Bob's Burgers: Hope N' Mic Night (15x06)

This was a lovely episode!

Cons:

Honestly, cannot think of anything I would want to change with this one!

Pros:

This episode does what I think Bob's Burgers is best at doing, which is mirroring some really silly ideas with the warmth and comfort of familiarity. We know these people, this community, and seeing them come together to make art for one another was honestly a balm to the soul? Sometimes this show doesn't quite live up to the promises it makes, so I was slightly worried that something would happen to interrupt the open mic night and we wouldn't actually get to see many of the performances, but no - we got a ton of great stuff, and it all felt very warm and cozy and like this is a real place with a real community of people who can come together to do something nice. Just really needed to see that on this day, I think!

I love it when the plot of an episode is "the kids get excited about something, Bob is anxious for good reason, but he caves and it ends up being an excellent idea." It's a simple formula but one that never fails to delight! I loved Louise and Gene convincing Tina to go with her heart and let them sing the song based on her diary entries about Jimmy Jr. I loved Bob doing the research to make sure he does the open mic night responsibly, and I love that Jimmy Pesto threatens to ruin things but doesn't actually interfere. I love Mr. Fischoeder getting super caught up in the idea, in order to impress a real-life harp-playing princess.

The various performances themselves were so funny and good! Teddy and Mort's duet, where the comedy comes from Teddy's vocal performance completely missing the vibe of the song... Mr. Fischoeder doing a heartfelt yet pretty wobbly duet with his princess... of course, the highlight is when Marshmallow gets up to sing and play guitar, performing for her parents who have never heard her sing before. This was just a beautiful voice singing a beautiful song and I was very arrested by it, honestly! And Marshmallow's parents were so thrilled for her too! Aww!

And then the punchline, which is that of course the song Tina is embarrassed to sing in front of everyone is about... how much she likes Jimmy Jr.'s butt! It was a funny charming song and it was also nice to see Tina gain the courage to explicitly tell Jimmy Jr. it's for him before they get started. And Jimmy Jr. is hilariously and rather innocently delighted by the whole thing, dancing around and showing off the butt in question. I loved it!

So yeah, this is honestly a perfect episode in my eyes, it gave me everything I come to Bob's Burgers to see!

10/10