TV

American Dad! Season 20 Episode 6 “Better on Paper”

In which Stan

As we reach 350 episodes of American Dad!, the show itself goes back to the well on plots. This time it’s Stan being a bad husband to Francine; but now it comes with a bit of that later season American Dad! juice to give it a bit more kick.

Stan is trying to find Roger but accidentally uncovers some old letters from former admirers of Francine. Incensed Stan gathers the Smith family, sans Roger and Francine, to figure out what to do. Instead of working on himself to be a better, more romantic Stan, he decides to hunt down the would be admirers. He discovers that one of the admirers is at the CIA. And they write beautiful poetry. So he decides to start his hunt there, clumsily trying to get his co-workers to write poetry. He discovers that the printer that printed the poetry is Bullock’s printer and confronts him.

This is the most we see of Roger until the end of the show

However, Bullock reveals that the printer actually has part of Stan’s brain, the romantic part. So rather than try to be the better man, Stan of course starts dragging the printer around so it can print out all the romantic stuff Stan can’t say to Francine. However, the printer starts getting romantic feelings for Francine. After a few attempts to actually kill Stan (with help from Steve) Stan dumps the printer on the side of the road. There it’s picked up Dr. Weitzman who is smitten with the printer and builds it a robot body. When Stan and Francine go out to dinner they are confronted by the printer and its robot army (although Dr. Weitzman thought the printer was female and the robots were bridesmaids). Stan eventually learns that all Francine wants is to be with Stan and that’s enough for the both of them.

Stray Observations

  • The show does remember that Klaus was obsessed with Francine, a trait they wisely left behind after season 1 or so.
  • No B-plot which makes the episode better in my opinion. And no Roger except for the last seconds of the show and I think the plot was stronger for it as well
  • Speaking of Roger TBS is doing something https://twitter.com/AmericanDadTBS/status/1655603848252121089. I mean I’d rather them just donate the $20K instead of trying to engage on a dying social media platform but good for them I guess