Review: American Dad “OreTron Trail”

If you get dysentery in the game, you get dysentery in real life!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Roger and Steve begin another one of their apparently long-running sleepovers, and all goes well until Steve starts playing OreGON Trail. Roger becomes rather uncomfortable about this, and this only gets worse as he witnesses the text boxed deaths of the family, forcing him to tearfully walk off. His mood doesn’t improve, even during an expensive family photo shoot, where he confesses he’s worried about outliving the Smiths due to his alien nature. Despite the family’s attempts to cheer him up, a car accident seemingly claims his life.

One year later, the family has not moved on in the best way. Stan has grown a mustache, Hayley’s become a hella jacked street fighter, Francine’s changed her hair and attire to a much more depressing look and light southern accent, and Klaus as turned the attic into a bodega and is overwhelmed with the paranoia of shoplifters. Though shockingly, it seems Roger is NOT dead, but living on as Rene Gade, a motorcycle rider who likes to vaguely allude to a life of previous attachment and help people.

He’s not great at that last part, but what he does seem to be good at is going on the exact route of the OreGON trail, which Steve manages to deduce and use to track him down. This gives him a chance to explain his first arrival on Earth, where he met his first family, the Meekers in OreGON Trail times. He fit in fine at first, but due to the awful conditions of the era, they all died due to several awful causes. Seeing the video game based on the route his first family died on made him realize he’ll be outliving his current family too, forcing him to emotionally and physically retreat.

Steve manages to convince him to return by telling him about how technology keeps people alive longer now. Roger takes this as a reason to rip the family’s minds out of their heads into Steve’s old computer in an attempt to preserve them for all time. Seeing no other way, Steve manages to turn on the OreGON Trail game, making the digitized Smiths suffer death after death in order to get help. Eventually, he does, but not for the reason they think. Seems seeing them die so much has desensitized him to the idea of them dying at all, and now he has no qualms about outliving them. Hooraaaaaay…?

OUR TAKE

Throw this on the pile of “Roger is a constant glass case of emotions” episodes. I will say that it’s a bit more emotionally deeper than they usually are, but it’s not exactly a standout. Like last week, it does make me think of a previous episode about Roger’s former families, although that seemed more on emotional abuse (more from Roger than the other family). I guess it’s at least more of an original treatment of an old plot than last time, and we’ll take all the good points we can get.

Score
7/10