Review: American Dad! “The Boring Identity”

Spoilers Below

Stan just seems to be causing one big embarrassment after another for Francine and despite 10 years of marriage she has yet to change him. She intends to do so now though because an old friend of hers is getting married and she wants Stan on his best behavior. As luck would have it, Stan and the CIA get in on a Bin Laden capture and to celebrate Stan starts playing up an arcade game, but an accident goes down and he suffers from amnesia. Fran decides to use this to her advantage and thinks of Stan now as a blank slate to which she can now teach her evil ways The new Stan is great! He;s a good listener, a crier, and a joy to have in a romantic bath tub. Soon, Stan is looking to get back to work, but Fran doesn’t want him working in the CIA anymore, so she gets him a job selling futons. Alas, Stan’s transformation is complete and Fran couldn’t be happier, but you can tell shits starting to fall apart due to Stan acting like a wuss.

The couple get to the wedding and Fran just can’t seem to take it anymore and she not only confesses to Stan what she did, but she beats the shit out of him in front of everyone. Longing for companionship, Stan meets a Navajo Indian lady and he almost falls for her, but thanks to Fran’s horrible karaoking, she’s able to jog his memory and bring the old Stan back. That said, he’s still pretty pissed and the Smiths don’t know when he’s coming back.

Meanwhile,  Steve decides to tag along Roger’s paper route. Of course like most activities that Roger takes part in, he turns this one into a somewhat corrupt scheme where profit is the name of the game. Steve really wants to get a soda stream so he will do anything for cash…ANYTHING! At the end of his first run and after learning all of Roger’s ways, poor Steve gets no cash and instead just gets kicked in the nuts. As retaliation, Steve comes clean to the boss, but he gets smashed like a fly by Roger so there’s that.

Soo, does Stan come back? I’m not sure, but wouldn’t be swell if we had ANOTHER arc kind of split off for American Dad on the back of the Jeff missing episodes?  I think doing this could create an awesome effect for this show as I thought arcs worked well for King of the Hill. Granted I doubt this show would have anywhere near as severe arcs like children and what not, but hey a little spice makes everything nice. Speaking of spice, when Fran runs an episode, there just seems to be a bit more attitude that none of the other characters have on any of the other AniDom shows. Seriously, Wendy Schall is SCARY, funny, almost to the point where she even runs her plots with such great tenacity that I can’t wait til she does another one. Roger and Steve’s plot was entertaining as it featured an almost Training Day like element to it (complete with Cypress Hill), but it was so damn short that I didn’t feel that I got my Just Desserts at the end. That said, the ending was somewhat killer, and as a result I kept the recap somewhat coy for a reason. Sometimes, not always, American Dad likes to dance on that fantastical border that Family Guy prances around all the time. In any case, this week’s episode certainly wasn’t boring.