Bob's Burgers: Mother Author Laser Pointer (13x21)

This was such a cute episode!

Cons:

Honestly, I can't think of much of anything. Maybe I wish we'd seen the kids' school friends? We spent time at the school, but Mr. Frond was the only character we really interacted with. That's just a little thing, though.

Pros:

Starting with Linda's plot, I loved that when it ended, the author didn't soften towards Linda and suddenly realize how much her books meant to people. That was the ending I was expecting, and I do love it when this show goes for a more sentimental vibe sometimes. But it's also super funny and refreshing to have a plot where Linda behaves way out of line, and in the end, she doesn't exactly win any friends because of it. Her obsession with the author of some of her favorite kid's books makes sense, as thinking about her kids going off to college has suddenly made her contemplate a future where she and Bob are empty nesters. My favorite joke of this one is when Linda reacts with skepticism over the concept of "books for adults". That was hilarious!

And then in the other plot, the kids are gearing up for an assembly all about how cool college is, when they see Mr. Frond in some distress. Turns out, he brought his cat to school against explicit orders, because he needed to give him medicine. Now, his cat has escaped and is up a tree. Louise cleverly offers their help, so that Mr. Frond won't look suspicious on his own outside the school trying to get the cat down, in exchange for "get out of detention free" cards in the future. I kind of hope this show actually picks up that thread later and we get to see Louise exploit the situation for all it's worth.

I also really like it when this show subverts our expectations, so we're presented with the potentially amusing scenario of seeing the college assembly, and instead we get the unlikely team-up of Frond and the kids working together to save a cat. I like Frond caving immediately to doing something unethical in order to avoid getting into trouble, it's pretty telling of his character, I should say... And Gene gets a rare moment of being the one to come up with the solution and save the day, getting the troublesome kitty down from the tree using a laser pointer!

We're right at the end of the season, I hope we get a fun temporary send-off for the Belchers next week!

9/10