Review: American Dad “Downtown”
Overview (Spoilers Below):
Steve Smith’s modest goal to take in a little extra preparation for his PSATs spirals wildly out of control when he and his sister find themselves stranded in the outskirts of Langley Falls’ dangerous downtown region. Steve and Hayley get stuck in deeper trouble, which leads to Stan leaping into action with the rest of the Smith family to save his children from the lures of “downtown.” Both parties come to realize that downtown has changed in many surprising ways and the entire Smith family gets thrown into chaos. Distractions mount and as Steve gets further away from his PSATs he begins to wonder if he’ll even get out of downtown alive.
Our Take:
It’s often said that the city of New York is a character in and of itself. New York City may be a character, but Langley Falls, Virginia, is not a character. Even though there have been nearly 300 episodes set in this community, there’s still not a great sense of Langley’s geography. Granted, certain pieces of Langley Falls have been shown off and appreciated over the years, but this is the first episode that makes the layout of the community a major plot point and a tacit obstacle that needs to be conquered. American Dad’s “Downtown” tries to say that Langley is in fact a character. This results in an interesting experiment for the series, which is full of laughs, but lacks some of the series’ usual punch. “Downtown” is a scattered, cluttered episode and even though most of the ideas work here, “Downtown” still feels like a bit of a strange outlier for American Dad.
There hasn’t been a dedicated Steve and Hayley story since last season’s “Funnyish Games,” which featured Steve taking classes at Groff Community College alongside Hayley, much to her dismay. However, the sibling dynamic between Steve and Hayley is a relationship that’s not turned to often enough in American Dad. After the heavy focus that last week’s premiere took with Stan and Roger—a popular well for the show to draw from—it’s appreciated that “Downtown” is an episode that gives most of the cast something to do and spends the bulk of its time with Steve and Hayley as they grow increasingly agitated with one another.
“Downtown” is an episode that digs into both Steve and Hayley’s characters and how they’re in conflict. There are many isolated moments where Hayley and Steve get to be their unbridled selves, but the real joy here is in their beleaguered quest to tolerate each other. Even if this isn’t the greatest episode, it’s still a strong example of how well Hayley and Steve work as a unit and that this brother and sister aren’t paired together nearly enough.
Steve is ready to take his P-PSATs (since you can never be too pre-prepared) and the Smith family places a great deal of weight on this simple gesture. Steve and his future are viewed as the only plausible security that the Smith family has and so Steve’s ability to properly take this test doesn’t just double as the most important decision of his future, but the defining act for the entire Smith family. This situation becomes dire when Steve reveals that the P-PSAT testing center is located in Langley Falls’ infamous and feared downtown region.
After a flat tire quickly derails Steve and Hayley’s mission, they try to get help from the downtown locals, which only throws them into deeper trouble. The unassuming beauty product club that they trust turns out to be a racket who have a stranglehold on downtown’s hotbed of criminal activity. Steve and Hayley ricochet back and forth between various downtown destinations as they try to survive and find help. Chaos abounds, but it only further contributes to the disjointed nature of the episode.
Meanwhile, Stan is staunchly convinced that downtown is always the worst part of any community and where all of the danger and serial murders take place. It doesn’t take much to send Stan into a panic and he’s racing with Roger and Francine to find their kids and save them from the evil clutches of downtown. Stan’s quest begins with plenty of fear and caution, but he soon learns that the formerly derelict neighborhood has improved itself into quite the metropolitan hub in more recent years. Gentrification has improved downtown in considerable ways and Stan is forced to face this realization.
“Downtown” is an episode that often gets a little too broad for it’s own good at times. The sophisticated downtown rat joke is far from the craziest thing that American Dad has done, but it feels tonally out of place here. There’s a general trend in this episode where the comedy caters to more random absurdism, like Steve listing off the many names of the beauty club members or Stan’s extensive list of downtown safety precautions.
The biggest example of this is with the extremely bizarre joke that the renegade beauty product club is called Mitchell & Webb Beauty Products, referencing the iconic British comedy duo. There are also a handful of decade-old movies also get randomly referenced, mostly to inconsequential effect. Even Jeff and Francine, who are somewhat on the sidelines of this adventure, still get a few moments that are satisfying and perfect character distillations, but they’re disconnected from the rest of the story.
It’s the second half of the episode that becomes particularly problematic. There’s a strong structure in place for the episode’s plot, but “Downtown” repeatedly throws wrenches into the mix, as if it’s some disgruntled downtown resident. The goals are very simple when the episode begins, but suddenly Steve and Hayley are witnesses to a murder, on the run for their lives, and Hayley even casually kills someone herself. There are actually a lot of fatalities that plague this episode.
It’s a very messy final act, which on some level tries to take advantage of the chaotic frame of mind that Steve and Hayley are in during this catastrophe, but the idea doesn’t completely come together. This feels more like a collection of crazy scenes than an episode that effectively builds on itself. Usually American Dad is more justified in its homages, but by the time that the leader of the beauty group is riffing on Terminator, it feels like this episode is just throwing in whatever it can.
This feeling is also present with Stan and company, since Roger’s entire goal of finding a grody rub-and-tug emporium is also an unmitigated disaster. This plan is pretty par for the course for Roger, but it feels too extraneous to everything else that’s going on and leads to just another predictable joke regarding gentrification. The most disappointing part of all of this is that none of this material really amounts to anything. At first it seems like Stan’s mission to rescue Hayley and Steve will intersect with their storyline, but at best the two plots barely connect. There’s also a level of disconnect over the two different versions of downtown and why one area of it has experienced such levels of gentrification while the other is still unsavory. There could have been more done in this regard, like having Steve or Stan experience the opposite downtown.
The major point that this episode is interested in is the rift between Steve and Hayley and how it corresponds to the greater schism over the paths that they’ve taken in life. The message that Steve is willing to put his sister’s safety over his own future is a strong one, but this idea often gets lost in the free-falling chaos of “Downtown.” As much as this episode is about Steve and Hayley, it would benefit from a deeper dissection of why these two love and need each other. Hayley’s street smarts repeatedly save Steve’s life in this episode, but there’s hardly a sense of appreciation between the siblings until the final moments. The conclusion works, but it’s a very convoluted buildup to that point.
“Downtown” plays around with some creative ideas in a unique way, but it’s an episode that doesn’t work as well as it wants. The episode’s non-sequiturs become overpowering and often work against the story, rather than help it. It’s always exciting when American Dad pushes itself to takes risks and do something against the grain, but the difficulty with “Downtown” is that the premise itself isn’t that irregular, but it’s instead the types of jokes and detours that dominate the installment.
The small silver lining here is that before these episodes were held over from the previous season to help kick off this one, “Downtown” would have acted as the former season’s finale. “Downtown” is acceptable as a misguided and mildly forgettable installment in the middle of a season, but it’d be a disappointing episode to end the season on. Complaints aside, it’s easier to tolerate this entry knowing that another one is coming next week.
And yes, Dude, Where’s My Cars? is still a bona-fide hit. Don’t deprive yourself of the joy.
