REVIEW: AMERICAN DAD “National Treasure 4: Baby Franny: She’s Doing Well: The Hole Story”

Spoilers Below

Years ago, Francine was dropped down a well and it made national attention and despite the fact that the kids are enamored, Francine wants to forget about it. Hayley, Steve, and Jeff opt to get Francine on the ‘Morning Glory’ show so that the whole world can get an update on where she’s been. Once on the show, Francine is reminded that her home town is celebrating the daring rescue’s 35th Anniversary.  Whilst on the show, Francine meets the wife and kid of the guy that helped save her and ask what the hell she’s done with her life which of course leads to Fran having a nervous breakdown.

Fran thinks that the firefighter that saved her life went through a bunch of trouble for nothing and as such is not looking forward to the anniversary event. To help, Steve offers to give Fran a bunch of math problems to solve because if she does one she’ll be a nationally recognized millionaire. While armed with her calculator and endless amount of chalk, ends up putting together a really long equation of which comes out wrong and as a result she has nothing to show the Watkins family that their dad saved someone worthy.

Fran shows up to the event, and she somehow falls down the same well, and discovers that after all these years, Henry Watkins is still alive! Fran thinks of this as a great opportunity to save him and THAT would get her out of explaining her back story. A rescue team sends down some rope, and Fran and Henry are back on the surface with everyone in attendance and millions at home watching. However, the second Henry sees his wife, he bites her god damn nose off! Turns out Henry would rather stay in his hole than be a part of the real world, but Fran is determined to help him get back to normal.

First thing Fran does is she takes Henry to a barer shop where he needs to get knocked out cold just to get a haircut. She later brings Henry home and lets him stay there the night, but he opts to escape and dive back in his hole after assuring Francine that her life is fine and she needn’t worry about him. In exchange for sending booby pics down the hole every once in a while, Fran lets him go, but we learn that the dive into an underground cavern leads to a broken neck.

Meanwhile, Roger and Stan want to make male-stripper shoes in an effort to make cash. They meet a guy named Giuseppe the shoe maker. It’s here where they figure out the design of the shoes and they decide to take said designs to Toshi’s dad of whom is a venture capitalist.  After Stan and Roger’s pitch, Mr. Yoshida offers to give them $30,000 for the development of their idea, under one condition….they kill his wife! The two soon to be assailants park themselves right outside the window of where they can see Mrs. Yoshida, but Stan backs out of killing her as he feels stripper shoes are not worth having this kind of blood on his hands and as it turns out neither could Roger.  The guys later find out that Mr. Toshida has stolen the idea for the shoes and as such makes another fortune much to the delight of Roger.

Cutaway Gags

Roger in Japan, Teacher

Our Take

Ordinarily, when American Dad does an episode with two plots, they do one where Roger and Stan offer up a funny adventure while Fran partakes in a story that just gets in the way. This week, we get the opposite, because Roger and Stan’s plot involving the creation of making porn shoes was kinda dumb as hell. Granted, it was somewhat refreshing getting a plot involving Toshi’s parents of which lends itself to think there are more stories to tell here, just not this one. The real winner here is the Francine story. To be honest, when Steve started in on the math problem solution, I thought we were heading into ‘two thumbs down’ territory, but thankfully it was moved quickly and into a hysterical story that leads to Fran and Henry the latter of which is voiced by the otherworldly Will Forte. As you might have guess, Forte NAILS this role, and to be honest I couldn’t help but draw a few comparisons between the firefighter Henry and the crime fighter MacGruber both played by Will. Will’s over-the-top rambunctiousness with Henry was a great complement to ward off the sometimes abrasive Francine, giving us a treat akin to the diversity found in a black and white cookie. The cutaway gag with Roger was OK, however I did rather enjoy the teacher later on in the episode. That said, the score for this week should be much higher, but maybe next time leave the boys at home.