14x02 The Amazing Rudy

[9.2/10] This was an unexpected, heart-rending delight. Poor little Rudy. As it’s gone on, Bob’s Burgers has shown a willingness to get a little more experimental. This is, I believe, the first episode of the show to focus almost entirely on a side character as our protagonist. And to go along with that shift in perspective, the show brings a shift in tone and energy. Honestly, at times, this one felt more like a quirk drama than a heartfelt comedy.

I don’t mind that! If you’re lucky enough to have a show that runs for fourteen seasons, trying new things, even on a single-episode basis, is practically a must. I love the depth, the sensitivity, the lived-in humanity of this. “The Amazing Rudy” has a quiet indie drama feel, without throwing away the laughs or the usual vibe of the series entirely. Doing something experimental like this while still maintaining the character of your show is beyond impressive.

So is telling such a human little story. The stakes here are not big. No one is in true danger. Nothing is about to explode. Everyone’s a mature adult (well, those who are adults.) And yet, somehow, a little boy going to the first dinner where his divorced parents will be bringing their new partners feels like the most monumental thing in the world.

The episode spends time putting us in Rudy’s shoes. One of the things I appreciate the most about this one is how it gets a little clever formally. When Rudy and his dining companions are in the restaurant, we largely see them from the waist down, with their conversation a little muffled, in the way that Rudy would hear and see them. The efforts to put the audience inside Rudy’s head, letting us feel his nervousness, his soft envy, his smallness in the shadow of this mundane but epochal shift in his family dynamic are brilliant.

By the same token, I appreciate the nervous energy between Rudy and his dad. They’re both trying to play it cool for the other, but both feeling a little awkward about this unexplored territory for both of them. The way they “motormouth”, or reflexively switch out clothes to try to look their best, or awkwardly high-five/fist-bump shows the way they’re both trying to be supportive of one another while both worrying about how this dinner is going to go. It’s the kind of down-to-earth humor the show does well, mixed in with some sweetness and well-observed humanity.

It helps that this episode has a gentle, almost melancholy tone. From the beginning where we see a small bird fly from the Belchers' restaurant to Rudy’s home, you get the sense that this one has a slightly different feel than usual. Getting a little highfalutin’, but I’d take that as a sign that, in keeping with the themes of the episode, Rudy’s life is different than Tina, Gene, and Louise. Shifting the vibe of the show ever so slightly to reflect that helps give you a sense of that difference. And the gentle twinkly score, and more slow-spun images of car washes and sunsets, accentuate that difference as well.

It all comes to a head at the all-important dinner. I love the little montage we get before the titular little magician does his big trick. Without anybody articulating it in dialogue, we come to understand why this illusion is so important to Rudy. In witnessing glimpses of daily dinners past, you can see how it represents a small bond between him and his parents even though they’re divorced, how it’s a place of comfort and normalcy for him. Trying to transpose that onto this new normal, to use this little thing that helped connect him with his parents despite the divide, would be everything to a little kid.

So when it goes wrong, when he spills some goop onto the lap of his dad’s date, when it didn’t solidify because he didn’t banter enough because he feels out of sorts about this whole thing, it’s his worst fears confirmed. It’s the idea that you can’t translate that into this, that this isn’t right somehow, that it’s too much for him. Your heart goes out to poor Rudy, overwhelmed by a challenging situation where everyone’s trying their best, but things are delicate and a little uncomfortable. Him choosing to run away, for fear of having made things worse, or maybe just wanting relief from the awkward energy and embarrassment, is sympathetic and sad.

So where does he run to? The Belchers of course. The show does a good job of integrating them as secondary characters in Rudy’s story without detracting from the fact that this is his episode. The idea of Gene’s “loaded baked potato lasagna” pays nicely comic dividends across the half-hour, and helps lighten the mood and give the Belchers something to banter about apart from Rudy’s situation.

At the same time, though, the Belchers represent something that Rudy wants desperately right now -- a traditional family. It’s weird to call them that, considering how untraditional our favorite lovable oddballs are. But as much controlled chaos as there is in the confines of that restaurant, when Rudy sits at another dinner table, and hears Gene toast to his mother and father and siblings and the kind of nuclear family meal that aren’t in the cards for him anymore, it represents a certain longing for something lost.

Many kids grow up watching shows like Bob’s Burgers, sitcoms about families with a mom and a dad and 2.3 kids. As much as the contours of the American family have changed, even in just the time that this series has been on the air, it doesn’t erase that sense of kids internalizing that idea as “normal” or at least as less complicated. So particularly when Rudy is feeling bad about a dinner that went wrong, one that he was anxious about to begin with, you understand why going to the Belchers is both a sort of fantasy land and a pathos-ridden act at the same time.

That’s why it’s lovely for Bob’s Burgers to focus on stories like these, to do a format breaker where we follow Rudy and get to internalize what those blended families are like and have them reflected back at us. Because Rudy’s situation is normal, and so are his uncertain feelings about this new step in his family’s connections to one another.

That’s also why it’s lovely that of all people, Louise recognizes when Rudy needs someone in his corner and decides to go back to the dinner with him. Despite her kid-level mischief, there’s a certain streak of empathy in Louise. Having her go out on a limb for her friend, giving him the support and strength and validating he needs when he needs it, is touching. Linda and Bob recognizing it in their daughter is the icing on the cake.

I don’t want to say that I didn’t know Bob’s Burgers had this in them, because the truth is that the show’s creative team has shown tremendous heart and ability to tell more down-to-earth and affecting stories over the years. This is well within the capabilities that the series has already demonstrated. But it’s still encouraging to see the show fly outside of the usual nest with this one, to tell a different kind of story, about a different member of the Belchers’ universe, experiencing something true and meaningful, but that we don't get to see enough of on television. On the cusp of its fourteenth year on air, the show can still surprise us, and move us, in the best of ways.