Review: American Dad “Game Night”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Smith family looks to take their regular game night festivities to the next level when they accept Bullock’s offer to engage in his extreme teamwork building exercise. The Smiths head into a mysterious and dangerous labyrinth that will require all of them to work together in order to find their way out. The Smiths take in the many unbelievable sights and challenges of this labyrinth, but their biggest discovery is just how much dead weight Stan is. As the Smith family experiences a rift when they need to work together the most, Stan succumbs deeper to the depths of Bullock’s labyrinth and may be past the point of rescue.

Roger also gets into the geese game, so you know that this is a big episode of American Dad.

Our Take:

It’s fair to say that Stan Smith has a tenuous grasp on reality. He’s an extremely fortunate individual who it sometimes seems like the universe will bend over backwards to make content. Stan is easily the most stubborn individual in American Dad and even when he brushes up against some kind of productive life lesson he’ll still find a way to miss the point and remain on his pedestal. His ignorance and resilience towards change is almost impressive in its absoluteness.

There have been a handful of episodes already this season that unpack Stan’s out of touch nature with the world. All of these installments have looked at attempts to push Stan out of his comfort zone in various ways, but the events of “Game Night” are by far the most extreme example of this. The episode take a very unexpected direction that puts both Stan and the rest of his family in a situation that didn’t even seem possible in previous episodes. “Game Night” is one of the biggest tests that Stan Smith has ever faced and it depicts a time in his life that is a brutal gauntlet. The larger lesson that Stan has to learn in regards to being a humble, good loser who’s able to share the spotlight is hardly revelatory, but “Game Night” is without a doubt one of the best and craziest episodes of the season.

“Game Night” ends in considerably crazy territory for American Dad, but it begins in an incredibly innocent place where the family is wrapped up in a playful game night. As is to be expected, Stan’s stubborn nature dominates the game and seems to be a constant problem. Stan’s behavior in the present is obtuse and hilarious, but there are also flashbacks that highlight his deplorable past behavior. These moments make fantastic use of Britney Spears’ “Toxic” as a running gag and are a very entertaining way to showcase Stan’s venomous personality when in competition.

Stan’s need to conquer greater heights at family game night are what bring the Smiths in contact with Avery Bullock’s passion project, a deadly labyrinth that defies logic. This leap may be a lot for some, but American Dad immediately goes all in on the topic and turns this into a fun riff on the movie Labyrinth, with him in the David Bowie role. Bullock’s pageantry around the labyrinth result in a number of musical sequences and different species of monsters that come forward. There’s a real Island of Dr. Moreau vibe to not only these creatures, but Bullock’s implication that he’s regularly been mating and cross-breeding with the beasts. This labyrinth operates in sheer excess, which is the right angle to make all of this madness properly work. It never doubts itself or what it’s doing.

Once “Game Night” really starts moving it turns into such an entertaining deconstruction of the counter-intuitive nature of puzzle logic. All of the obstacles that are encountered are a lot of fun, especially with the weird religious and racial slants that gradually creep into the content and project the monsters’ various prejudices. The mosaic puzzle that reveals multiple crucified Jesuses is maybe the best of these gags for how it comes so out of nowhere, but they’re all well handled. They honestly feel like passages from out of a Sierra point-and-click adventure game like King’s Quest. There’s obviously a lot of love for this subject matter that extends far beyond the ridiculous visuals (although the repeated use of corpses to solve puzzles is continually satisfying). There’s a deep understanding of the absurdity of puzzles and labyrinths here.

The Smith family holds their own with these puzzles, but Stan’s repeated boneheaded nature gets in the way at every turn. Jeff happens to be the voice of reason here who can’t tolerate Stan’s actions any longer, which is a surprisingly mature moment for the perpetual stoner. This doesn’t just cause a schism in the group, but it leads to Stan’s abandonment and quick victory for everyone else.

The family realizes on some level that they’re more efficient without Stan, but after he remains trapped in the labyrinth for over a month, they decide that he could use their help. Stan’s acclimation to the labyrinth and how feral he’s become is a nice development here. His tender relationship with Herbert is a lot of fun and all of these unconventional love affairs that happen between man and monster are strangely hilarious. The human heart is the biggest maze of all.

Outside of the elaborate labyrinth hijinks that consume the lives of the Smith family, Roger finds himself with a pleasantly isolated storyline involving geese and foie gras preparation. Roger’s personas have dealt with obscure foods a bunch in the past, but this is a particularly strange execution of the idea. The storyline never gains the same momentum as the labyrinth material, but it’s effectively disturbing to watch Roger waddle around with a grossly engorged liver.

In the end, Roger appears to have achieved his goal, but he’s also caused a great deal of fatalities. I’m not even sure I understand the conclusion (alien liver is poisonous?), but it still works in its own twisted logic kind of way. This is helped by the abrupt smash cut to sped up credits after the story’s nonsense collapses in on itself. Make no mistake, it’s a rushed, messy ending, but it’s still a strangely satisfying finish (made better by it not actually being the end of the episode). There’s so much wordplay here between Frog Ross’ Foie Grastaurant and “Foiesta Grasvista, baby,” that I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire storyline was backwards engineered around that “joke.” That being said, all of this is so stupid and brilliant, especially for it to be the end of the storyline, that it doesn’t even bother me. Well done, you mad men.

“Game Night” covers a lot of territory to eventually reach its ending, but it’s a satisfying conclusion that brings everything full circle, even if it is a tad convenient. Stan is able to prove his worth to his family and save them when it truly matters, even if he doesn’t directly realize that he’s done anything useful. Just like how Stan’s arrogance is so heavily steeped in obliviousness, so is his usefulness.

“Game Night” is an insane episode of American Dad that packs in an incredible amount of content, while still remaining fairly focused on its outrageous storylines. Every plot development leads to fantastic jokes, but even the smaller moments are full of strong details, like the shout-out to Klaus’ alcove. This episode really is exceptional, but it could have been slightly better if Rogu was also involved. His involvement in either the labyrinth storyline or Roger’s foie gras efforts could have led to some great moments, but this is a small complaint over an episode that’s full of delightful scenes.

“Game Night” is an episode of American Dad that seriously deserves credit for taking such a weird premise and turning it into a productive moment of character development for someone. Despite the insanity of expansive underground labyrinths and the existence of different species of monsters, all of this oddly works with how over the top American Dad has gradually become and the previously ridiculous experiments that the CIA has been involved in. It helps that a main character is an alien here, so this story, as wild as it is, does have some kind of precedence in a sense.

That being said, the questions raised over this colony of monsters that the CIA either produced or found underground is a fascinating direction that the episode doesn’t have the time or interest to explore, but it’s a fun angle to ruminate on. Leave it to American Dad to have the audience ponder the larger ramifications of monster rights in an episode about humility and family bonding.