A Bob's Burgers Braid Enthusiast Helps Show Us Why Louise Has No Friends

One of Bob's Burgers's most endearing recurring motifs is Linda's ongoing campaign to connect with Louise, the most confounding and prickly of her three children, and said campaign's continual failure. In the latest episode, Linda gets the obviously doomed idea of forcing Louise to host a slumber party for a few girls from her class, because Linda is oblivious to the fact that any viewer of the show could have told her: Louise doesn't like other girls.

To be fair, Louise doesn't like most other kids. Or most other people. But as we learned last season in "Boyz 4 Now," Louise has a particular contempt for girls and girliness — one that wasn't dimmed when she developed a confusing crush on the group's adorable youngest member, Boo Boo. So for Linda to choose four girls at random to surprise Louise with a slumber party is a bad call: Louise has very specific objections to all the girls Linda invites. Harley? Talks too much. Jodi? Crazy germophobe. Jessica? Most boring girl alive: "If she was a spice, she'd be flour. If she was a book, she'd be two books."

Over the course of the episode, Louise learns that Jessica is actually kind of interesting after all. Specifically, Jessica's need to cover up bedwetting accidents at sleepovers has turned her into an investigative genius/master of deception who's actually on Louise's own level. By the end of the episode, Jessica and Louise have reached a sweet truce that suggests that, maybe, Louise might make a friend in her peer group, for once. (Maybe.) And if these two maniacs actually join forces, Wagstaff Middle School should consider hiring extra security staff.

But as fun as it is to see Louise making reluctant friends with a worthy adversary, let's give a shout-out to the party's fourth guest: Abby. One thing has always Bob's Burgers done well is bring us bit characters who reveal themselves through extremely specific personality traits — Jimmy Pesto Jr. and his emotive dancing; Gretchen, Linda's sexually confident plus-size hairdresser. Abby doesn't have many lines, but once it's revealed that Abby's dominant character trait is that she loves braiding stuff, we know she and Louise are never going to be close. Bedwetting is one thing: even though it's involuntary and embarrassing, someone like Louise can respect the anarchy of it. But braiding? That's even girlier than screaming at a boy band.

But Abby's braiding jones can't be satiated — not even when she's scolded, apparently on multiple occasions, by the school janitor for braiding all his mops. It's delightful because if you ever were a girl or even just knew any, you knew the way we/they will occupy endless hours in these kinds of solitary, meditative pursuits. (I had a friendship bracelet habit for a while.) Abby's braiding may have earned her Louise's disdain and trouble from Mr. Branca, but she knows the truth: braiding is pretty and it makes people happy. Even Bob.

Linda: What's wrong with your hair?
Bob: What's right with it!