In which Francine finds her three Fs (one of which is Francine)

Francine easily clears the bar for best animated sitcom wife because not only is she largely accepting of the crazy things that go on around her, she is often a willing participant in them. Or sometime she’s the driving force, like this week.

Francine is hanging out in the pool but is lonely because no one else wants to spend time with her. That is until a plane crash brings a frog, which Francine names Jumpers. Everyone in the family loves Jumpers and soon starts spending a lot of time in the backyard. However, they grow bored and leave Francine. She then starts hallucinating that the frog is talking. He leads her to the crate of frogs and Francine brings them all back to the house. The Smiths are all on board having all the frogs and Francine is reveling in the family time.

However, the frogs are bothering Greg who needs his sleep for a big national news audition. The frogs keep him up all night and he blows it, leading him to sue Francine. The case goes badly for Greg. When the family testifies for Greg, Jumpers turns Francine against them. This leads her to kick them out of the house. The kids and Roger visit a herpetologist who tells them the frogs are dangerous and will sacrifice Francine to their tadpoles. They attempt to sneak back in but are thwarted in part by Greg and the other frogs.

Francine begins to sacrifice herself but has a change of heart after hearing the family. In the end, Francine realizes that she loves her real family more than the amphibious family and escapes with the help of the Smiths, Greg and the herpetologist, who sacrifices herself to the frogs because she wanted to.

Stray Observations

The start of the episode reminded me of a similar Family Guy episode (“Let’s Go to the Hop”) with the plane crash bringing the frogs into the neighborhood

The only other plot to really speak of is Jeff and Klaus increasing their vocabulary but the episode is largely devoted to the Francine/Frogs/Greg story. I appreciate it for that.

Jumpers is voiced by Jason Isaacs while the herpetologist is voiced by Lake Bell (who has recently voiced Poison Ivy, so a sort of nature connection)

Thoughts

The proper amount of ratcheted up craziness for me.