Review: American Dad! “Portrait of Francine’s Genitals”

American Dad! is officially in a slump.

Spoilers Below

This week’s episode of American Dad!, “Portrait of Francine’s Genitals”, has a really great episode name, but was another weak offering from this season. I must admit, I was intrigued when I first read the episode title. Surprisingly though it was disappointing.

The cold open was relatively funny, only because it starts off with a classic Roger freak-out. This time, it’s because Roger’s favorite artist is showing his work at the Langley museum and Roger ,of course, thinks Langley Falls has no class. He insults Stan, whose favorite artist is revealed to be Gary Larson. And Jeff gets the family into steel-cut oats.

As it turns out, Francine knew the famous artist in question– he made a mold of her genitals into one of his famous pieces. Of course, Stan freaks out after seeing the piece, and mayhem ensues. Steve’s libido is messed up after seeing the piece. When he tries to, uh… ‘master his domain’, all he can see is the art piece– so he becomes unable to pursue his usual hobby. As a result, Steve’s voice deepens, and he gets larger and stronger. Seeing and hearing the new Steve was really one of the few big laughs of the episode.

Still upset that everyone has now seen a sculpture of his wife’s nethers, Stan works with Roger’s art thief character to plot to steal the piece (simply entitled “Portrait of Francine’s Genitals”). Then, Stan tries to sell the sculpture to Roger’s coke dealer– who is also Francine’s coke dealer. Stan freaks out more and talks to the (now deceased) artist’s widow. She reveals that he was blind, and he only FELT his pieces by hand. Of course, this enrages Stan even MORE. But then, the artists’ widow makes Stan realize the art is no longer simply Francine’s privates but is something the whole world can enjoy.

Meanwhile, Steve, (who had found a new hobby of helping people), goes back to his regular activities after speaking to an alluring woman on the phone. He regains his small pasty body and squeaky voice. Klaus needs his bowl cleaned, Principal Lewis owns a fish store…this episode is really just all over the place. And it’s not very weird or ridiculous, which is what usually makes for a really funny episode of American Dad. “Francine’s Genitals” goes off the rails in a lot of lame ways. Hope next week’s is better.