Review: American Dad “The Old Country”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Eager to learn more about his roots, Steve heads forth on a genealogical journey that takes both him and Stan to some very unexpected places. Stan struggles to deal with what he learns about his ancestry and heads down a complicated journey where he gains acceptance, but loses some things that may be even more important than a sense of identity. Meanwhile, as Steve and Stan try to learn who they are, Hayley and Francine pretend to be someone that they’re not as they go on a secret shopper mission to eliminate the weak links at Sub Hub.

Roger also gets a new balcony, and as awesome as it is, somehow it doesn’t dwarf the rest of the episode.

Our Take:

Steve is a character who often feels a little lost, especially when it comes to major life milestones. He’s at the precipice of maturity and plenty of episodes of American Dad have examined Steve’s efforts to gain a little more responsibility and self-confidence in various arenas. However, one area that really hadn’t been explored with his character is his heritage and where the Smiths come from. Steve laments that “American” has always been enough of an identity for Stan, but this level of self-awareness and a desire to actually examine this facet of the family leads to some interesting and creative material for American Dad.

 

 

“The Old Country” is written by Tim Saccardo, who also wrote some of the best episodes of Community. He’s become a powerful force on American Dad and always turns out a stellar script. Every scene here contains major laughs and there’s a brilliant sense of escalation to many of these jokes as seemingly random things like Roger’s balcony or Francine’s witch obsession continue to reoccur. There’s some excellent use of background characters to punctuate the jokes and the cast is divided in a way that brings out the best in all of the characters. In addition to the great visual gags, intelligent dialogue, and mini genre pastiches (including a musical number) there’s also a heavy degree of self-awareness where the episode is able to poke fun at the show as a whole in a way that’s fun rather than smug.

“The Old Country” is a consistently surprising episode of American Dad that goes to some ambitious places, but makes every risk a triumph. The stories are entertaining and it’s one of the densest joke-packed episodes of the season. The Smiths might not actually be Canadian, but it looks like Stan’s narrow perspective has become slightly broader after this experience. Against all odds, he actually learns something here. American Dad is approaching the end of its season, but it will be an amazing finish if the rest of the episodes can remain at this level of quality.

Oh, and Toshi’s possessed by the spirit of a dead Japanese schoolgirl. Update your notes accordingly.