Review: American Dad “Lost Boys”

Not the one with the vampires, we did that already.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Steve and pals celebrate their tenth “Friendiversary”, but Roger desperately needs a squash partner, so he plans to manipulate Steve to ditch them. This goes poorly until he disguises himself in an old Chuck E. Cheese costume which gets Steve to sell them out in his panic. Now with Roger as his only friend, Steve does everything to please him, even though he outright sucks at squash. When he tanks the match, Roger emotionally abandons him, which causes Steve to go into a tailspin trying to get back his approval, leading Roger to try getting Steve back together with his friends. He does this by sneaking a snake into a pool where the guys are so Steve can save them. They apparently already know about this plan but forgive him anyway! But then the snake bites Barry on the inner thigh so they all suck the poison out (even though this doesn’t actually help a snake bite).

Also, Jeff turns out to be good at guessing the outcomes of real estate shows. Until he isn’t.

OUR TAKE

First of all it’s called a FRIENDVERSARY. Stop throwing in erroneous vowels where they aren’t needed! But anyway, I feel like it’s been forever since we had an episode that was focused on Steve’s friends as a whole as opposed to just Steve and Snot. I know we just had one with Steve and Barry, which is also pretty rare, but to have the whole group is another thing. Although I guess they aren’t really the focus anyway, meaning this is yet another Steve and Roger episode, which…I mean, look, I’m obviously not going to say that pairing two characters up shouldn’t be done, but maybe take a considerable break from it for awhile.

Look, I get it, Steve is naïve but can act as the straight man to Roger’s weirdness and scheming, and so that generates a lot of funny scenarios. It probably wouldn’t be that far out of left field to say they’re basically the Stewie and Brian of this show, but there’s a reason they don’t just have almost every other episode of Family Guy be a Stewie and Brian episode!

Wait, they do? Well, screw me then.

But I do think this is probably the most implied darkest we’ve ever seen their relationship. Roger basically slashes the tires on a decade old friendship and then grooms Steve to play a game he had to know Steve wouldn’t be good at. Then he just dumps him when that doesn’t work out, so what the heck else is Steve supposed to do but try to please his seemingly only friend? I’m pretty sure I’ve never been in Steve’s position, but I can relate on feeling desperate to please people when you think they might be the only one who cares and…it’s not a fun feeling, let me tell you. So, I really felt for him in that moment of weakness. That said, the trip to Tampa to meet Klaus’ friends was an odd way for Roger to learn that lesson, but it also oddly felt really genuine.

I don’t think we’ve had a Steve/Toshi episode since that one Halloween episode where he crushed on Akiko, (though I could be wrong) so I guess that means we’re due for one. Then again, Toshi being the foreign friend is also becoming harder to write for these days, so that could explain why. And it’s hard to believe, but we’re already about a third of the way through this season.