I just want to say, as a child of young divorce of myself, “The Amazing Rudy” hit hard. Got me all teary eyed and everything.
Bob’s Burgers has always handled these sort of family subjects well and is able to affect it’s audience spectacularly. The piano that started in the beginning and continued all throughout the episode, really set the mood for the episode. And I got a quick idea of what was going on.
I was able to really relate to Rudy in this episode. I’ve felt a lot of that very much so. It meant a lot to me to see it in this show. To give Rudy his own episode, to give those people like him, experiencing what he is, even if not exactly, a character to understand so deeply.
I want to take a moment to talk about something I noticed when I was watching the latest Bobs Burgers episode The Amazing Rudy.
Several scenes are designed to mirror an earlier scene. I’ll go through a few here.
At breakfast Rudy eats scrambled eggs. A dish composed of one ingredient that has a very messy look.
At the Belcher’s he has the lasagna that, despite having far too many ingredients, has a much more defined structure.
His dad discusses the upcoming dinner with Rudy with the camera placed behind glass.
Gene discusses the upcoming dinner with Rudy, again the camera is again placed behind glass.
Rudy and his dad go to a store to return something. The store is very tidy and clean
The Belchers are at a store buying something. The store is far busier with a variety of things on the shelves.
The climactic moment of both dinners involve Rudy accidentally spilling something. In the first case water.
In the second, the truth.
Rudy is shown twice at the center of a group positioned far lower than them. Tina and Gene are literally partitioned off in this shot to allow the audience to focus on the connection between Bob and Linda and Louise and Rudy.
The final comparison I want to make is the beginning and the end. A bird leaves the nest alone in the morning. At night two kids leave together. There’s stuff to be said about how the birds represent Bob and Linda and how Bob and Linda are positioned to parallel Rudy and Louise but this isn’t a ship evidence post. I mean, if you ship you spotted all that straight away, no need for me to tell you.
The Amazing Rudy might be on a structural level the finest episode Bobs Burgers has ever made. An incredible amount of care must have went into this episode and I hope future episodes can be as great as this one.
“Isn’t it weird that [thing humans commonly eat] is poisonous to literally every domesticated animal” I mean, there’s a pretty good chance that [thing humans commonly eat] is at least mildly poisonous to humans, too. One of our quirks as a species is that we think our food is bland if it doesn’t have enough poison in it.
Humans have a really weird mix of mundane superpowers.
We’re not fast and don’t have a lot of natural weaponry but we’re bizarrely tolerant to a broad range of toxins to the point that one toxin is considered a morning necessity for some to perform at work. Gotta love us.
