Just Keep Your Eyes Down And Keep Walking

American Dad, S08E03

Francine wanted to have fun with Stan, but he only wanted to hang with his CIA boys.   So with Roger's help Francine posed as a man, hoping that she could later reveal herself when she became best friends with him.  Steve and his friends also joined a conglomerate of other boy bands like themselves under the management of Snot's uncle.

I think I liked Steve's side story a little better just because Francine sneaking into the CIA retreat as a man wasn't that interesting as a whole.  I thought that their music video was pretty funny and the idea of this huge boy band reminded me of the large girl band AKB48.  I doubt there was any connection to this group, but I couldn't help but think about it when the boys were named by B1, B2 and etc.  I actually thought they might be pretty successful as a group if they hadn't been outdone by a slightly bigger boy band (and Snot's uncle hadn't given up by committing suicide).  Steve has always had a good singing voice, anyway, and the other members were so random I felt like it could have had its appeal.

As for the main story, I didn't like anything in particular until the very end when that hiking guy from Mt. Kilimanjaro showed up and wondered if Stan had beaten his wife in some kind of domestic dispute.  He pulled out a gun on him and soon afterward I was delighted to see a mock public service announcement come up staring Jon Hamm (cannot go wrong with him whether real or cartoon):

Hi, I’m Jon Hamm.  Over a hundred percent of all domestic disputes are just two people trying to work stuff out.  You getting involved isn’t going to help.  You don’t know what’s going on. I don’t care what you think you see.  Just keep your eyes down and keep walking.

He was like so perfect for someone telling you that you have no idea what you're looking at and mind your business!  I laughed so hard, especially because I never expected him to pop up.   This sort of makes up for the rest of the episode not being so intensely funny.  I'm definitely adding this to one of my favorite scenes in this show ever.  Thanks, Jon!

I did like the boy band thing, but I have to say that I would repeatedly watch this episode just for the last few minutes.  I never expected that I could like Jon Hamm so much outside of  Mad Men, but he continuously shows me that he can be just as wonderful as a cartoon character.  It's too bad I didn't feel the love so much for the regular characters of this show.  As usual, when the story's not really about Roger messing up someone's life, it tends to not be a story that captures my interest much.