Review: American Dad “Eight Fires”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Francine makes family dinner almost every night. And in her opinion, she’s nailing it. The family, however, doesn’t agree—good thing Francine falls asleep so early. But this particular night, Franny is lulled awake by the posh tones of a CGI Benedict Cumberbatch. Finding nobody in their beds, she stumbles down to the crawlspace to witness her family enjoying “Cracker Time.” Every night the family eats the second round of food because her cooking lacks soul.

While Francine hits up the adult learning annex to improve her cooking pizzazz, Stan sees their mad scientist doctor because one of the crawlspace nails got lodged in his head. This odd scene which includes Billy—Steve’s abomination classmate and the doctor’s honorary son—really makes one wonder what kind of insurance Stan has through the CIA or if he even works there anymore. Anyway, because of the inoperable nail—that the mad scientist will remove with a hammer later in the episode as soon as the plot requires it—he becomes a piano prodigy… at a Nordstrom.

After flunking out of night school for refusing to cook outside the box, she becomes obsessed with free-spirited chef and wild Argentinian restauranteur, Francis Mallmann. She wishes to study under him, but Roger assures her that is an impossibility. Years ago, our shady little alien stole Mallmann’s identity thus creating a rift between them. But luckily, “Franchious Mallmec” is glad to mentor her—so long as she travels 5,000 miles to Patagonia, Chile.

After a week of intense lessons—many of which involved spatchcocking, a.k.a. butterflying—Francine still can’t seem to break free from her measuring cups and refuses to disobey the rules. Lucky for them, a pack of bears invades the island and our heroes must flee, but not until after those godless killing machines mercifully maul Roger. Alas, with great tragedy comes even greater opportunity. To avoid blood poisoning, Francine has to cut off his leg and to avoid starvation, she needs to cook it. And Roger’s leg does not have a recipe.

In the end, everybody wins. The leg is delicious and Francine overcomes her fear of failure. The mad scientist rips the nail from Stan’s head and our favorite patriarch returns to normal. And the greedy Nordstrom’s manager who exploited Stan for the entire episode is almost too easily ripped in half by the store’s escalator. Alright, so maybe not so much of a happy ending for that guy.

 

Our Take

I never expected Francis Mallmann to appear in an episode of American Dad. And he still hasn’t, not really. Because it was only an actor portraying Mallmann, just like Roger did. So now the real Mallmann has two axes to grind. Isn’t that friggin’ meta? I also enjoyed how the animators drew him as a cross between Mallmann and Tom Baker’s character on Doctor Who.

Francine and Roger can be the most insane characters on the show whenever they’re given the freedom to go wild. Some of my favorite all-time episodes are ones in which these two power characters team-up. And while this outing was a little more contained than usual—hell, Roger was actually trying to help Francine and he stayed in character the entire time—there were still a ton of memorable moments.

For example, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hear the word “spatchcock” again without giggling. I mean, it’s already kind of a funny word, to begin with. And it was nice to see Roger getting in touch with his inner Sideways—a 2004 Academy Award-winning film starring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church—by drinking a ton of wine. I can nary remember a time when Roger imbibed so gleefully. Before now he’s been stuck drinking plain old beers, hard liquor, Pine-Sol, or nothing. Poor Roger.

Stan’s plotline was okay. It gave Paul F. Tompkins a chance to go berserk as the money-hungry Nordstrom’s manager. And it was heartwarming how the family hung around and showed concern for him, instead of ignoring him like they usually do. Well, it was the whole family except for Roger and Francine who were in South America, and Jeff who probably had to spend some time in the crawlspace corner for acting like an unrepentant jerk.

This week we also caught sightings of Dick from the CIA, Hailey’s hot friend Danuta, and the Morning Mimosa ladies (at night). Of course, we enjoy the family, they’re the primary reason to tune in, but it also helps to have a reminder of the greater universe in which this show takes place. As I mentioned earlier, Stan hasn’t been to work in ages, so what better way to remind us of his profession than to have Dick attend a cooking class? Because it’s not like they’re going to have Stan show up at work anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong, when I mention great side characters I don’t mean Tuttle, Snot’s Mom, or that Mad Scientist and Billy. Those guys are just awful.