Review: American Dad! “Shark?!”

No-nado.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Stan heads to the beach with the family when we find out that Steve is literally afraid of anything that has to do with the beach which makes him a real bummer to be around. Steve’s biggest fear, sharks, pretty much leaves the boy band frontman from refusing to partake in any extracurricular activities so much so that Stan gets Roger to dress up as a shark in an attempt to convince Steve that the water is fine. Welp, Steve loses an arm after Roger bites it off, but it sort of worked! Steve becomes way more brazen in his exploits which soon include cliff diving, joining fight clubs, and whatever else he thinks of. When Stan tells Steve that this all came as a result of a ruse and that he’s had Steve’s arm this whole time, Steve takes it upon himself to set out to see to confront some real sharks which go exactly how it sounds.

Hayley’s friend, Danuta, takes a liking to Klaus and convinces Hayley to set the two up. It takes a while, but a date eventually goes down at the local county fair. Unfortunately for Klaus, Danuta ends up going with another dude after the fish spends most of his time by himself at one of the games trying to win a stuffed prize.

Our Take

The Klaus bit is essentially a non-factor in this week’s episode. It’s rather standard animated dating fare that doesn’t work out and if you’ve seen one of these you’ve seen a bunch. The far more interesting plot was the “A” plot with Steve overcoming his fears. A cliched premise, for sure, but I actually had a good deal of fun with it. Steve’s devolvement into that of a Fight Club warrior was rather hilarious, almost making me wish the producers did a longer take on the David Fincher-directed classic. In any event, while Steve/Stan bits with a cameo from Roger are nothing new to write home about, I found myself chuckling at the gratuitous visceral nature of its execution and as such definitely recommend.