Moody Foodie

"Moody Foodie" is the seventh episode of the second season of Bob's Burgers. It first aired on the FOX network on May 6, 2012.

Synopsis

After a local restaurant closes following a bad review by a vicious food critic named Moody Foodie (Patton Oswalt), one of Bob's friends and a fellow restaurant owner warns Bob that his restaurant might be next. Since the Moody Foody always wears a disguise, Bob's family tries to work out which of their customers he could be, until a man dressed as a Hasidic Jew comes in and wipes his hands with a blue handkerchief, his "tell". Unfortunately, since the family make fools of themselves, culminating in Bob forgetting the order and Gene accidentally setting the grill on fire, the local paper publishes a harsh review, which Bob angrily obsesses over.

After Tina suggests that he try a "redo", Bob heads to the Moody Foody's house to make him another burger, but since he refuses to let him in, Bob and the kids force themselves in and tie him to a chair with duct tape. While Bob tries to feed him the "Girls Just Want to Have Fennel" Burger, Linda visits him with other restauranteurs who have been given bad reviews who now want their chance at a redo as well, and they force feed him their food, and even one of his reviews, until a man delivering a package interrupts them. They tie him to a chair as well, and Louise opens the package to find a DVD of the movie Tin Cup, which Bob begins to mock as a bad movie. Everyone else says that it's not a bad movie, but Bob adamantly says it must be, until he realises he only thinks that because of a bad review, and has an epiphany: the Moody Foody's bad review was just him doing his job, and he should just let it go. They then set the Moody Foody and the deliveryman free and he promised to never give a bad review again, but not until one of the restauranteurs gives the Moody Foody a wet willy (in a parody of the ear-cutting scene from Reservoir Dogs). Business in Bob's Burgers returns to normal, by giving discounts to anyone bringing in a copy of the review, and Bob wonders why the cops haven't come yet to arrest him yet, as a flashback reveals that, after everyone left, the Moody Foody actually tried the burger, and enjoyed it so much he decided not to press charges.

Burger of the Day

• "If Looks Could Kale" $5.95
• "Little Swiss Bunshine Burger (comes on a buttered bun)" $5.95 a play on the movie Little Miss Sunshine
• "The Final Kraut Down Burger (comes with sauerkraut)" $5.95
• Bob cooks the Moody Foodie critic (Oswalt) a burger called "Girls Just Wanna Have Fennel".

Reception

At The Onion, Rowan Kaiser of the The A.V. Club gave "Moody Foodie" an "A."^[1] The critic called it "another example of what Bob’s Burgers is best at. It can balance chaos and bizarre cutaways with legitimate insight and character development."

Kaiser linked the episode's themes to the broader issue of single-occasion reviewing, especially on a forum like Wikipedia.

Don’t get me wrong, it can be good fun to drop in, make your case in strong language, and jump out. But those reviews have more power than weekly reviews at times. Take a look at the “Reception” page for Bob’s Burgers on Wikipedia. Almost every single review cited, including the 53/100 at MetaCritic, comes from the pilot episode. The show that gave us “Art Crawl” and “Burgerboss” is, in one of its most public forums, judged by one of its weakest episodes -- at least, until Wikipedia gets a more useful edit (“After an uneven start, Bob’s Burgers is becoming one of television’s best comedies!”—Rowan Kaiser, The A.V. Club).

Production

This episode is rated TV-14 for suggestive dialogue (D), offensive language (L) and graphic violence (V).

References

External links

• Moody Foodie at the Big Cartoon DataBase