Review: American Dad “Gold Top Nuts”

Overview:

The Smiths have trouble moving past a combative vacation when a disastrous turn of events leaves the family stranded, scared, and scrambled. The mysterious conditions of their new surroundings force the family to get to the very essence of who they are and how they feel about each other. It’s a transformative experience that’s American Dad at its most uncanny.

Our Take:

“Gold Top Nuts” might be the weirdest episode of American Dad. It’s easily the series’ strangest installment since “Rabbit Ears,” which is high praise, but this also helps provide some frame of reference for the surreal story that’s on display here. What follows is a Brechtian analysis of the self that may fall flat for many viewers, but it’s an episode that’s unlike any other and a testament to what stands American Dad apart from its animated peers.

The first three minutes of “Gold Top Nuts” where the Smiths are lost in overlapping arguments is so strong that there’s a longing desire for the episode to stay contained to its rickety airplane and function as a bottle episode that works as a pressure release for all of this built up animosity. The direction that “Gold Top Nuts” takes is infinitely stranger, but it’s an approach that isn’t dissimilar to a bottle episode in design and execution. The piece of television that most closely resembles American Dad’s “Gold Top Nuts” is either Buffy, the Vampire Slayer’s “Tabula Rasa” or Angel’s “Spin the Bottle,” which are built upon supernatural circumstances, but still turn into philosophical examinations of not just character, but identity. 

The Smiths are forced to confront each other with no buffers or distractions and evidently the best way to forgive each other is to fundamentally forget who they all are. “Gold Top Nuts” frequently turns to a creepy score and kaleidoscopic visuals that aren’t just effective, but they keep the audience on edge and play with their expectations of where all of this could possibly be going. This is a rare feeling for American Dad, but one that makes this such a special, atypical installment of the series. It’s a disarming experience from the first act onward that only goes on to become even more destabilizing with each turn. It makes for one of the all-time great episodes of American Dad. 

This simplified, stranded storyline allows American Dad to indulge in any weird impulses that come to mind, but it’s also an episode with immaculate dialogue. Not a single word goes wasted in Brett Cawley and Robert Maitia’s script and each character’s central feud functions as the perfect distillation of who they are. There are no weak links in “Gold Top Nuts” and it’s a testament to why sometimes it’s a good thing to have 300+ episodes precisely because it pushes a series to do bonkers experiments like this because why not? Dan Harmon was recently vocal about how he believes that Rick and Morty can run ad infinitum, or for at least 1000 episodes. This seems plausible because of the show’s reality-hopping and genre-eschewing tools, but in some respects it feels like American Dad is even more likely to achieve this goal and is currently living it. Ironically enough, “Gold Top Nuts” is tonally similar to “Rabbit Ears,” but it also feels like the closest thing that American Dad has done to Rick and Morty’s “Interdimensional Cable.” 

“Gold Top Nuts” turns into a deeply powerful story about the symbols that people ascribe meaning in are arbitrary and all a part of larger social constructs. These ideas make sense, but they’re no more “correct” or “real” than any other culture. This episode details how language, identity, and culture are born, which is no easy feat, let alone in less than 15 minutes in an animated comedy. It’s honestly a piece of television that an anthropology class could watch and then have an earnest discussion over. The best example of this stems from the Smiths’ analysis of their unfinished “HELP” message and if the lingering “HE–” is meant to represent “HEAVEN” or “HELL” as they come to terms with their fate.

It’s very possible that audiences will hate “Gold Top Nuts” and it will have the same reputation as other highly stylized swings from the show’s past like “Daesong Heavy Industries” or “Blood Crieth Unto Heaven.” However, “Gold Top Nuts” has the most to say and it’s arguably the most “important” episode of American Dad that there’s been in seasons, if such a thing exists. It’s an episode that’s so captivating that I didn’t even realize that Roger was absent through the entire thing until he showed up during the final seconds.

“Gold Top Nuts” is a creative, contemplative episode of American Dad, but also television in general. It’s one of the most memorable pieces of storytelling that I’ve seen on TV in 2022 and it manages to stick the landing with a final note that’s as sweet as it is absurd. American Dad has been putting out the good nuts for its fans for eighteen seasons and there’s no need to worry that it’s suddenly going to shift to a plain jane mentality.