Tina since she's been worrying about leaving no legacy when she leaves Wagstaff behind. There's no photographic evidence of her ever attending since she's been sick every single picture day (not going to lie, the montage of Tina throwing up throughout the years made me queasy) and she has no trophies to show off. Louise and Gene have cemented they legacies with their fabulously inventive school picutes, with Louise's shown below:
That's a nice looking beard.Having kids a hundred years into the future singing the school song written by Tina would go a long way creating a legacy. Problem is, Tina can't write a song. The closest she comes is rhyming Wagstaff with Flagstaff, but unfortunately they don't live in Arizona. It's around this time that Mr. Frond realizes that his idea is horrible, and he can't afford another debacle similar to Bring a Stranger to School Day. When Tina confides to him that she's stuck, Mr. Frond manipulates Tina into thinking she's written the song that he actually wrote. And hence my disdain for the guidance counselor.
Put wait, there's more shenanigans abound! Louise catches on to their deception because she doubts Tina's ability to write "nine verses and a soulful bridge" and she notices that the song and Mr. Frond both use "stalwart," a word that's not usually in Tina lexicon. Tina is doubting the legitimacy of her song when she and Mr. Frond plan to do some more cheating by prerecording the applause at a boys' basketball game and strategically replaying it to trick the Clap-O-Tronic applause meter. This is not how you shape young minds.
Luckily Tina's conscience is stronger than Mr. Frond's and she doesn't perform the illegitimate song, but when she's floundering on stage Louise and Gene come to her rescue and they do a mash up of the Pee and Poop song and Tina's original song with the sole lyric of Wagstaff. So earlier, when I said this was a learn your lesson type of episode, there's also a bit of heartwarming Belcher family togetherness, but it's Bob's Burgers and that's what it does best.
Finally, the adults of the Belcher family have to deal with the new awning made of Ferrari parts at Jimmy Pesto's acting like a Death Star with Bob as the Ewoks. Or more precisely, the awning is reflecting the sun directly at Bob's restaurant, blinding anyone who sets food inside. Their efforts to remedy the situation fail, with Teddy burning his hands as he's trying to block the sun with cardboard and papering the window just makes the restaurant look abandoned. Getting some birds to poop on the awning is actually their best idea, but in the end Jimmy takes it down since it was hot and loud when sitting underneath it. But it did get reused as the classiest urinal dividers ever.
Odds and Ends:
Favorite quote: "You thought the new lunch lady was Kathy Bates dressed in disguise studying for a role."
Now I can't unsee it: Another one of Jessica's conspiracies was that #2 pencils were made out of #2, i.e. poop. Gross.
Favorite blink and you'll miss it moment #1: Gene's shout out to Nick Nolte's mugshot. Such a Gene thing to do.
Favorite blink and you'll miss it moment #2: When Tina gets flustered she mentions Sheryl Crow, the Counting Crows and Crowsby, Stills and Nash. Such a Tina thing to do.
Title of the new Wagstaff School song: "Wagstaff You're a School I want to be Inside of You." Jimmy Jr. and Zeke are the new Max Martin and Diane Warren.
Thought or comments on either of these two fine episodes go below!
