“Three Girls And A Little Wharfy” feels different from the typical Bob’s Burgers episode. It always feels a little odd when Louise separates from her siblings for an adventure, especially when she goes off not by herself but with a couple random characters we barely know. Jessica, at least, we did meet way back in season four’s “Slumber Party”, though it’s only now, a half-dozen seasons later, that we finally get to see Louise reunite with her friend. And then there’s Megan, who is one of the rarest things imaginable in the Bob’s Burgers universe: a fifth grader. (We just need a seventh grader now to fill in the other great gap between the Belcher kids’ grades.) That Louise would care enough about anyone outside her family seems odd, at first glance, yet that’s quietly the whole crux of this episode: Louise is worried that her friend Jessica is getting lost in Megan’s wild conspiracies, and she wants to look out for her friend. Well, that and go search for a sea monster that lives in the harbor. I mean, who wouldn’t? But mostly it’s the looking out for her friend thing.
That conflict is the needle that this episode must attempt to thread. Bob’s Burgers can go to some pretty ridiculous places when it really feels like it, mostly in the form of mildly unhinged interlopers like Max Flush or that outraged guy in the candy cane truck, but revealing there’s an actual, honest-to-goodness sea monster by the wharf would be just a little too outlandish. So the episode can’t really be about that if it’s going to have any sort of satisfying conclusion, so the real question becomes what this quixotic search means for Louise. So yes, this story can be summarized as “the real sea monster was the friends we made along the way.” And what a delightfully weird group of proudly non-spirited friends we find. Megan is willing to believe anything she hears and possibly anything she just invents in her head while bored. The theoretical adult in the room, April Busby, is happy to wait six hours at the dock because she can’t remember when she made plans to meet up for a monster hunt with a bunch of preteens. Jessica probably counts as the normal-ish one under these circumstances, but she’s still happy to go along for this absurd ride.
That speaks to the basic story here: Is Louise still willing to get into this kind of ridiculous caper? That’s remarkable because, for so much of the show’s run, there would be no question—if anything, you could count on Louise to be the instigator of something as absurd and wonderful as a sea monster hunt. “Three Girls And A Little Wharfy” then works because it expects us to take as read that Louise, once the resident agent of chaos, has grown enough as a person that she would get involved in this zaniness just to make sure Jessica isn’t falling in with… well, perhaps not exactly the wrong crowd, but a silly one, certaintly. But the nature of Louise’s involvement doesn’t need to be nearly that cut and dry, and indeed a lot of the plotline’s comedy comes from just how naturally she drives things forward. Of course she would be the one to offhandedly suggest building a trap for Wharfy, and it’s adorably predictable that she is so excited, albeit against her better judgment, when something does, in fact, get caught in the trap.
Since a big part of the story’s premise is that Louise thinks it’s silly—at least when she isn’t admitting she secretly wants Wharfy to be real just as much as anyone else does—the other thing “Three Girls And A Little Wharfy” needs to be careful about is not making her fellow monster hunters too pathetic. The closest call here is April Busby, who is quite open about how much a photo she drunkenly snapped at a harborfront wedding three decades ago has consumed her life. She has real distaff Teddy vibes, honestly—which makes particular sense when you consider his fall from the grace also came from a close encounter with a sea creature, sort of—and some of the jokes do walk right up to the line of being mean-spirited, especially when she so explicitly talks about falling back into such a self-destructive obsession. Still, I’d say the episode largely avoids this, in part by making her such a harmlessly Teddy-like doofus, as for instance when she criticizes the trap’s quality of construction on the kids solely responsible for making it. And besides, even if Louise and company are still much too anti-spirit to want to wear matching shirts, they still basically accept her at the end for any future Wharfy hunts. Maybe April isn’t doing great, but she’s not doing any worse by episode’s end, and that’s enough for the story to work.
Megan and Jessica aren’t nearly as over the top as characters as April, but their presence does offer some nice understated laughs. Jessica here is a sensible extension of the character we first met way back in “Slumber Party.” She’s decently smart, at least enough to be aware of her and her family’s shortcomings—they’re not athletic enough to miss a badminton net, after all—but she is not especially committed to anything beyond not going along with Mr. Frond’s goofy spirit week stuff. Megan is written carefully so as to be overly credulous without being vapid or even especially naive. She’s still got enough sense to recognize and take offense when Louise is honest with her at the end, which is an amusing balance for her to hit. This whole episode would feel very different if Louise were essentially chaperoning a bunch of morons, which is absolutely a kind of episode we’ve seen before, often to success. But “Three Girls And A Little Wharfy” is going for something else, and while it’s perhaps a little more understated in its laughs than it would be with more outlandish kids to accompany Louise, pairing her off with these two proves a winning formula.
The episode also has a lot of fun with the other Belchers’ little side plots. For Gene and Tina, that really just means their showing up in ever sillier costumes each day: I’m torn between calling their Teddy-disquieting business casual attire or Gene’s Nick Nolte mugshot hair the winner, especially when it might actually be his Steel Magnolias-inspired 80s outfit. Bob’s story has a little more to it, as he desperately tries to understand the online lessons of a master chef who may or may not have just agreed to ramble pretentiously to the camera and pass that off as a course. It’s one of the show’s most reliable pleasures for Bob to feel both inspired and overwhelmed by the artistry of cooking. His eventual epiphany, with him imagining himself as literally every part of the food chain, up to and including the mustachioed truck that transports the cows, is a very special bit of throwaway absurdity. That’s the joy of Bob’s Burgers, really: In the middle of a surprisingly grounded hunt for a sea monster, there’s still time for Bob to have a musical revelation that leaves him a blubbering mess for the rest of the episode. That’s about all you can ask for, really.
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I asked (over on the What’s On Tonight thread) and I received. Praise be!Whatever the A-plot was, as someone who has failed to complete a MOOC more times than tribute bands have failed to nail the opening chord to “A Hard Day’s NIght”, Bob’s journey into one-ness with food spoke to me like that burger on the grill spoke to him. Also as a soap enthusiast I would totally buy a salad-scented soap but having experienced poutine-flavoured lip balm, I would caution April to keep her expectations of success low.
“Smells like salad.”“And so can you!”
I have been wanting to them bring back Kathryn Hahn as Jessica ever since the slumber party episode. Better late than never. It is a nice change of pace for Louise to have a friend where she is the sensible one (it is somewhat like that with her and Regular Sized Rudy too)
What makes the Louise/Rudy pairing work is that they are each sensible in very different ways. Rudy knows limitations Louise doesn’t, and Louise knows that sometimes the biggest limitations are the ones we place on ourselves.Louise and Jessica have a different dynamic, where Jessica is a bit like Louise in planning and execution if not enthusiasm. I’ve been waiting for them to bring her back, because it is a new dynamic for a character who really can use one from time to time.
That’s why I’m rooting for Louise/Rudy marriage when they grow up; they are just what the other needs.
I have also been waiting for Jessica to make her triumphant return. I love that Louise has this natural level of respect for Jessica and doesn’t want her taken advantage of.
me too. now i can only hope that marshmello comes back soon as well.
That joke about taking the bar exam, about soap, not the other one is still making me laugh today.
In the beat between her saying she’s taking the bar exam that day and “…about soap” I formulated an entire backstory for April in my head had no qualms about throwing it out after that punchline.
That scene was full of great lines. The bit about not wanting to be rude to the cat if it talks to her was great.
It would be rude not to respond if the cat talked first.
List this under the lacking “Stray Observations”.
Mort’s password being “Urn it” got a laugh out of me.
OK I forgot I LOLed at that entire scene, especially everyone piling on and Mort trying to defend his password. Thanks!
ItIt was “Urn this.” I’m rewatching it.
In my brain it was “urn-ed it”, like a play on the Weeknd song from “50 Shades”. Which I think is my brain’s way of getting me to rewatch it.
THUNDERTAKER!
Dear God, I literally JUST realized his name is “dead” in French.
I was getting a really strong They Might Be Giants vibe from the Wharfy song at the end (It’s very similar to Tesla) which has me wondering if TMBG is stealth-writing Bob’s Burgers ditties.
Same! I’ve also wondered if Brendan Small might be behind some of them.
Well, TMBG worked with Loren Bouchard on Home Movies, so he has their number. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have been asked for help, although I also think H.Jon just naturally comes up with these songs sometimes too.
“We just need a seventh grader now to fill in the other great gap between the Belcher kids’ grades.”Isn’t Darryl in seventh grade? I could be wrong, but I thought it’d been mentioned in a couple of his appearances.
Daryl was my first thought too. I don’t think it has been explicitly stated he’s in 7th grade, but he is definitely not in either Tina’s (8th) or Gene’s (6th) grade. And he’s certainly not younger than Gene, so that leaves 7th grade as his class.
Megan’s “pretending to have diarrhea” face was perfectly animated. It just gets the joke across straight away.And yay for the return of Jessica! I’ve waited so long!
“Your “excited to see Wharfy” face is the same as your “diarrhea” face!”(Yeah, I know how late this comment is, I’m catching up on my DVR backlog.)
They may have spent most of the episode apart but Louise and Tina’s whispered exchange at the dinner table really brought the episode home:“Did you have fun?”“Yeah. Shut up.”
Joining the chorus of folks who were glad to see Jessica back.
April is yet another ridiculous character in whatever town the Belchers live. I’d suggest Teddy as her third husband – really, they do mirror each other – but he’s with Kathleen, I think?Megan is a special kind of gullible – thinking No. 2 pencils were made from No. 2’s.“I still can’t chew my pencil because of that rumor.”“Dropping fried dough into the ocean?! You’re the monster.”
Megan is a special kind of gullible – thinking No. 2 pencils were made from No. 2’s.
But what else could it mean?!
I had to rewind and re-watch Bob’s song to catch all the little Bob details. The truck was perfect.
My husband is distinctly not from America, and sometimes things mildly throw him off in tv shows. I’ve never before pondered how strange Spirit Weeks are until now. You’d think more people would mention that.
When the girls blamed Wharfy for the partial collapse of the pier, I kept waiting for Louise to make a comment about that incident being part of an attempt on her dad’s life (S4E22 World Wharf II).
Me too!
For me, this episode was pure fun from start to finish in a way that not all Bob’s Burgers episodes are.
“I’m 10. An old 10, because I’m 11.” More Megan please, Louise’s growing friend group has a great dynamic.
Great episode. I’ve felt “meh” about a lot of episodes this season, not bad, more “going through the motions” but this one felt strong. Lots of good laughs. One of the best decisions the show made was to expand Tina’s friend group to give the kids more people to bounce off of, and help the world feel more alive. They did a bit with Louise and Regular Sized Rudy, but I hope they keep these girls too to give her more friends. Gene is falling behind by comparison, he’s got a couple, but they aren’t nearly as consistent. In time, I guess.If I were to have one complaint, it would be that the Spirit Week thing seemed like it was going to have a bigger payoff. I get that it was to establish how disengaged Louise often is to counterpoint her interest in finding Wharfy, and it did that job well, I was just waiting for it to tie back in for a joke or something at the end and it never did.
My favorite part was how easily and completely Louise and her girl gang of not-scientists captured Gene and Tina to test their trap. Ruthless as always.
I liked that Tina has a collection of Jimmy Jr.’s socks, all carefully labeled.
I can’t get all the comments to load but, in the unlikely event one of my fellow internet pedants missed it, Darryl is a 7th grader. Hence his need to win Cupid’s Couple to date an 8th grader.