Review: American Dad “My Purity Ball and Chain”

Everything old is new again.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Steve’s back at it with the raging hormones again, and Stan’s not rushing to give him “the talk”…even though he already gave him a rather extensive “the talk” back in Season 1, but I digress. An abstinence-only presentation stops by Steve’s school, getting him mercilessly bullied, but one of the girls, Shannon, takes a liking to him. They hit it off, partly due to their liking of Deathstroke the Terminator (whose history they BUTCHER. They refer to him killing his first son, but that only happened in the New 52 continuity. IS NOTHING SACRED?!), and she invites him to join their group. Stan is happy to join a group keeping him from telling Steve about sex, or confront his own traumatizing upbringing, especially since the other fathers all carry cool swords. However, it soon becomes apparent the fathers are guarding their own daughters against leading healthy lives, essentially dating them until they marry. This doesn’t stop Steve and Shannon from their growing attraction, and so Steve is brainwashed Clockwork Orange-style to associate sex and women with Guns N’ Roses lead vocalist Axl Rose. Realizing what he’s done (and likely that we’re reaching the 22-minute mark), Stan helps him regain his horniness and properly begin dating Shannon. She’ll probably never be seen again, but whatever.

Also, Roger, Haley, Jeff, and Klaus try recreating a water slide they loved, but end up accidentally killing some guy and getting Dirk Turlington involved (the FOURTH Turlington on the show and the FIRST not voiced by Forest Whitaker!). After peeling off the back half of his skin, Roger manages to convince the detective they’re innocent.

OUR TAKE

So, the premise of this episode stuck out to me as pretty familiar, and I finally found out why. This is the same basic premise as a Season 1 episode, “A Smith in the Hand”. I know 2005 was kind of a while ago, and the pushing of abstinence in sex ed and “Purity Brides” are still real issues in present day, but there had to be a better way of covering that than not only ripping themselves off but ripping off The CLEVELAND SHOW of all things! Yep, “Cleveland Jr. Cherry Bomb” from that show’s first season. At that point, it’s not so much the ripping off, but that they had to take from THAT.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I don’t go out a lot. Anyway, this episode was meh.

Score
5/10