In which Steve tries to expose his bully for what he is and ends up way more miserable

After a three week hiatus, American Dad! returns with an episode that doesn’t quite push the boundaries of the show that I know it’s capable of doing. We get an episode with a stronger focus on a minor character but we learn almost nothing new and we’re left off with an odd conclusion.

The town is holding its annual church carnival, and everybody gets to reset who they are before the school year. Steve decides to become a braided belt guy, and be as cool as a cucumber, the most confident of all the penis shaped fruits. Arriving at the carnival, his friends attempt to get him on Satan’s Tantrum, the dangerous new ride. When Steve discovers he doesn’t weigh enough he tries to escape away into the mirror maze. There, Mertz, the recurring bully, decides to drag Steve on the ride to torture him.

However, in the course of his bullying, Steve falls out of the ride and only by the grace of Mertz himself is he actually saved. Afterwards, Mertz is hailed as a hero, despite the fact that both he and Steve know what Mertz was really doing. Steve tries everything to expose Mertz but the town just keeps showering him with praise while deriding Steve for not changing. This apparently changes Mertz while it also changes Steve (for the worse!). All of his efforts turn people against him. Eventually, after an accident, it is revealed that Mertz was doing a new method of torture called long-form bullying. And we are back to the status quo. Meh

Meanwhile, all of the characters went through changes in the episode: Hayley found the love of a good goat, Francine has new makeup, Stan gets more and more skin exposed, Snot has a nose ring, Toshi has a chain and Barry has a coke nail, Greg got to report on the Steve/Mertz story, Klaus was won at the carnival and was involved in a Finding Nemo plot until the fish died, Roger started and then stopped working as a carney

Stray Observations

• The future detective was the same one who was on Shoe Police with Elisabeth Shue (or at least the same character model)

Final Thoughts: A weak output for the shows return after 3 weeks off.