The Kids Run the Restaurant

"The Kids Run the Restaurant" is the 20th episode of the third season of the animated comedy series Bob's Burgers and the overall 42nd episode, and is written by Steven Davis and Kelvin Yu and directed by Boohwan Lim and Kyounghee Lim.^[1] It aired on Fox in the United States on April 21, 2013.

Plot

Bob slices a finger and Linda rushes him to the hospital, leaving the children to run the restaurant, so they take the opportunity to turn the basement into a casino. Things appear to be paying off handsomely until the landlord drops in.

Reception

Rowan Kaiser of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B+, saying "As Bob's Burgers nears the end of its third season, the specific traits it adds to characters and setting will necessarily become critical parts of the stories moving forward, as will figuring out a way to balance the quirks of the characters with freedom of storytelling in each episode. But that's part of the fun of watching a show grow."^[2] Dyanamaria Leifsson of TV Equals said "Although Bob’s original wound was pretty minor, this was a somewhat gory episode of Bob’s Burgers. I happen to be one of those people that gets a good chuckle out of exaggerated and ridiculous blood splatter, so I couldn’t help but laugh when Bob’s finger wound sprayed blood all over Linda and the car, and later, Mr. Fischoeder and all the kids in his basement. Things never got so serious that we couldn’t laugh at Bob’s plight. I appreciated that all this gory humor came from the tiniest little cut, rather than having Bob lose a finger. Normally, blood and guts wouldn’t seem to fit in with the Bob’s Burgers comedy style, but it was done right here."^[3]

The episode received a 1.7 rating and was watched by a total of 3.74 million people. This made it the third most watched show on Animation Domination that night, beating The Cleveland Show and an encore of The Simpsons but losing to an encore of Family Guy.^[4]

References