Kill The Kids, Steal The Corpse's Hair

American Dad, S07E11

I liked this episode better than the other FOX shows last Sunday.  It was about Stan getting older in a fashion that reminder me of the movie Thinner.  There was also a side story about Francine and Roger, involving lies and a funeral.

Stan lays on some ageist remarks on one of his coworkers, Ray, whom he has stolen a job from.  Although he was being a jerk, I liked that he chastised Ray for cooking a sponge in the microwave because he thought it was a hot pocket.  He even turned it over in between.  I love a good hot pocket joke.

Stan gets cursed at the hiking goods store after he makes horrible remarks to the older man holding up the line.  I enjoyed the gradual aging of Stan.  He was particularly funny when he went to the doctor and thought he had aids because he couldn't understand the doctor saying "aged."  He looked so bad as an old man, especially when he went to work in some sagging jeans in order to look younger.  Those whitey tighties were not flattering on him one bit.

Halley figures out that the curse said upon Stan was in Latin, but it was Claus who knew what it meant.  That would have seemed odd to me except he explained it.  Still, that fish is pretty useless on a regular basis.  Sometimes I think Roger is enough of an oddity (they have to have one in the Seth MacFarlane shows) to add the weird element to their family.  Claus also gives Stan the idea that to break the curse he has to complete his dream of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro as an old man.  I thought from the beginning that it wouldn't work.  And it doesn't.

Although it seems ridiculous to have a man who has aged to about 80 or 90 by then travel overseas and climb a mountain, this part is the best segment of the episode.  Stan mistakenly thinks that Halley and Steve are going to kill him, so he decides to get to them first.  The gag was that each time he tried to get them, he would fall asleep mid-attack.  I loved it.  I also liked how Halley and Steve kept talking to him in a condescending tone and referred to him as "Papa."  So cute it made me laugh.

Stan finally succeeds in staying awake to attack them and chases them with a knife all the way up the mountain.  That's pretty ridiculous even for a cartoon.  Wouldn't he get tired, despite his murderous desire to off his children, climbing up there with no break??  Halley "luckily" falls off before Stan can get her again, but Steve gets a knife right in his back!  I was wondering how in the world they would survive all that.  Some random guys just collected them and carried them down.  The other thing that made me go "really?" was when Stan fell off the mountain for the longest time.  He was fine after that fall!  There's no way that the ox he rode down until it was just a bloody head saved him from breaking some bones.  An old man fell from a mountain that a young man would have surely died from.  Geez...  That bothered me.

Anyway, Stan broke the curse after a younger man treated him like Stan had treated the man from the store and learned his lesson.  However, he turned into a black Stan.  Uh...what?  He apparently was cursed by someone else at a different time.  So why did the curses bundle together and happen in this weird sequence?  After he cures this one, will he turn into someone else that he treated badly?  Maybe into Claus?  Well, I guess that it's funny on a non-laughable level to end the episode like that.

In the side story, Francine is tricked by Roger over and over again.  It was really dumb, but since it was Roger, you can't be shocked.  However, I didn't know what Roger's angle was from the first time he told Francine he hadn't been "entirely truthful" with her.  I did think from the moment I saw him in that horrible red wig, couldn't he get a better one?  He commented on it soon after my thoughts that it looked like "Garfield had miscarried" on his head.  Ugh.

After many lies that put Francine in an awkward situation with a dead body, Roger reveals his plan all along was to steal his ex-wife's red hair to make a wig.  So he married her and divorced her, in order to steal her hair some day?  I guess for him that would mean nothing since he doesn't appear to age at all.  Also, he doesn't give a damn about manipulating people, as was clear with Francine.  I was happy to see that Francine threw him off a cliff after all the shit he had put her through.  6 months of practicing for a dance competition that didn't exist and defiling a dead woman's body??  Roger's fall was too kind for him.

Very nice episode this week.  I wish the other shows would have had a little more intrigue, though.  One show doesn't make up for a disappointing Sunday.