In which the Smiths and the viewers say hello again to old friends…

Parties are generally a good way to get people together (or so I’m told, I’m never invited to parties). So it’s somewhat fitting that American Dad’s first new episode on Fox after more than 10 years on TBS uses a pool party to reintroduce itself. The party gathers the Smith’s, Stan’s CIA coworkers, Steve’s ex-girlfriend Debbie (a returning Lizzie Caplan), and Francine’s sister Gwen (although surprisingly none of Steve’s friends) as a way to (re)introduce Fox viewers back to the general vibe of American Dad!, assuming they haven’t followed the show as it bounced back and forth between networks.

And this episode allows those characters to interact in the very American Dad! way. As the Smiths get excited for the party for their own reasons, a rat pops up to potentially spoil things. Francine insists that the party be cancelled but the family doesn’t want that to happen. Before Francine can have her way, the guests show up and the family covers. Francine resorts to everything in her power to keep people out of the pool but after she gets distracted with Gwen (and her unborn baby peanut), everyone else hops in the pool.

When Gwen also gets in the pool, Francine resorts to the extreme and craps in the pool. Everyone gets out but that’s not the end, as Bullock chooses to investigate. A round of interrogations and accusations take place (with the obvious reference to The Incident at Owl Creek) Eventually Steve confesses, everyone goes home and Debbie breaks it off before it begins again. Steve and Francine have a nice moment (although a bit weird) while Jeff is carried off by ants.

The B-plot, so to speak, sees Roger trying to find his Uncle Roger mustache but can’t do it before the party is ruined. It turns out Hayley paid Rogu to hide the mustache. Is the Roger plot a commentary on either TBS or Fox’s approach to Roger personas. Time will tell.

Stray Observations

• Welcome Back Dadders! The Neo-Fox eras begins and I’m excited to hear your thoughts.
• One benefit of this era, (for this first week anyway), new images were pre-uploaded to the internet
• The pre-credits sequence survives from the TBS era
• We get an upgrade to the title sequence.

Final Thoughts: It’s just such a pleasure to have this show back. Whether it was Fox or TBS, it has remained consistently strong through the years and this episode showed no signs of wear. It was a little low-key but that’s ok. As I said, this was an episode to reintroduce the show to Fox. Sound off in the comments on your thoughts.