Review: American Dad “Tapped Out”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below):

An innocent rift between Steve and Francine as the two experience growing pains turns into a gigantic exercise in trust between the mother and son. Steve is finally ready to get some space from his overprotective mother, but he learns that this may be more difficult than he anticipated since Francine has secretly been dosing Steve with her breast milk throughout her entire life. Steve tries to adjust to life after he gains this knowledge and not have it effect his big role in the school play, but his relationship with Francine continues to develop in unhealthy ways.

Meanwhile, two highly unusual changes for Steve and Jeff turn them into unexpected inspirational icons.

Our Take:

Out of all of the relationships within the Smith family, the one between Steve and Francine is certainly the most co-dependent. There have been a number of episodes throughout American Dad that focus on the complicated and sometimes unhealthy relationship between mother and son, but it’s also just something that’s baked into Steve’s character. He’s the type to strive for his mother’s approval, rather than rebel against his parents. Francine is also such an unconventional parent that this material usually resonates on some twisted level. However, “Tapped Out” is by far the most extreme example of Steve and Francine’s bond. Not only that, but the episode attempts to provide an explanation for why Steve is so loyal to his mother. As far as backstories go, this is one of the more messed up examples that the show has delivered, but it’s also something that feels so perfectly emblematic of American Dad’s ambitious nature.

Francine and Steve’s dynamic is one of the most evergreen relationships in American Dad, so it’s so interesting that “Tapped Out” is an episode that’s all about Steve growing up and moving on from this bond that the show has leaned on so much in the past. This makes this episode feel more important as it attempts to chart new territory for the characters. “Tapped Out” is written by Nicole Shabtai, whose two previous American Dad episodes are also both Francine-centric installments. Francine is clearly a character that Shabtai understands well and “Tapped Out” may be her best exploration of her yet.

Steve’s initial burst of independence manifests itself through a new outfit that makes him look less unassuming and more like he’s a member of Lil’ Entourage. There’s a lot of fun to be had with all of this, like the over the top “Down With the Sickness” musical cue that accompanies Steve’s wardrobe change. Steve already begins to witness results with his new clothes and he’s cast as the lead in Principal Lewis’ radical update to Oedipus Rex.  

Everything with the play is very entertaining, whether it’s Lewis’ complaints that he wanted to originally title it “Motherfucker!” or his musical number, “Oedipus’ Mom,” that’s set to the tune of “Stacey’s Mom.” The best part of all of this is how explicit it gets with how Lewis’ play reflects the subject matter of the episode. “Tapped Out” makes the Oedipal connections as literal as possible and it’s a smart move that only compliments what the episode wants to accomplish.

“Tapped Out” cleverly defies expectations when Klaus immediately reveals to Steve that Francine has been secretly feeding him breast milk throughout his entire life. It doesn’t belabor the point and it helps this episode move along and cover a lot more ground. Klaus’ whole security guard routine is also a lot of fun and it works better that he comes upon Francine rather than Steve learning for himself. It gives them a different dynamic for this episode.

This bombshell of information creates a real rift between Steve and Francine. Steve’s paranoia over his mother and Francine’s overcompensating nature are both enjoyable elements through the episode. It’s a very simple joke, but Steve’s jab that Francine might have laid the eggs that she’s prepared for him made me laugh out loud. It’s a good example of how to sell humor through character development and that the jokes in this show don’t always need to be so crazy. This episode finds a comfortable balance between the extremes of its humor.

This fresh dynamic between Steve and Francine resembles much more of a dealer and their junkie than a mother and son. Steve begins to believe that he’s useless without Francine’s milk and he becomes addicted to the stuff. At first this lack of confidence comes from Steve’s performance in the play, but then it starts to effect him on a much more fundamental level. Francine was worried that her little boy may outgrow her, but now he’s stuck in a level of attachment that’s dangerous for the both of them.

The rest of the Smith family also get into markedly weird behavior during this learning period for Francine and Steve. Stan experiences some embarrassment when his lack of neck is pointed and so he resorts to neck elongation to prove the world wrong. An equally random series of events also leads to Jeff’s face getting replaced with an ape’s. These stories both fixate on simple aspects and take them to ridiculous places. Shabtai is also the writer who did the episode where Stan and Steve switch eyebrows, so her fascination with the family’s strange anatomy and character designs feel appropriate here. It’s a nice runner that the episode periodically returns to and eventually ties together with Roger’s quest to find an inspiring subject for his documentary.

“Tapped Out” goes into some very unsettling territory that honestly may be too much for some viewers. I’d say it’s definitely one of the riskier stories that the show has done. That being said, this episode is specifically about the upsetting dynamic between Steve and Francine. The final act heads goes full-on Grey Gardens as Francine and Steve are outed and are turned into pariahs in the community. They’re condemned over their reliance to long-term breastfeeding and the two spend nearly half a year lost in this broken fantasy.

The episode pushes this material very far in order to bring Francine and Steve back to reality, but it remains a jarring experience. The fact that this is the season’s de-facto Mother’s Day installment also makes all of this even more irksome, but in the best way possible. “Tapped Out” cleverly juxtaposes Stan and Jeff’s subplots with Steve and Francine’s and gets a lot of comedy from how an ape-faced man and a person with an elongated neck are the more normal ones here.

It’d be fair to say that the conclusion to “Tapped Out” is rushed, but it oddly works with the frenetic momentum that the episode establishes. Francine is ready to move on from breastfeeding, but Steve remains addicted in a very unhealthy way. Francine’s last-ditch effort to fix her son is to taint her breast milk with bee toxins, by eating a bunch of bees. It’s a radical approach that results in Steve entering a coma for over a year and his body naturally weaning itself off the breast milk during this period of hibernation. It’s somewhat messy that Steve doesn’t exactly learn a lesson here and that Francine’s solution is to poison him, which is what she did to get into this problem in the first place. In an episode that’s full of nonsense, this resolution is definitely the weakest part, but it still works in its own way. And it’s at least better than any kind of ending where Francine is still feeding Steve her breast milk.

“Tapped Out” is without a doubt going to be one of the more controversial episodes of American Dad, but behind the more outrageous plot there’s a delicate story here about the dangers of co-dependence. In spite of the very broad places that this episode visits, everything still feels very natural and both the characters and stories have a good way of coming together and complimenting each other. “Tapped Out” is a funny episode and it’s encouraging that American Dad is still able to stir the pot and take its characters to some especially risky places.