| “ | Heroes don't have to be perfect, you know? They just have to make you think bigger about yourself somehow. | ” |
"Amelia" is the the twenty-second episode and Season 13 finale of Bob's Burgers, being the two-hundred-and-sixtieth episode overall.
Plot[]
Louise takes a class assignment - and a few unhelpful comments by Wayne - very personally. Meanwhile, Bob hires a masseur-in-training to give Linda a massage for Mother's Day.
Full story[]
At Wagstaff, Louise begins a shadow puppet presentation for her class on Amelia Earhart. Using a sheet with light projected behind it, some stick puppets and Gene and Tina’s help, she starts off by describing how courageous one had to be to fly a plane in 1920, while Wayne, sitting in the darkened classroom, remarks on it being that way with all new technologies, to Louise’s annoyance. She then has to reset the presentation due to her timing being thrown off. She describes Earhart from the beginning as someone who fell in love with flying at age 23.
One week earlier, in that same classroom, Ms. LaBonz is telling the class about how their reports on their personal heroes should be multimedia, and can only be someone from the library biography’s section. In the library, Louise sees a book on Amelia Earhart fall on the ground after Kaylee takes another book off the shelf. As she picks it up, Wayne walks right up behind her and tells her to avoid the topic, citing Earhart as a "manufactured publicity stunt than a a hero", while Louise is annoyed by him invading her personal space and being negative. Wayne tells her he is trying to be helpful, telling her someone such as the Wright Brothers or Charles Lindbergh would be better while saying Earhart is only sitting in a plane as a "publicity stunt" while Louise counters his suggestions. Wayne feels good about choosing his report on Neil Armstrong, while Louise chooses to read at a table as far away from his obnoxious behavior as possible.
That night at the Belcher dining table, everyone notices Louise intently reading the Earhart book with surprise at her reading something deeply. Louise says it is for school and was not sure who to choose, but Bob nearly reveals about the mysterious final flight, which Louise has not found out about yet, so the family stays quiet. Linda changes the subject by bringing up that Mother’s Day is approaching, which the others had forgotten about, but she says all she wants is an "in-home family spa": someone rubbing her back, another painting her toenails, and so on, at home by them. Bob agrees.
Louise continues her presentation again, stating Amelia Earhart got her pilot’s license in 1923, and determined to be a pioneer, in 1932 becomes the first woman and the second person to fly across the Atlantic solo. But her most ambitious goal, to fly around the world, would never happen, as she would disappear during the journey with her voice on the radio during that journey would be the last anyone heard from her.
In bed, Louise reads the book and finds out about the disappearance, to her shock. The next day at school, Ms. LaBonz rejects Louise’s desire to choose another biographical figure, as Louise would fall too far behind starting the presentation over. Louise is concerned that her hero is not as heroic as she would like, which Wayne overhears but Louise tries to hide what happened. Later at home, she goes through photos from Earhart’s life when her family see her looking through them. Louise is annoyed and Linda walks off to get wine, while Bob tells the kids his idea for Mother’s Day: they are all bad at massages, and a professional masseur is too expensive, but he found out it is very cheap to hire a massage student in training, who will then show up at the apartment.
The kids like the plan before Linda walks by. Louise refuses any help on her homework, frustratedly saying Earhart was cool and she printed out the pictures, and that she plans to just stick the pictures on something to get a C-plus on her report. That night, as she tries to sleep, she has a dream of being in class with her giving answers to LaBonz while Wayne answers just after her but is picked due to being louder, with Wayne getting constantly louder and chosen to present first due to this. Louise wakes up screaming, and realizes she needs to get a better grade on the presentation than Wayne.
Walking with her siblings on the way to school, Louise tells them her plan to make a feature film with model plane shots for the presentation, but realizes it may be hard to do given they have four days and her siblings have no way of using CGI or hiring an orchestra. Gene puts a pencil eraser top on his finger like a puppet, which gives Louise the idea to use puppetry. At school, in an art class, Louise talks to Benj, a fifth-grader known for making puppets, but he tells her that each of the felt ones he is currently working on took two weeks each. Louise asks about marionettes while saying she has experience, but Benj says it will take three weeks to build them. He has a lot of tasks to do, making the puppets for the fifth grade play, then having to go to afternoon wheelchair basketball because his mom makes him, and expresses annoyance that Louise decided that morning to use puppets and to ask for his help without thinking about it.
At home that night, in the kitchen Louise thinks of what else could be multimedia with Linda, whose suggestions such as slam poetry are not helpful. Bob meanwhile gets a call from the masseur student and walks into another room to answer and hide the surprise from Linda.
The next day, in the restaurant, Gene and Tina are playing with napkins when one falls on Louise’s face. Noticing she can see a shadow outline of her hand against the ceiling light, she gets the idea to use shadow puppets and tells her family the idea. She realizes she needs to talk to Benj again, but this time brings Tina along, having earlier seen Benj get excited at Jocelyn, an eight-grader, knowing his name. At Wagstaff recess, Louise brings along a confused Tina, while Benj is excited to be talking to an eight-grade girl. Lousie asks about shadow puppets, and while Benj admits it is not the kind he usually does, he can still help. As it is Thursday and the presentation is due on Monday, they get to work.
At lunch, Louise and Benj check the classroom for where the screen should be when LaBonz returns with her lunch. LaBonz knows Benj, who almost flunked her fourth grade class before. LaBonz begrudgingly allows Louise’s setup for the report, when Wayne, walking by, tells her it seems complicated while bragging to a passerby student about how his presentation is a documentary slideshow on his laptop about Armstrong before walking off. Louise asks Benj who he did his fourth-grade report on (Jim Henson), but he admits he only got a "C" on it, to Louise’s concern (before LaBonz’s expired fish lunch distracts them).
At the restaurant, Louise’s project has taken over the counter, with pieces for shadow puppets, glue, markers, and more strewn all over, keeping Mort and Teddy from having their plates on it. Mort brings up a theory he heard about Earhart being captured by the Japanese and asks if it is in the book Louise has, which she confirms and brings up her own theory that Earhart escaped from a POW camp and became a "super spy" (while thinking that Eleanor Roosevelt was the president at the time). Teddy tells her his therapist has a signed photograph, as her mother knew Amelia Earhart’s sister in Medford, Massachusetts. Louise continues cutting shadow puppets for her project.
Linda walks to the basement, and Teddy tells Bob he brought a Mother’s Day gift basket for his mom of soaps and lotions that he can give to Bob for Linda since Bob is not great at thoughtful gestures, but Bob tells him he has already figured out the day. The kids tell Teddy that a guy will be massaging Linda, as there were no women masseur students available, before Linda comes back up.
In Louise’s room, the kids work on the presentation. Tina is cutting puppets, while Gene shows up a pedal board Peter Pescadero’s brother had for his guitar before going away to college, and Peter will be playing his recorder in the presentation as part of the loan (the other being Gene has to teach Peter to twerk). Tina finds a "Soviet plane-fighting robot" puppet Louise cut out, and asks Louise if she has too much in the "super spy" section, which Louise denies. Tina then asks if Louise wrote anything about why Earhart is her hero, even if she was not a “secret super spy”. Louise hesitates while saying she included that in her report.
Later in the kitchen, Louise is angry that she does not in fact have anything of the sort in her paper, having just made up a story about spies and robots, and upset that now she will get an "F" and Wayne will be smug and right. Linda tells her they can figure it out, while Louise is upset that Earhart failed, and the more she reads the chapter, the more she thinks the last journey was her fault: it was badly planned, the plane had the wrong kind of radio, etc. Louise fumes that Wayne will sit there with his successful report judging her. Linda tries cheering her up, while Bob says to just remove the spy stuff and tell the truth that Earhart most likely went down in the Pacific and was never found. Bob is less enthusiastic at rewriting multiple pages, but nevertheless Louise feels encouraged.
After writing long into the night, Louise goes to bed tired but upset. On Mothers Day morning, Linda is still in bed when Bob checks in on Louise, who is still having trouble writing the report. She does not want to ruin Mother’s Day and suggests just failing, but Linda is awake and overhears them talking. Just then, the doorbell rings, and Bob runs to answer. Pat, the training masseur, arrives, awkwardly carrying a table and unaware Bob wanted to keep his presence a surprise. The two lift the table up the stairs, but Pat loses his grip and it slides down into the door. The rest of the family arrive to see what happened.
Later, Pat has set up the massage table in the living room when Linda enters in a bathrobe, very uncomfortable, so Pat steps away so she can undress and lay down on the table. Pat sees Bob, Gene and Tina in the hallway, and mistakenly assumes they all want massages too. Pat soon begins massaging Linda, but finds that her back muscles are extremely tight and tells Bob that it will take more than an hour, while glad at the learning experience. Just then, Louise yells from the kitchen that she gives up and yells about how Wayne won, which Pat thinks explains the stress Linda has in the apartment.
Back in the classroom, Louise explains how there was no land where Earhart’s plane was and little fuel left, as Gene and Peter provide music while Benj and Tina work the shadow puppets.
Louise continues yelling from the kitchen as Pat, Linda and Bob overhear her. Bob goes to check on her, but Linda tells him to bring Louise in the living room, as she will not be able to relax unless she is able to talk to her daughter. Louise and Linda talk face-to-face with Louise on the ground under the headrest Linda is in, and apologizes for making such noise. Linda says she had a thought just as Pat finally fixes her back.
In the classroom, Louise narrates how when they realized how bad things were, Amelia and her navigator must have talked but is not sure about what. Demonstrating with the puppets, she imagines that they landed gracefully on the water, that they would have gotten onto the nose of the plane as it sank into the ocean, and that Amelia probably faced her fate with acceptance, with no planes in the sky or ships on the horizon. Wayne laughs before Louise tells him to zip it.
In the living room, Linda tells Louise that she was thinking about Amelia Earhart’s mother, and how she probably never told her daughter to "act like a lady" due to the manner of the time that women were not meant to be doing things that men did. Louise also speculates that she never said anything like "girls can do anything boys can do" since it can sound like the opposite when said, which Louise agrees. Louise notes that Linda never said it to her, and Linda says that, whatever Earhart’s mother said, it worked, and she had a confident daughter, while also feeling bad for her, having lost a daughter in such a way. But Linda also notes that Earhart was confident and loved doing that stuff, and then young girls saw her and were inspired too; and she tells Louise that she feels it was gift too, that because of her daughter, Linda’s daughter gets a glimpse of something greater (before drooling due to Pat getting a spot on her back). Linda further tells Louise that heroes don’t have to be perfect, they just have to make one think bigger about themselves (before drooling again).
Louise continues the presentation by noting that Amelia Earhart didn’t fly around the world, and that some people may say that makes her failure and loudly talk about it (to Wayne’s annoyance at it being directed at him), and that sometimes people with lower and deeper voices get heard more, but that does not make her want to follow suit. She notes that Earhart saved her money and bought her famous bright red Lockheed Vega, mentioning its specs, and how it was Amelia telling the world who she was, and how she wrote her own character in a story. Louise talks about the disappearance, that maybe there is more magic in the world out there, and that maybe after Earhart made peace with her fate, maybe there was some magic that lifted the plane back up, and she never had to land again.
Louise finishes the presentation, saying that Amelia makes her want to write a story for herself, and that’s why she is her hero. The class applauds, and Wayne finds that he is next to go up, with much less confidence than before.
External links[]
- "Amelia" on IMDb
- "Amelia" press release via The Futon Critic
- "Amelia" script via Springfield! Springfield!