13x01 To Bob, or Not to Bob

[8.0/10] Look, I’m a sucker for a good Shakespeare-inspired episode of just about anything. But this is especially delightful. On premise alone, the Belchers putting on version of Hamlet rewritten by Mr. Fischoeder, meant to persuade Felix to give up the location of a treasured family artifact gifted by their father is absurd fun. It has all the humor of Linda getting too into directing, Mr. Fischoeder squeezing his own life into the Rotten in the State of Denmark form, and the Belchers speaking amusingly ornate lines in a foolhardy attempt to imitate the Bard. The silliness here wins out, as do the fun Shakespeare puns throughout the episode.

(As an aside, I appreciate the small shout out to the events of the Bob’s Burgers Movie in the intro. It’s a nice way to subtly acknowledge the show’s cinematic debut between seasons.)

The B-story is low stakes fun as well. I totally buy Louise envying Tina for having hands big enough to sharpen Bob’s knives. Louise herself is amusingly creepy in her efforts to usurp her older sister, and Tina’s comical discomfort with the whole thing is a hoot too. The resolution, with Tina not even wanting the job and showing Louise how to do it, with a few nicks and cuts along the way, lands things in a nice place.

But the main event here is Bob-as-Hamlet. Once again, the way the show channels Shakespeare through its slanted world is tons of fun. A ghost haunting Bob’s dreams with visions about what will happen or not depending on whether he expands into the adjacent store keeps up the show’s slack energy and ties into the inciting incident of Hamlet. The fact that the ghost isn’t particularly familiar with Shakespeare (since Bob himself isn't) and so just ends every awkward conversations with “Avenge me!” had me in stitches. (As did the awesome “Avenge Me” song at the end of the episode.) And the fact that Bob himself is haunted by the voice of an overcooked burger patty who laments what happens when Bob becomes too successful as a restauranteur brings the laughs as well.

The best part of this one, though, is the way it ties the vacillating energy of the Prince of Denmark himself with Bob’s uncertainty about whether to expand into the space next door. The inner turmoil about whether he’d be wasting his potential by not expanding or giving up the wonderful thing he and his family have together if he forgets what he loves by going overboard makes for a legitimate dilemma. And I love the fact that, for all its ramshackle qualities, Mr. Fischoeder’s play does “catch the conscience of the king,” by provoking an epiphany in Bob over all this. The writers find a clever way to weave in not only the humor of Shakespeare, but also map Hamlet’s dilemma onto Bob’s in a way that feels natural, which is quite a feat.

The fact that Bob chooses to maintain the status quo is, perhaps, a little inevitable. But as is so often the case with Bob’s Burgers, it’s also wrapped in something sweet: Bob’s love for what he and Linda have built together and recognition that he doesn't need to be a “business lion” for his life or work to have meaning. That's a cool place to take this Shakespeare-inspired tale, and one that shows the resonance of the story’s core all these centuries later, and the brilliance of Bob’s Burgers for being able to translate it in a way that feels organic to the show’s world and sense of humor.