If y'all were looking for a Halloween episode for this year with the show...yeah, we may have not that this year. Yeah, by the time this review is posted, it would be...I guess an hour left in Halloween before everyone on the internet...and I guess life starts celebrating Christmas, even though, bro, calm down. Get past Thanksgiving first before thinking about celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah or any holiday. Seeing Christmas ads popping up lately. Especially when watching an NFL game, an NHL game, an NBA game, or the World Series. Yeah, I know that once the review is posted, it’ll be November in the later time zones, but relax. Relax with celebrating Christmas until we get through the month first. So yeah, no Halloween episode this year for us or any show on the FOX Animation Domination block...well, except The Simpsons because that’s their yearly tradition. They’ve been doing this since the early 90s and they wouldn’t break that.
In this week's episode of Bob's Burgers, it's a Gene episode as we transition from October into November with Gene tracing his steps to find a song that he can't remember and trying out lucid dreaming to make sure he brings it into reality as Louise and Tina attempt to catch a cricket that mysteriously invaded the apartment and disrupted everyone's sleep, primarily Linda's, in my spoilerific review of the fourth episode of Season 14 of Bob’s Burgers, titled “Running Down a Gene”.
The topic of dreaming isn’t new to the Bob’s Burgers world. We, as human beings, whenever we go to sleep, other than the rest that both the mind and the body need to recharge for the night and going into the next day, the thought process of imagining dreams take place. Whether if it's a nice day at the beach in Europe, riding a rocket ship on a trip to some planet you saw in science fiction movies, or maybe we hope for a world where's no violence, no war, no deaths or diseases...you know, a perfect utopia where everything is equal and people don't need have beef with one another...though at almost sounded like what's the plot to the movie "The Purge" in the event we have that, only to have one night a year where everyone, but not some, decides to go Sicko Mode on every bystander. But when it comes to the topic of dreams, we all have it. Whether it is a good dream like I mentioned earlier or a nightmare like...I dunno, nuclear war or your favorite item on the menu being discontinued, we all have it. It comes down to either you have a normal dream where you just let things play out for the next 4-8 hours or taking the lucid dream route like in this episode, you have control of your dreams and create with how you want things to play out.
Bob’s Burgers is no stranger when it comes to the topic of dreams and when it comes to the characters, primarily with the Belchers. But this isn’t with the likes of “Flu-ouise" with Louise or "Dream a Little Bob of Bob" with Bob because those two episodes mostly have them in a dream world and have them stay in that dream world for the entirety of the episode. Though, with "Flu-ouise", that was mostly because of Louise falling into that world after falling asleep, being ridden with the flu, and deciding to not forgive her family over the incident over her Kuchi Kopi toy that Linda accidentally destroyed, a la The Wizard of Oz. And “Dream a Little Bob of Bob”, you have Bob going into a dream world, that being in the bottom portion of his car, looking for a key that he misplaced for a mailbox. This time around, it’s nothing like that and instead, it’s more towards Gene going through dream after dream, nowhere near the likes of the movie “Inception”, with him tracing his steps to find something that he forgot, that being a song that he had conducted, and we'll get to that right away with this review and breakdown...and there's a subplot with a cricket that somehow got into the house and disrupted everyone's sleep, mostly Linda. That'll also be broken down...sort of. And with much of Gene's various lucid dreams, I might as well break the episode down piece by piece. This is "Running Down a Gene".
As per usual, the episode starts with the breakfast table, but not before we get a shot of Gene waking up from his bed to start his day and making his way to the table, fully dressed in his casual clothing, feeling a bit excited over something as he and the rest of the family eat their plate of eggs. The excited look on his face when waking up from his sleep over something that happened in his dreams the same way Denver Broncos fans recently celebrated their victory over the Kansas City Chiefs after losing to them sixteen times. And that was without Taylor Swift in attendance, just to put it out there. Excited because he is preparing to submit his song to an online songwriting competition and finding a song, the perfect song, to him, happened in his sleep. The problem for him, once he woke up, is that he hit a wall in the remembering game because he can't remember how the lyrics go. And here are the steps that Gene told the family about how ended up finding the song that he made.
Gene describes his dream through various steps leading up to him finding something that he wanted to tell his family. The dream began with him riding on the bus, but not on the usual bus on the streets, on land, but the one where it takes you from the mainland to an island where Gene is heading. Make you wonder how we didn’t have the technology to have something like that to travel through the water even though we have a thing already. They’re called ferries, but that’s usually where you have to drive your way there. Hey, if Gene's dream of a sea bus and One Piece having that sea train, we have got to do something...as long as there are safety measures like a barricade to make sure it doesn't come across with any swimmer or fishing boat.
So, Gene's dream has him travel on a sea bus to an island and once he arrives at the island, he sees a group of people playing a round of volleyball, which Gene joins in and somehow becomes a pro, pretty much telling you that it is a dream. Not saying that Gene is not the athletic type, he's not, it's a dream and he can do whatever. Gene played a round of volleyball upon arriving on the island and played the game...but was unable to hit the ball, so he walks away from the court where he noticed a robot version of Ms. Merkin, telling you that even in a dream, we're pretty much playing with fire with the whole AI issue, telling Gene to head over to the lighthouse. Gene obliged and makes his way to the lighthouse and once he arrives, and climb up the stairs, after climbing up the stairs to the door of the lighthouse, and once he arrives at the top of the lighthouse, he sees his Casio and plays a song, which lead to him finding the perfect song that he wants to show it off to the family, or at least write the damn thing upon waking up until he ends up forgetting how the lyrics go. This caused some problems for Gene, especially with the deadline for submission for the competition knocking on the door in a few days' time. So, that's Gene's little situation to set up the A-plot for the episode. But at least Gene got some rest because this is where the B-plot comes into play.
Because the whole family, primarily Linda, had to deal with a random cricket that invaded the apartment and chirped the night away whenever everyone went to sleep. Everyone needs sleep and one noise, just one noise from something small like a cricket, can disrupt you from getting a full eight hours of sleep. As for how the cricket got into the house in the first place? That was never explained how it got into the building other than a "don't question it, just roll with it" cease and desist order from the scriptwriters. I mean, the only guess of an answer that I can think of when it comes to the whole cricket issue...would have something to do with Louise. Her taking in the cricket as part of her planned prank for the next day at school, only for a minor mishap to happen that causes the cricket to hop off to where we are now. Some like a box or her bag that was left open. That's the only guess I can think of with the cricket. So yeah, that's the B-plot all set up with the rest of the family having to deal with the issue with the bug.
Switching over to the cafeteria at school with Gene being frustrated over him not being able to locate the song that he created in his dreams and with the deadline approaching in less than a few days’ time, a lot of pressure is building up onto the guy. But, at least Gene is getting some help, his first help is trying to remember the song he cooked for the upcoming competition from Rudy, this makes four of the five times this season he appeared and this is only the fourth episode of the new season. Rudy made a suggestion to Gene to help him remember and trace his steps by doing the same thing from last night to help him remember. Eat the same thing from last night, do the stuff you did last night, and bam! You have the same dream. Or at least, that's one suggestion coming from Rudy. It did help him once with the topic of dreaming. Will it work for Gene? We'll see as daytime is about to turn into nighttime. Speaking of which...
We head over to hours later at the household with the family eating dinner, the dinner that they ate last night as if they're eating leftovers, but it's the same thing that was made again with the family having to deal with the cricket sounds. Gene tells his plan that Rudy suggested earlier in the day and other than last night's dinner to help him trace his steps to recreate his dreams from last night, other than the lasagna, he decided to head off to sleep...at 7:00 at night. Motherfucker thinks that he's about to head off to an early morning flight at the airport. Other than eating the foot from the day prior, Gene is about to change into his sleepwear and use Tina's toothbrush that he used...I'm not going to explain why he did it, by accident. Or if Tina is going to disinfect the toothbrush to get Gene to spit out of it. Once Gene leaves, the cricket sound continues to haunt the family and haunt Linda's...still wish that we had a Halloween episode for this year. Linda wants to get rid of it by coming up with the idea of putting a bounty on the cricket removal. Causing Louise, shoehorning Tina, to step up into the plate to play cricket catcher with a $10 reward. Louise wanted $20 but Linda thinks that $10 is enough, and she have to make Louise split the $10 with Tina, so $5 each for the sisters to play cricket hunting.
Gene plans on going to sleep by doing the things that happened last night from messing around with the blanket to accidentally knocking the glass of water onto the floor and having to clean it up with a pair of his underwear...not the way to clean up the mess but it's Gene, so I guess. Other than that, the mission to locate the song is a go once Gene falls asleep...which takes him two hours for him to be knocked out and make him go to sleep. And it looks like the suggestion that Rudy made for Gene to help him out...yeah, it didn't work.
Because you have various random dreams coming from Gene in his sleep whether if it’s him brushing his very long rocker hair to him marching at a parade without having pants on as if he has no problem doing it to eating his charcuterie plate...twice. One of which includes him eating the plate while being surrounded by talking pieces of salami screaming “salami, salami” like they’re Pokémon even though Gene doesn’t want the salami dream and wants to find the song as his main priority, but knowing Gene, and him being a hungry boy when eating a charcuterie plate as if he’s eating at a buffet, it had to stand in the way from him locating the song that he conducted nights ago. So Rudy’s suggestion didn’t work and Gene is pretty much having issues in trying to remember.
This leads us to the next day at school at the library where Gene comes across Mr. Ambrose, nice to see him again after three seasons since he last appeared. I know that he’s there in “Amelia” but he was there in the background. Gene comes to Ambrose for some help to get him to remember the song that he was looking for. And this is where the idea of lucid dreaming comes into play. So lucid dreaming, when being compared to normal dreaming, is where you have total control of your dreams. With normal dreaming, you let things play out. With lucid dreaming, it's where you have control of your dreams and how you want to play out. Ambrose has done it and for reasons I don't want to know when bringing up his lucid dream of getting revenge on everyone who pokes fun at him at school...yeah, don't want to know anything about that. But if lucid dreaming is going to help Gene remember how the song he created goes, he might as well take Ambrose's word for it and decide to use it once he goes to sleep. Ending Act 1 of the episode with Gene taking Ambrose’s advice to take the lucid dreaming route and going into Act 2 of the episode...
The Belcher girls, hours later at the household, set up various traps to catch the rouge cricket that had ruined a lot of people's sleep, mostly Linda’s by having piles of newspaper across the floor of the hallway, causing a hazard for anyone to and from their respective bedrooms, living room, bathroom, and kitchen because it was covered in breadcrumbs and sugar. And it has to be in the newspapers because in order to trap a cricket, it has to be presented to the creature's eyes. Well, it's that or have it covered in some sticky substance. I mean, the girls did pick up the how-to traps on the internet. So breadcrumbs and sugar have to be the way for the girls to catch the cricket and entrap it with an empty soda bottle. And if it means having the house and possibly the restaurant) be traced with ants, might as well take the risk. They'll call an exterminator after this, though it comes down to payment. That's one hand and on the other, Gene is prepared to head off to sleep with him eating dinner early with Linda making him a turkey sandwich, and a glass of milk, doing some yoga, and a quick bathroom break before shutting down for the night.
Of course, a lucid dreamer needs to have a notebook and a pencil (or pen) on the ready. So wake up each time, about thirty minutes to an hour, and write down about your dream before going back to sleep. Doesn't sound healthy because you have to wake up each time you encountered a dream and write that shit down as if you're writing a dream journal about what you had encountered and have in case of therapy. But it's not going to stop Gene from tracking down the song, even if it means having to have to energy bar at 1 HP and feel like you need a day off...for 24 hours.
Going through a montage of dreams with Gene waking up each time to write down much like with the night prior with him having to go through dream after dream. You have Gene with Bob dressed up as a knight while riding on a roller coaster, tying in with his fear of roller coasters. Him being an octopus and licking eight lollipops because eight tentacles, eight lollipops. Him eating another charcuterie plate but at space this time around, having to grab a piece when opening his helmet and eating it when closing it. Taking a shower in the restaurant with everyone seeing Gene bathing...outside of the bathroom. It's a dream, but it had to be there. Also, you have Gene playing in the sandbox and a random hand pops out with him high-fiving the mysterious hand. I can see some people might think that it might be Gene's imaginary friend Ken but Ken is an albino and...you know what, best that I go forward because I don't want to make myself sound racist. I could see some people think that it's Ken, but I highly doubt it. And it didn't take long before Gene finally made it to the dream that he encountered the sea bus that Gene tried to run towards, but much like most kids when going to school, he missed it. So, after the montage of random dreams from the night and the night prior, it looks like the lucid dreaming that Ambrose suggested is starting to work.
As seen in the next scene with Gene running towards Bob and Linda and telling them that the lucid dreaming is working with Gene finally getting step one of him tracing his steps to locate the song. So there’s some good news. Now for the bad news, Tina and Louise were unable to locate the cricket. Apparently, the trap didn’t work. So everyone is back at square one when dealing with the cricket. And this isn’t with the likes of the usual cat and mouse game when trying to catch the insect. This isn’t like with a usual Looney Tunes episode with the Coyote and the Road Runner. The girls are currently hunting for Mr. Cricket, hunt down that Jiminy Cricket-looking ass and kick that fucker out. At least Gene made some progress in his side of the episode. Tina and Louise on the other hand, are slowly becoming a process of trial and error when to bait the cricket to end the suffering that they have to hear the noise all night, every night.
Gene goes back to sleep, going back to dreaming with him at the first step of his mission of getting him to remember the song with him stopping the sea bus from heading off and thanks to the meaning of what lucid dreaming is to the guy from Ambrose and the internet because you can't get a book on lucid dreaming, so I'm guessing it's on the banned book list, he controlled the bus from leaving the pier and enters the vehicle to make his way towards the island. He noticed that he was the only one on the bus since the bus was empty from the last time he brought up the bus which was filled with a small number of people in attendance. Gene in his dreams makes his way to the island on a sea bus, only for Gene's mind to decide to play mind games with him much like with the previous night with the montage of random dreams, have the scenery changed from the sea to the air and the sea bus into an airplane with an airline assistant offering Gene a bag of peanuts. Causing him to wake up once more and write it down in his notebook before going back to the sea bus to the island with him being the only person on the bus...or was the only person on the bus because you have Linda being boarded. That would make sense because Gene is a known momma's boy though some are probably wondering how come Bob, Tina, or Louise didn’t make the cut? Honestly, I don’t know. I guess fuck ‘em, no, no, no. I’m guessing the writers don’t want to add either one of them into Gene’s dream, so Linda has to be the way to go and would make the most sense.
But having a clone of Lindas sitting in the same sea bus as the original Dream Linda in Gene’s dream...Jesus Christ, they’re multiplying. Like, whenever your ride on the bus or on an airplane to your destination that is on the other side of the country, if not, the other side of the planet, and you have to deal with someone who might annoy the crap out of you for hours. And I mean hours to deal with that type of person, whether it's a kid kicking your seat from the back, a crying baby, or these days, a Karen having to disrupt the flight, it can be hell for traveling. And this is coming from yours truly, who have never taken a plane for travel. Yeah, that looks like a nightmare scenario when seeing a lot of Lindas singing “Wheels on the Bus” as Gene is making his way to the island. So after that little skid in the dream, Gene wakes up for a bit to write it down on the notebook and falls back to sleep where he finally makes it to the island where the second part of the dream comes into the picture. Him playing a round of volleyball and is expected that he to miss the ball. That was until...
Falling flat once more with Gene coming across with the cricket that annoyed the crap out of the entire family and in full size, too. And when seeing the episode, and yes, I had to rewatch the episode at the time of writing the review, thought that the cricket may have something to do with Gene being unable to locate the song that he cooked up in his dreams because the damn thing was disrupting everyone’s sleep, primarily Linda because mind you, Bob, Tina, Gene, and Louise didn’t hear the noise until Gene ends up becoming the next Belcher up to hear it and maybe that’s why the noise is what made Gene forget about the song...that’s not the case and between you and me, that would be the most predictable outcome to come up with for this episode. The most predictable outcome for this episode is if that idea would come to fruition. And speaking of the cricket...
Tina and Louise are unable to locate the cricket for another night and now, the rest of the family is hearing the cricket chirping that had disrupted their sleep. The girls were checking the traps as if they thought that they captured the insect when noticing the chirping becoming louder and louder as if it was coming across one of the traps that were laid out, but no, the cricket decided to be a smart ass, as Louise described, the same way as you would deal with a random animal invasion like a cockroach or a rat. So it’s back to the drawing board for Tina and Louise on how to catch the cricket as they and also Bob and Linda attempt to make their way to the bathroom for a small pee break before going through hours of hell with them getting the least amount of sleeping hours they’ll get.
Going back into Gene’s dream with him continuing to trace his steps to find his song. We already got him riding on the sea bus, arriving at the island, playing a game of volleyball (and sucking at it), and now comes steps four and five of the mission: coming across a robotic version of Ms. Merkin and directs him to the weird looking lighthouse, which Gene ends up doing it and climbs up the stairs to the door for him to enter the lighthouse. Only for Gene to open the door and see the cafeteria at school and question how he opened the door to the school as if he just opened a portal to Narnia and had a random Jocelyn appearance with her saying "what" in return from Gene saying the phrase when stumbling upon the cafeteria before closing the door and opening it again that finally lets him go walk through the stairs inside the lighthouse as if he's making his way to the final boss inside the castle in a video game. Gotta work on that cardio. Until finally, he reaches the top of the lighthouse where his Casio, a fancy-looking Casio since it is Gene's dream of course, and just as he is about to reach the finish line, and remembers how the song that he was looking for came to be...
His mind decided to play games with him and mess around with the guy. He was about to play a note to finally remember the song that he had conducted in the past couple of nights when playing that huge ass piano, only for the keyboard to turn into mush. But why stop there as we are about to go to the half? Because when Gene tries again to get the notes out of the Casio, the keyboards turn into blocks and fly away from the Casio and if that isn't enough for the guy, the next attempt had his arms bloated to the point where he is unable to play a single key and causing him to fall from his seat because of the weight. Knowing that we are at the halfway point of the episode, ending the second quarter and going into the third, in video game terms, knowing that Gene reached the finish line, only for him to fall short, it's like that one level where you thought you finally beat the main villain in the game, only to find out that the game isn't even over. You're only at the halfway mark of the game. Gene is halfway through the episode and the lucid dreaming seems to be working, but once he makes it to the finish line, that being the fancy Casio that he encountered once he reached the top of the lighthouse, the writers that it’s too early and want to mess around with the guy.
In fact, when we enter the second half of the episode, neither side has done something since we started the third quarter, as seen with the family at the breakfast table once more with Gene being upset that he was dangerously close to getting him to remember the song that he created through his dream but is unable to even reach the keys of his upgraded keyboard if his mind is going to play games with him. And with the deadline to submit the song fastly approaching, tomorrow at midnight to be exact, he is dealing with a mounting amount of pressure to find the damn thing. And if that’s not bad enough, it looks like the cricket hunt hit a brick wall with them continuing to fail to capture the insect. It's now getting to the point where Linda is threatening to call in an exterminator to do the job for them, much to Louise and Tina's dismay because they want the reward but because they're dealing with a smart ass of a cricket, they convince Linda to give them one more shot to capture the damn thing before pulling out the exterminator card…or move to another location. At least she didn't go to the fire option, because that would be the stupid route when getting rid of an insect that you don't like. And they had to deal with a spider that Louise had to keep secret. I mean, hell, bring out Phoebe the Spider to do the job of capturing the cricket. Because even though having a spider is annoying and you don't want that to be dealt with at your house, they are served as nature's pest control, so uh...just saying. Roll out the spider.
The kids, later in the day, decide to pay Ambrose a visit during his lunch break with Gene telling Ambrose on what to do with the whole lucid dreaming fiasco because it worked for him up until the end of the dream sequence when reaching the lighthouse, but to no avail, he is unable to get any help from Ambrose because he’s on his lunch break. So, Gene is pretty much on his own for the time being. But that’s not going to stop Tina and Louise...for them to trap a cricket, leading them to grab a book on how to trap crickets to at least aid them to make sure the cricket is caught and compromised...well, not the latter because the cricket has to go unharmed, so they can get their $10 from Linda.
Which the girls have to do once we head on to the next scene hours later after countless moments of reading about how to catch the cricket. They decided to use scents as their next weapon of choice, hoping to go for a more biological warfare since the Belchers are pretty much at war unofficially with Mr. Cricket by baiting the insect with the various scents to cloud the entire apartment. We’re talking lemon, cinnamon, peppermint, the works. Well, there’s no peppermint, so they have to improvise by using Linda’s pack of breath mints. I mean, it’s not like they’re going to go to the essential oils route where they have to get about three diffusers to get the cricket to track the scent. Especially at a small period, spreading the scents through the bottles, fresheners, and a pack of breath mints has to at least get the Belchers the justice they deserve. So, while the Belcher girls are on the clock once more to hunt the cricket, Gene is preparing to head back to sleep for the night and preparing to give it another shot to get him to remember the song. Which he did going into the next scene and...
Well, he did the deed. He finally got to remember the song that he cooked up nights prior. And yeah, might as well get this out of the way, the visuals and animation for this scene did look nice when Gene was doing the performance that got him to this point in finding the song that he was looking for when doing that 90-degree camera turn. That's all I can say about the scene. Everything else, at least Gene found the song that was looking for. But this is where we get to the point where get into the notion of expectation vs. reality comes into play. And it boils down to two things: Gene's performance inside and out of his dream and the family's reaction to the song once we get to the end of the third act and going into the fourth. Gene’s performance in the dream was alright. But once he found the song that was looking for and decided to present it to the rest of the family...well...take a look at their faces...
Take a good look at their faces. On one hand, they want to show their support to Gene and don’t want to make him look bad and feel judgmental about Gene’s songwriting and the song that he found from his dream. But on the other hand...yeah, the looks on their faces pretty much explain it. They don't like the song. And this is what Gene is getting after showing off his song for the contest with the deadline for submission right around the corner. So after all the sleep, all the dream hopping with him going through dream after dream through the process of lucid dreaming to finally get what he wanted...ends up making him look bad over what might as well be his family's honest opinions. And the look on their faces speaks for themselves when reacting to Gene's song. They care for the guy, it’s just the song that he created in his dream...didn’t meet with positive reviews.
This leads us to the fourth and final act of the episode with the notion that the episode has shifted from the topic of dreaming and sleeping to questioning what's reality and what's not when it comes to creativity. Because when Gene found his song, it was in a dream, and to him, in his opinion, it was a good song that he made. In his head. He hopes to bring it to life once he wakes up, though he has to go through dream after dream after forgetting how the song goes. But once he found the song, took three quarters in the episode, and decided to present it to the family as his test audience, it was hit with silent criticism. Imagine if you're an artist and you just found what you would call "the perfect art piece" in a dream and once you wake up, you get to work right away, and once you’re done, uploading it on the internet or present it for a class, you gotta at least have a test audience before thinking of presenting it as the final version to the public. Only to meet with some notes and not some good ones. And we’ll get to that in Gene’s little musical number in a bit. But for right now, Gene is upset that he fought his way to find the song that he made and forgot, to find his song, and he has to be met with criticism and questions about how he handled the songwriting process, leading him to go into his room.
Oh yeah, and Louise and Tina have one final, final plan to trap the cricket and get it out of the house and...gotta trick the cricket by creating a female cricket too big its size but it’s 2023, almost 2024, there’s no need for judging, the cricket like them big. So the girls decided to trick the cricket by creating a fake female cricket...as if that’s ever going to work but because it’s one creature, the thoughts of FOMO is probably the way to go for the girls to make sure things go their way in catching the insect. As if we’re learning how to trap the insect as we're picking up stuff from old-school cartoons from the 40s and 50s. Like, unless you somehow tell the laws of physics to go fuck itself and turn it into a Looney Tunes cartoon...fine, whatever. I mean, Louise and Tina are running out of ideas to catch the cricket. Just saying, the spider option is open. Just have Louise call for Phoebe and let her cook.
We get to the musical number at the two-minute warning and we get to bring up the whole notion of creating something like writing a song after three-quarters of song hunting, only for him to question if the song he created from his dream works in real life. This ties into any creator or anyone in general when trying to do something to please the crowd because you got the idea from a dream and once you decide to bring it to real life, the question comes down to whether or not everyone will like it compared to your own opinion. Creating stuff isn't easy. I mean, look at what I'm doing with these reviews. Took me two to three days just to attempt to break the scenes down, all on blog form and not on YouTube because of my poor ass (and not risking copyright issues with 20th Television...so Disney and I don't want to pick a fight with them). Writing and typing aren't easy. The same goes for maintaining a blog. But when it comes to other creators like authors, artists, musicians, or social media influencers from YouTube or TikTok, coming up with something to please the crowd, whether if it’s from a dream or the head or maybe something you saw while scrolling through the web, you have to feel like you’re in Gene’s situation when trying to come up with something. Gotta let yourself cook and have to make sure the item you cooked up is good enough to move on forward. That is what Gene is doing when trying to create a new song after the one he created in his dream fell into pieces after hitting one too many bricks in his lucid dreaming. And that was the whole musical number with him trying to find the perfect song that he has to create at the last minute, even though we see night going into day and night and so forth until he finally completes it and shows it off once again to his family. Creativity is not an easy task when being a creator.
Oh yeah, and apparently, the bullshit worked for Tina and Louise as they finally got the cricket right at the two-minute warning in the episode. So it appears the girl cricket trap worked...sort of. They caught the bug in a different trap but the duo wanted to give the insect a little company so that he wouldn't be lonely. So they had to put in the fake female cricket twice its size and don't want to know if the cricket, once it gets released to the outside, probably by the front of the house, take the fake cricket or uh...jizz. Yeah, I don’t want to know. All we know that is that the cricket issue is finally over and Linda can finally get a good night’s sleep. The family too but it’s mostly Linda since she suffered the most. Still no answer on how the cricket even got into the house but I guess we’ll have to go with the usual “don’t question it” answer.
Once the musical number is done in the final minute of the episode with Gene finishing his performance, he thinks that he might be back at square one with the whole added notes process on Gene's song creation, but Gene doesn't want to hear any criticism because he tells the family that they can the public can hate it on all they want, but it's not going to stop him to making sure that it'll get on the radio and hopefully gets his royalties whenever it gets played. So, at least he got his optimism back and he made it without relying on his dreams for once. So there's that...what isn't "that" is that Gene, right off the bat, decided to not submit the song to the competition. So after all of that? All the mounting pressure of him potentially being unable to submit his song before meeting the deadline to submit...throw it away. Throw in the towel. I mean, I get what Gene is saying about the principle with him saying that in the event he submitted his song that he's probably not going to get the full credit or getting his fair share of the money. And he does have a point about the idea the copyright system might fuck him over, but all that worrying and that hard work of wanting to submit the song into the competition, only to say, "Nah, I don't feel like it"... Fine...I guess. Damage is already done but at least Gene got his confidence back and also has the rest of the family does not have to deal with the cricket shit anymore. So that's the end of this episode. Kinda wish we had a Halloween episode this year.
Reaction/Thoughts:
So all and all, what do I think about this week's episode of Bob's Burgers? Fine...I guess. Average but below average to say the least. I mean, it's a Gene episode, and most of Gene's episodes, but not all of them, have been not that great. I might as well come out on a limb here and say that...when it comes to any episode that has any member of the Belcher family, Gene (and maybe Linda) is the one that I'm probably the least excited about. I don't hate the guy, but it's just his episodes, especially in the newer seasons had been felt lackluster. And this episode might’ve fit the bill.
Sure, we got another dream episode but not in the likes of “Flu-ouise" or "Dream a Little Bob of Bob"...hell, "Pig Trouble in Little Tina", but this week's episode is sort of like that with the notion of lucid dreaming taking place. I mean, Tina, with Louise and Gene's help in her dream did somewhat help trapping the pig and Louise did say to her that it's her dream, and she makes the decision. So...it sort of fits the bill into that category like with Gene in this week's episode when trying to remember the song that he created in his head and having to deal with hurdle after hurdle like it's a video game and you're having difficulty in trying to take down the final boss. At least the visuals look alright with that little camera angle and I guess the various dreams that Gene had to encounter in his sleep aren't too bad. The same goes for the musical number because it talks about the struggles of creating something. After all, he had to rely on his sleep, only to meet with some minor criticism from the family just looking at their faces. But other than that, it's an okay episode. At least we got Ambrose returning, so that's a plus. And Rudy appearing for the fourth time in five episodes in the new season, gotta give the guy at least something to help Gene out in his little dilemma.
The cricket subplot felt like pure filler with Tina and Louise going full trial and error when trying to catch the damn insect. And, sure, we're not going to get an answer as to why and/or how the damn thing even made it to the household. I'm still betting that it may have something to do with Louise but knowing that is a B-story of the episode, it pretty much boils down to "don't question it". So it's filler to sum up my thoughts on the subplot.
So, final thoughts...it’s average. Below average, mainly coming from the main plot. The subplot feels like filler. So I’ll give “Running Down a Gene”...
A 4 out of 10. But that’s my opinion and I wanna hear yours in the comments below. Leaving October and going into November, we got a new episode coming up and after going through this episode, at least we got an interesting one coming up with some lore with Zeke and the return of a character that we haven’t seen in years making his return...yeah, it’s Jimmy Pesto. Jimmy Pesto is making his return and with a new voice this time around since his old one decided to be a fucking idiot and might be going to prison in his role in trying to overthrow the electoral process. The Jimmy Pesto thing is going to overshadow the Zeke lore, I can feel it, in the fifth episode of Season 14, “Bully-ieve It or Not”.
Follow me over on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads (still trying to get used to the whole BlueSky thing) for updates and behind-the-scenes stuff. The second match of the semifinals between Louise Belcher (Bob’s Burgers) and Ham Tobin (The Great North) is still going on with the winner to be announced this upcoming Saturday to find out who will be the Bravo Party Nominee and take on Jolyne Cujoh (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) on December 3. Poll closing for each late night hour will be affected because of some random asshole think they're funny by spam voting for one particular candidate, not going to say who. Y'all should know the drill by now...
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