Review: American Dad “Fleabiscuit”

Something something BARK-retariat.

OVERVIEW (Spoilers Below)

Jeff gets into dog racing. He does really well. Hayley starts not liking it because she’s getting disrespected. She gets into dog racing with Roger as the dog to beat Jeff. Roger takes it too far. Hayley regrets her plan and helps Jeff win. Jeff wins but retires.

Stan and Francine gamble on the track. Steve gets naked in the house. Klaus heckles the racing dogs until they maim him.

OUR TAKE

You may notice I didn’t sound very enthusiastic about recapping this episode. Well, that’s because I have seen portions of it over a dozen times across animated sitcoms, and most notably, WITHIN THE LAST TWO SEASONS OF THIS SHOW. The more common part of “husband and/or wife starts being overshadowed by their wife and/or husband’s new hobby so they compete to make them stop but then decide it wasn’t worth it” is straight from “One-Woman Swole” and the “recruiting Roger only for him to take it too far” is from EIGHT SEPARATE EPISODES FROM THIS AND LAST SEASON. Seriously, do the writers not think people remember what happens in their own show? There’s keeping a character in-character and then there’s just going on autopilot! But then again, maybe this is the blissful ignorance I gave up when I took on the job of having to actually think about this series for an extended period.

But hey, this is partly a Jeff episode for once! And I kinda-sorta like those for being different sometimes, so let’s talk about that! Except he’s basically just set to “dumb, lazy, and childish guy” this week with just about nothing connecting him to what I thought made the character unique. Not a drug-induced vision or Hayley-loving moment in sight. Hayley’s not even really given reasons to compete with him beyond jealousy anyway! Some might say that this is the couple finally becoming comfortable as the other married pair in the house and so getting up to the same hi-jinks as Stan and Francine would. And to that I say: If your stories are so generic that they’re made for any character, then they are made for NO CHARACTER.

I just…I just…UUUUUUUUGH. I never thought I could run out of things to say about this show after only a season and a half of coverage! But there it is, I suppose. It’s times like these I actually hope that the 300th episode they’ll get at the end of Season 17 really will be the end. Perhaps that will give the show a chance to go out with some dignity while giving the writers time to remember what made this show stand out in the first place. But we’ve still got one more episode left before the finale… which might not even be the finale if the rumors about carrying right into Season 16 are true, but again, we’ll deal with that when we get there.