Review: American Dad “The Full Cognitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith”

Spoilers Below

Avery needs someone to step in and fill his shoes if something were to happen to him. As a result he picks Stan as his new protege and its great! From driving Avery’s Lambo and getting drunk on his boat, these guys are having a time. Eventually, Stan meets Agent Crisp of whom works in the CIA’s internal affairs. He tells Stan that Avery has dementia and that’s why he’s crazy.  The affairs office orders Stan to bring Avery to the ice factory to have his mind wiped, but once he gets there he decides to drive off instead of letting his friend get zapped. Turns out Avery has inside know-how about Agent Crisp and that why he is a target.  The guys find hiding, and its here that we find out that Crisp is in business with Big Oil. Afterwards, they decide to go to Kevin Costner’s house to meet Kevin’s brother Dan of whom knows the whereabouts of a prototype. They get there, but no one is home, so after reading the mail, Avery and Stan head to the SPCA to find the fuel converter. Stan starts to get a little suspicious when Avery grabs a water bottle of which he thinks is the said converter. Eventually, Fran calls Steve and finds out that Crisp was right and Avery is crazy having even just stolen a nuclear submarine.

When Stan gets on the sub, Crisp calls in while Avery is in his dance routine and he agrees to take out his long time friend but only after giving him the best day of his life. At the end of them spending time together, Stan shoots Avery in the back of the head only to hit a big computer chip that seems to scramble Bullock’s brain. When he comes to, Avery gives Stan a demotion for not following CIA orders.

Steve’s school has a new bully named Luis and the bad guy already wants to kick Steve’s ass.  As a result, Steve enlists Roger to try and help him out of the upcoming planned fight. Roger decides to call in Stan’s old bully, Stellio whom shows up and beats the shit out of Steve. This causes Steve’s bully to not want to hit Steve because no one wants sloppy seconds o help appease his need, Steve recommends that Luis beat up his dad’s bully.  When Luis shows up he finds out that its the great Stellio and now they both want to kick the shit out of Steve much to the delight of Roger.

One of the things I seem to forget about from time to time when it comes to watching American Dad is that Patrick Stewart (Avery) is an absolutely genius voice actor (and to prove it he will be on The Simpsons next week).  His mannerisms whilst under the mind scrambling device was out friggin’ standing. From his girl like giggles to his absurd affinity for deli meats, its hard to imagine this guy used to be in Star Trek. The plot itself was pretty strong and to be honest there more twists in it than in a Rold’s Gold bag of pretzels. I did think it was a rather strange casting choice to have Phil LaMarr play Crisp, but he did a decent job. It was also a refreshing change of pace to see Stan become the one trying to preach self control as usually that’s Fran’s job at the behest of Stan. The Steve plot was kind lame and seemed shoddily put together. I mean there have been a hundred bully plots done in just about every sitcom, it just looked as though the AD writers took a piece of each one and threw them together. That said, Stewart was brilliant and he was certainly strong enough this week to carry the episode.