Review: American Dad ‘Independent Movie

Spoilers Below

Hideki is throwing a big party and the Smiths are part of the celebration. Stan and Roger decide to come up with a better way of cutting cake with the two verbally agreeing to be co-creators. The guys eventually get a commercial on like a QVC to which we see midway through Steve’s plot. Stan and Roger get rich only to pull out pistols on Hideki.

Meanwhile, Steve is making a bunch of LEGO statues to enter into a contest with the help of Snot. Unfortunately, Snot learns that his father has died, but tells Steve that he has no interest in going to the funeral. Steve is shocked to learn of this and decides to take Snot and the rest of the guys to California to attend the funeral no matter what.

Turns out Snot’s dad wasn’t always there for him and on the way to Cali the guys pick up a hitchhiker. Barry pulls over at Steve’s request to look around the woods which causes the hitchhiker to take off looking for a bridge to jump off of. Steve decides to build a mud caricature of Snot’s dad, but his friend kind of flips out over it with Barry pretty much destroying it. Toshi disappears and heads into the cornfield where he is seen praying. Turns out Toshi has no interest in leaving said cornfield so the other guys take off and head to a motel where they run into this girl with blue hair voiced by Zooey. Since no one knows her real name, I’m just calling her Zooey. That said, Snot eventually comes to terms with his dad’s death.

This girl Zooey is fucking weird, but Steve loves her so much that he decides to NOT go with Snot on the way to his dad’s funeral. Barry and Snot take off for the funeral and Steve stay behind with Zooey to hang out in the hot tub. However, when she finds out that Steve ditched Snot she leaves him which causes Steve to get in a truck so as to head to the funeral. When he arrives, Steve ends up telling the driver to just keep on driving which is just plain weird.

American Dad is the most polarizing animated series on television. There are a few weeks out of the year, maybe five or six, where this show looks like the best show on TV. And then most weeks we just get a lot of rehashed shit featuring Stan trying to prove how macho he is followed by Roger throwing on another costume, and then one of the kids get into it. But then you get really GOOD ideas like Jeff in Space, or like this week’s episode where Steve’s entire plot is shot like an independent movie, written like an Academy Award winner, and then bookended by a Stan/Roger plot that was so unnecessary it didn’t even need to happen. I’m hoping that with the shorter seasons on TBS that American Dad can put out quality not quantity because if we get more stuff like this in Fall of 2014, this show could be a dangerous contender for best of the year.