Review: American Dad “The Census of the Lambs”

It puts the national population on its form or else it gets the hose again.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The Smiths finish their day at “Law & Order Fest”, the second best Dick Wolf-based gathering next to “Chicago-Con” and Stan and Hayley butt heads a bit over how many awesome things they each did. Back at home, Stan is gleeful upon learning the U.S. Census is starting and is eager to count the crap out of stuff. Hayley, realizing this is a paid gig, decides to get in on this. Stan mocks her for being lazy, which is just the motivation for her to fully commit to the task and beat Stan at his own game. He strikes gold early on meeting a peculiar old lady named Phyllis who pushes her into the lead on data gathering. In a rush, Stan stops by the token creepy house in the town and is knocked out. He awakens to find himself in a pit with a Thomas Middleditch-looking guy named Kevin and a TJ Miller-looking guy named Robbie as they await being skinned by their captor. When she finds out he didn’t come back, Hayley investigates and puts her newly found Census abilities to the test until she pinpoints his location back to that same house. She goes back to Phyllis to ask her more, only to find that SHE is the person skinner. She’s also thrown in the pit, but she, Stan, Kevin are saved soon after by Ice T, who Hayley befriended at the convention, and she and Stan reconcile.

Oh, and Klaus gets Steve and his friends to model for him takes a liking to Barry and then is beaten mercilessly by Anne Geddes. Good times.

OUR TAKE

This episode reminded me of a Season 7 episode, “The People vs. Martin Sugar”, wherein Stan takes a weird pleasure in going to jury duty, only to find Roger the defendant in the trial and relentlessly getting him found guilty to uphold the law. This combines Stan’s signature fondness for bureaucracy with his dysfunctional relationship with Hayley, who has low ambition but is easily provoked by Stan’s criticism and always wants to prove him wrong. And then it pretty suddenly turns into a parody of Silence of the Lambs, as the title suggests. Personally, I appreciated the treatment of their relationship more in “The Long Bomb”, and this feels more of the same, but otherwise this was a pretty harmless plot.

Score
6/10