Review: American Dad! “Gift Me Liberty” (S13Ep20)

The new episode of American Dad, “Gift Me Liberty” was a nice pick-up from what I felt was kind of a dud episode last week (“Garfield and Friends”).

The episode starts with a disheveled, scraggly looking Stan telling a story up in what’s obviously Roger’s Place. It all begins at the CIA office’s “Evil Santa”, their Christmas gift exchange. The fact that it’s a Christmas episode in June is funny in itself, and Bullock tasks Stan with finding whoever shorted a gift in Evil Santa, which infuriated Bullock.

The side story in the episode is Steve getting paid for being a “front” date for girls’ parents when the girls want to secretly date bad boys. Totally weird and hilarious. Hayley drives him around– there is a seriously funny part where all the characters are in ICP makeup.

Eventally, of course, Stan employs the help of Roger (the “best liar” Stan knows) to help him get a lead in the Evil Santa investigation– since Stan isn’t coming up with anything. So they pin it on a dead CIA coworker, and hi-jinks ensue from there.

As for Steve, let’s just say his date-front scheme ends up having the CDC called.

All in all, this was a great episode, right up until the fourth wall-breaking Roger gag at the end. A total weird win for this season, completely out of left field. I feel like it was a very “full” episode, in that it fully utilized the Smith family dynamic in a great way, as is the case with all my favorite American Dad! episodes.