Review: American Dad “Enter Stanman”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Francine has a sex dream about her stoner son-in-law, Jeff. It’s innocent enough and involves various shapes of PB&Js, but it angers Stan to no end. At first, he tries to get his wife to stay awake indefinitely. He tries woodcarving in the bedroom, sets up bright lights in the lawn, and hooks up Monster Energy Drink to all the taps. After a few days, Francine erupts and demands they discuss Stan’s insecurity.

They sit with the late Dr. Penguin’s identical twin (by marriage), Dr. Buttblaster—a Roger character obsessed with selling hot sauce—and the couple agrees to let the animosity drop. But Roger, always scheming, warps into Stan’s dream to tell him about his alien power that could bring Stan into Francine’s dreams. Stan takes the bait without question.

Francine’s dreamscape appears strange by conscious standards but is otherwise what one might expect from an ethereal plane. British frog creatures and big octopus Steve aside, Stan is vehemently taken aback upon learning Francine views him as a helpless baby. After a failed attempt to act manlier, Stan travels deeper into Francine’s subconscious and finds a barrage of disturbing Stan creatures. In her recesses, Francine has created an ogre-like angry Stan, a buffoonish Stan, and a dorky Stan among others. But the most disturbing is the embodiment of Stan’s insecurity, a beast known as Stan-feratu.

Taking the nuclear option, Stan slays all his doubles with the exception of Stan-feratu who has become so powerful he is able to enter the waking world. With Francine missing and Roger too obsessed with selling his anal-blasting hot sauce, the two Stans must work together to find their bride. She’s hiding in other people’s dreams, leaving a trail that leads her pursuers to the Deep South. Every time they get close, they lose her since she’s only allowed to stay in somebody’s dream for 48 hours.

At first, Stan and Stan-feratu get along famously, but before long Stan realizes just how irritating it can be to have a super-insecure person constantly breathing down your neck. After ditching the emaciated weirdo, Stan finds Francine in Steve’s dream and apologizes for being such an ogre—or rather a pasty, Dracula rip-off. Francine, touched by her husband’s vulnerability agrees to return to her family in the waking world.

Before they can leave, they’re intercepted by Stan-feratu who is much too powerful to fight in the dreaming world. So Stan weakens him the best way he knows how, by having hot, steamy sex with his stoner son-in-law, Jeff. Oh yeah, full circle!

 

Our Take

It’s always a delight to see a fantasy-based episode of American Dad. And Roger’s ability to dream-storm was a solid enough premise and urged me to follow the twisting plot to see what happens next. It was by no means a perfect episode, but the plot structure and Stan’s basic (and occasionally overused) character arc were well-crafted and tight.

The dream versions of Stan were wonderfully designed, and the Garbage Pail Kids reference was spot on. It was a truthful look into Stan’s psyche without getting too caught up in the minutia. And while we usually don’t get musical numbers, this week we were treated to two. The first had Roger doing a random Lady and the Tramp spoof, which brought the humor. And the second involved a bunch of Stan’s recreating a Salt n’ Pepa classic. Much respect to whoever writes the songs, as well as to whoever decided to include two songs in this episode.

While I had no qualms with dream storming being one of Roger’s mysterious alien abilities that pop up from time to time, I was surprised the inception-esque power didn’t come directly from the CIA. It’s been quite some time since we’ve seen a crazy government-created innovation. The CIA was once a well they drew from all the time, but in recent years there have been far fewer references to Stan’s workplace. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the current state of the intelligence community, or maybe alien powers are just more fun. Even though we didn’t get any CIA scenes, there was a far overdue Avery Bullock cameo, so we can at least be thankful for that.

Roger’s hot sauce side-quest was ridiculous, and since he was a major part of the main plot it was super unnecessary. What’s with the obsession over sauces on American Dad as of late? At least the hot sauce theme was consistent throughout the episode and the B-plot wasn’t awkwardly disconnected like in many recent episodes.

Despite that disjointed B-plot, Roger again stole the show—although Stan was in rare form, too—even though he played a somewhat passive role in Stan’s journey. The running joke that he only needed to touch Francine and Stan to hop in her dreams but chose to touch their eyeballs was top-notch comedy in my opinion. With an alien-like Roger, it’s the things he slyly omits that make him an outstanding character.

If every episode were as energetic and on point as this one, American Dad would run for another fifteen years. Alas, this once great show has been hit or miss programming for quite some time.