Review: Bob’s Burgers “Jade in the Shade”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

On a tour of local Prohibition speakeasies, Louise is inspired by a tale of a famous bootlegger to find a lost statue: The Jade Jellyfish. They begin a chase for the statue against Logan and his mom Cynthia, but eventually find it. Unfortunately, Mr. Fischoeder catches them and takes it to be appraised, finding out it’s only worth about a hundred bucks, but he gives Louise seventeen as a reward. Meanwhile. Bob, Gene, and Tina judge a set of street performers on who should take the spot of a recently deceased colleague.

OUR TAKE

Bob’s Burgers is back on the menu!…and then right back off apparently, because it’s gone again for at least the next three weeks. Not sure what that’s about, but with our brief return to the Belchers, we actually get another above average episode about Louise and Linda. Episodes with Linda and one of the kids tend to lean more towards her being desperate to bond with them, and that’s no exception here, but it depends on which kid it’s focusing on to add flavor to that plot. In this case, it’s Louise looking for a secret Prohibition era treasure below the wharf, which also has the added bonus of making use of the areas that were first seen in The Bob’s Burgers Movie, so that’s a nice bit of continuity nodding there. And speaking of continuity, we’ve also got Louise’s semi archenemy Logan and his mom Cynthia, who have not made any appearances for about three seasons. This isn’t like some glorious return for them as characters, they have their dynamic and it works well enough, but I would say it’s a pleasant surprise.

The most it does is act as a foil to Louise and Linda, with both moms led along by their kids, but only Linda really caring enough to tell her kid straight that she doesn’t think the Jellyfish is there. But then it turns out it IS there, Louise was right all along, and Linda can go eat it. I guess the lesson here is you should definitely let your kids into dangerous rundown locations to find treasure, but only if you’re supervising them and trying to beat a different parent and child team. That’s probably not what it was going for, but it’s what ends up coming across by the end. Plus, it was still pretty fun and had a lot of snappy but funny jokes and quips. And the B plot with the street performers was actually also pulling its weight, what with each performer very committed and passionate about their acts and the resolution being both wholesome and hilarious when the pipe player wins and decides to share the spot they were competing for. This episode was just really nice and pretty funny, which is basically Bob’s Burgers’ bread and butter. Or I guess the cheese and tomato? Either way, good and solid episode, and plenty satisfying to go out on until we get another episode, whenever that may be.