Okay, between this episode, All That Gene, and Mommy Boy, this show needs to take a break from Gene focused episodes. The fact that the episode excuses Gene's horrendous behavior and attitude about the Tamagotchi-like toy and allows him to shirk his school assignment, the writers have lost all touch with what made Gene endearing. Gene has been irresponsible before, even attached to weird things, but the end results of those episodes have always ended with him realizing that it was irresponsible and not realistic.
In these later episodes, they writers have had Linda excuse away his worst behavior and allow him to fester and digress as a character. With this episode, Bob, who is traditionally the levelheaded character of the show, felt that making apologies for losing Gene's game was a logical character choice, despite spending the first half of the episode telling him how irresponsible he was for not doing his assignment. While I understand children being irresponsible, the show's approach to these behaviors has been vastly different in previous seasons.
Whenever Gene episodes approach lately, I begin to dread having to sit through the episode. I sincerely hope the writers realize how badly they've been portraying him lately just to make him appear quirky.
There are some fun moments, the side story with Louise and Tina taking an old childhood ride and finding a way to make it fun as they get older was fun. But the show needs to be aware of what they're doing to Gene and how it's becoming more of a nuisance instead of endearing.