Bob's Burgers: The Shell Game (15x16)

Aww poor Bob lol.

Cons:

As always I find myself noticing the things that I wish the episode had, more than having problems with what was there - I feel like we haven't had something Gene-centric in a while and I was noticing that he didn't have a ton to do here!

Pros:

Whenever Mr. Fischoeder shows up you know it's going to be a truly weird time for everybody, and this episode was the epitome of that. There's a tortoise, it needs an official guardian, for some reason Bob is in the running along with a bunch of other strange figures from Fischoeder's social circle. There's something almost... sweet? About Fischoeder wanting to choose Bob for this task and give him $10,000 a year, and we never really get a punchline where it turns out Bob was the choice for some degrading reason or anything. It's kind of nice and seems genuine, as much as Fischoeder is capable of that.

The other characters we're meeting are repeats from past episodes. I recognized John Oliver's voice right away as Ian, and his disturbing reason for wanting the tortoise cracked me up - he wants to do weird experimental medical stuff to grant himself long life.  We get to see Inga, a character we've heard referenced before but have only recently met, and she has an Alicia Silverstone-like revelation that she really loves this tortoise she's always complaining about, and wants to keep him.

Poor Bob, who doesn't want to have responsibility for Ulysses at first, begins to be disturbed by how much everybody else would suck as a guardian. And then, it seems as if Ulysses really likes him, going right up to him when he hasn't done that to anybody else! Bob is moved by this special connection he seems to have formed, and then chagrined when he learns that the kids put dandelion stems in his pockets. It's sad to see Bob get so excited and feel so proud and know that it's not real! But he handles it with his customary... well, I was going to say customary grace, but that's not exactly it. He takes it like a champ, though, and he's happy for Ulysses and Inga in the end!

I'll leave it there for now, this was another fun one. Fischoeder always brings zest to an episode!

8/10