Overview:
Everybody’s favorite weird and dilapidated Langley mall, the Lanceton Fashion Plaza, is on its last legs and it’s up to Roger and a reluctant Steve to save this crater of commercialism. Determined to do the mall’s nebulous co-founder, Mr. Javitz, justice, Roger shoulders an impossible burden that fills him with an enormous sense of pride. The only problem is that his hero is a “no show” and even the mall’s most dedicated patrons are on the outs. With nothing else to lose, Steve and Roger hatch a scheme that’s just ridiculous enough to keep the ol’ LFP afloat.
Oh, and warlocks!
Our Take:
Special holiday installments are an American Dad staple. Christmas episodes still receive the most reverence, but American Dad has slowly started to give the same amount of respect to Halloween. Christmas is a time of year that emphasizes family and impossible miracles, but Halloween episodes typically get more leeway when it comes to supernatural madness and suddenly inserting a zombie into the mix, like past spooky specials. “You Are Here” isn’t traditionally a Halloween episode, but it does verge into paranormal territory in a way that’s very much in the spirit of the season. Unfortunately, “You Are Here” is a mixed bag that doesn’t show its true colors quickly enough and by the time that it does it’s too late to completely turn things around.
One of the biggest issues with “You Are Here” is that Roger’s Mr. Javitz-obsessed persona just isn’t very exciting. He’s a needy individual who lacks Roger’s regular charisma and mostly recycles the same joke. It also doesn’t help that so much of the start of his appearance is constructed around the character explaining things to either the audience or Steve, which isn’t exactly captivating comedy. Steve is one of the best choices for characters who should intersect with Roger during this mall-based mania due to his natural passivity. However, even this dimension of “You Are Here” quickly wears thin. A lot of this dynamic is initially built upon the mall’s absurdity and Steve’s subsequent duties as he gets roped into working there, like watering fake plants or corralling discarded mannequins from any of the mall’s suit-based stores.
The larger hurdles in “You Are Here” are even steeped in easy stereotypes that reek of older genre films, but lack any of the other stylistic touches. The presence of rote “evil bankers” isn’t exciting enough to help the episode evolve and the tongue-in-cheek nature of its reveal doesn’t make up for these concessions. The same is true for the Breakin’ 2-level development that consumes the episode where Steve and Roger need to generate a million dollars in a month’s time, lest they lose this husk of real estate and commerce. The rest of the Smiths are up to some food truck nonsense which remains brief, but the heightened nature of their excitement works well, especially in contrast to the banality of Lanceton Fashion Plaza. One of the smarter ideas in “You Are Here” is to have these two disparate stories dovetail together at the mall’s food festival.
A mall that needs to collect souls, even in the most simplistic form that’s it presented as in American Dad, isn’t a terrible idea. There’s also something captivating about Javitz’s desire to replace Roger with Steve. It adds a little more to all of this, but it still never hits its mark. There could be a stronger execution behind these ideas, like iif Steve did become briefly tempted by Javitz’s offer, or even if he were to get tricked into this position. Roger’s insecurities over this fuel the final act, but it still comes across as lacking and only scratching the surface of this curious relationship. An operatic song between Roger and the warlock works fine as a cathartic conclusion, but it’s also indicative of the many shortcuts taken in “You Are Here” and some of the greater depth that it robs itself of.
Many of the broader story elements in “You Are Here” don’t work as well as they could and Roger’s persona feels like a serious misfire. The whole mockumentary angle that kicks off the episode also feels like something that should have been smoothed out by the final draft even if the episode is self-aware enough to call it out. Those caveats aside, this episode still has some excellent dialogue and there are plenty of laughs here even if they don’t all stem directly from the immediate story at hand. The playful “ghost watch” segment that concludes “You Are Here” is one of the funniest jokes from the episode. Apparently Tuttle is a poltergeist! Update your notes accordingly, Dadders.
“You Are Here” is an American Dad episode that’s quite scattered and while all of it doesn’t work it’s at least able to end on its strongest, most unusual material. It’s always appreciated when Roger’s emotional stability becomes the foundation of an episode, let alone when he can actually leave the episode in a healthier place. However, “You Are Here” takes too long to find its groove and its loose nature doesn’t do this average idea any favors. There’s a version of this episode that’s the perfect Halloween treat, but instead “You Are Here” feels like a collection of different candies that have melted together into an awkward–and occasionally pleasant–anomaly.