Bob's Burgers: The Big Stieblitzki is a lesson in maturity

Surprise! Bob’s Burgers is back with even more episodes for season 14 as was teased at San Diego Comic-Con.

For those who don’t know, season 15 of Bob’s Burgers won’t be airing until September 29 but until then, there was a backlog of episodes so the Belchers are back a bit earlier than normal. If you didn’t know, this is due to the previous Hollywood strikes so at least, we’re getting more now. 

This couldn’t come at a better time as Bob’s Burgers recently lost the Emmy for Best Animated Program. Since it’s part of the Creative Arts Emmys, we were able to find out the result a little early and the show was beaten by Blue Eye Samurai. 

As unfortunate as it is, Bob’s Burgers is only getting better so another win will come. Until then, we still have more of season 14 to enjoy. 

Here’s what happened on “The Big Stieblitzki” 

If you missed out on “The Big Stibelitzki,” then there will be spoilers from this point on. This is your spoiler warning so be sure to get caught up before reading any further. 

The episode begins with the Belcher family getting ready to go to a birthday party for Rudy’s dad Sylvester and Louise is worried about Rudy due to his parents’ drama. The Belcher kids decide to make sure Rudy’s dad has an amazing party because his mom’s new boyfriend Paul is there. Things aren’t looking up as Sylvester and Paul are bowling together much to Rudy’s dismay. To try to make things better, Louise decides to distract Paul while Gene and Rudy have to pluck Sylvester’s eyebrow hair and Tina is supposed to find a girlfriend for him.

Louise decides to take matters into her own hands by asking a bowling worker to help them and she ends up agreeing to help Rudy’s dad cheat. Tina doesn’t seem so excited about this idea but Louise doesn’t want to let Sylvester down. When Louise is trying to find out the bowling order, she learns that maybe Rudy’s dad isn’t playing as well as he normally does. She realizes that Sylvester is letting Paul win the game but Rudy doesn’t want to hear it. 

To try to make sure Rudy doesn’t go through it, Louise ends up running to the bowling lanes to make Rudy stop. Louise explains to Rudy that the problem isn’t with his parents but with him and, eventually, Louise is able to convince Rudy to not enact his plan. Once Rudy talks to his dad, he finds out that things aren’t what they seem and his dad is okay about everything going on. 

The episode ends with Sylvester’s cooking classmate flirting with him and Linda sharing the first time she said “I love you” to Bob.

Bob's Burgers is finishing strong with season 14

With the show not yet returning for season 15, I was truly unsure of what these final episodes of season 14 would be like. However, Bob's Burgers did not disappoint and frankly, the episode was another non-Belcher-centric one. While the Belcher kids do play a role, the story focused on Rudy and him having to be mature when he was dealing with a lot of inner turmoil when it came to his parents seeing new people.

Rudy's parents' divorce has been a huge part of his character so it's awesome to see the show working with that and having Louise be the voice of reason. For the most part, we're privy to Louise's many schemes but this time, she was the one stopping everything. It was a nice change of pace for her and proved the excellent character work the Bob's Burgers writers put in.

Even though "The Amazing Rudy" didn't end up winning Bob's Burgers an Emmy, the show hit a strike with another Rudy-themed episode. Hopefully, we'll see the show taking the same risks when it comes to season 15. However, we won't find out more until September 29. Either way, this was such a nice treat and a great way to ease all of us back into showing up for the Belchers after last season's lack of episodes.

Bob's Burgers airs on Sundays on Fox at 9/8c.

What did you think of "The Big Stieblitzki?" Are you excited for more episodes focused on side characters? Be sure to let us know on X and come back for all the Bob's Burgers content ahead of season 15's premiere.