Moody Foodie

Plot

After a local restaurant closes following a bad review by a vicious food critic called the 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 Foodie 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, 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 Foodie'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 restaurateurs 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 review, 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 realizes he hasn't seen it and only thinks that because of a bad review. This leads him to have an epiphany: the Moody Foodie's bad review was just him doing his job, and he should just let it go.

They then set the Moody Foodie and the deliveryman free and he promised to never give a bad review again, but not until one of the restaurateurs gives the Moody Foodie a wet willy (in a parody of the ear-cutting scene from Reservoir Dogs). Business in Bob's Burgers returns to normal after he gives discounts to anyone bringing in a copy of the review. Bob wonders why the cops haven't come yet to arrest him yet. A flashback reveals that, after everyone left, the Moody Foodie actually tried the burger and enjoyed it so much he decided not to press charges.

Reception

The episode received a 1.8 rating and was watched by a total of 3.72 million people. This made it the fourth most watched show on Animation Domination that night, beating The Cleveland Show, but losing to American Dad!, The Simpsons and Family Guy with 5.64 million. Rowan Kaiser of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A, saying "One of the reasons “Moody Foodie” works so well is that each of its situations allows the characters to behave in a different, amusing fashion. The nervousness of the Belcher family at the impending arrival of the critic puts Bob in the role of the straight man, with each of the other family members responding to the anxiety differently. Linda, usually one of the more difficult characters for the show to handle, may be best here, giving “pep talks” which do the opposite of pepping. Louise, of course, is an all-star throughout the episode, scoring with this suggestion: “Let’s bribe him. Dad, take out the lettuce and replace it with this $20 bill that I took out of your wallet."