American Dad! Season 14, Episode 8
Whole Slotta Love
Grade: A-

Effective 4th wall breaks have been a hallmark of the later American Dad seasons, with freeze frame/Roger having a stroke proving the first solid laugh and Roger skipping right to the part in his story where he overreacts to new obsessions providing some welcome plot movement. This wasn’t the best night for one-liners, but I thought that the solid plot more than made up for that.

I wonder what Roger’s body count is. I bet it’s high. The predictable climax of having Roger try to take down the plane was nicely saved by having him not actually succeed in doing so for once (he’s crashed a lot of planes). And having Stan fly to an alternate location but not use that fact to make his plot intersect with Roger’s was likewise a modicum of welcome restraint on the part of the writing staff.

I was less enthused by the weird portrayal of the racing car gang, or inconsistent characterization serialization regarding Stan cheating, or how utterly dorky his new hobby was, but those were minor detriments.

Francine’s hallucinatory gal pals were among my favorite bits- I appreciated how the show could have used the old ‘they’ve always been here, just offscreen’ bit, but instead went with insane hallucinations. Although I thought that there was maybe a missed opportunity to have Klaus be another hallucination or for them to continue for a little while after she had destroyed her potion. Stan carving his face off at the end was a perfect cap to the episode.

Random Observations
I’m choking this cactus!

We’ll be waiting for you in Hell! You will weep before the Dark Lord!

How did this become so important to meeeeee…