American Dad! Season 14 Episode 15
The Life and Times of Steve Smith
Grade: B

A good start and some solid jokes with some baggage. From the beginning I was looking for clues about a potential cross over with the AD episode Rapture’s Delight in terms of whether they were going to be made mutually exclusive. So- if they both work together- Stan in his dream of living his best life, makes a deal with the dream devil? Is this like Inception? In the end, we don’t know.

I kinda missed having the CIA around in this one. It’s hard to shake the fact that some of this material has been done, and done better, by Futurama in ‘Hell Is Other Robots.’ The episode never really kicks into high gear because we never really see Stan’s conversion to living longer for anything but the Devil’s sake (but that comes later) or to escape hell by getting better at upper body training. We’re just told that he had it.

And I must admit to not understanding or liking the Klaus plot, which smacked of laziness, “The only “Chili’s 2″ that’s not in an airport!” aside. Or the ‘Beta Jizz’ bit… or the Adolph Hitler one. Between this and Preacher, it’s a banner year for Adolph in Hell. Francine’s turn to insanity and boredom is a great touch I hope they keep.

Random Observations:
That’s not milk, that’s ranch dressing from the Lazy River Ranch

Sir! You need to wear goggles! That ranch is highly chlorinated!

Klaus. What the fuck

There’s actually nothing in this bowl.

YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BE A GODDAMN ELECTRICIAN TO WORK IN THIS HOUSE!

I’m a slave.