Ever since I stopped doing my South Park reviews last year, I've been looking to do some more TV show reviews, and I figured, why not American Dad? It's a show I've been watching for a while, and the themes and characters should be simply enough to compress into a short review format. So without further ado, here's my review of Season 15, Episode 11, "My Purity Ball and Chain".
(Quick note: for those unfamiliar with American Dad, I'm not planning on doing any backstory or anything for the show. If you're new to AD, I highly suggest going back and watching older episodes; seasons 4-6 are some of the best seasons from any show I've ever seen.)
Boy, starting my coverage of the show with an episode about abstinence and incestuous father/daughter relations; talk about starting off with a bang, amirite? This episode's A-plot is centered around Steve's decision to join a purity group, wanting to spend time with his new crush, Shannon. Yes, I realize how ironic that is. Stan, traumatized by his own experiences with his father and his sexual habits, is desperate to avoid giving his son "the talk", and latches onto this group as a result. Can we talk about that scene with young Stan and Jack for a minute? It's obvious that a lot of Stan's problems in life relate to his father, but damn, that was some messed up sh**. It's at this point that the episode slows to a crawl, and starts to go through the motions. Alright, Stan's love of his sword is pretty great, and the incest jokes could be funny once or twice, but it kinda feels like the writers just ran out of material. Upon learning that Steve still had sexual desires, the purity group(I think they had a name, but I can't remember it) sends him away to "sexual aversion therapy". There's a montage of pictures of herpes sores, and some pictures of singer Axl Rose, and that's about it. Stan decides to lock Steve and Shannon in a broom closet, then has a sword fight outside, which I though was pretty hilarious. The plot had some steam at first, but lost me about midway through, and was spinning its wheels by the ending.
Over in B-plot land, Roger, Hayley, Jeff and Klaus decide to build a slide. It's your standard AD sideplot, though it did feature the return of Detective Turlington, which I enjoyed. He's as useless as ever. After a dumbo named Kyle managed to kill himself on the slide, Turlington investigates, and it leads to Roger being forced to prove the giant contraption wasn't the cause. Then he just goes down the slide, and that's it? I mean, there's a good visual gag at the end, but the ending to this story was a pretty major letdown. I was expecting a lot more craziness.
5/10
This wasn't the greatest episode to start out on, but hopefully next week's episode "OreTron Trail" is much better. Before I go, I do have some things to mention. Right now, I'm on the precipice of moving houses, which will take place next week. Because of that, I will most likely not be able to post regularly on this blog, especially The Revolution, for a few weeks, up to a month or more. I'll also be missing Backlash, although I will be putting up a Greatest Royal Rumble review on Friday. That will be my last post before the move, and I can't say when I'll be back to posting full time. As such, this will likely be the longest break my blog has gone on in a few years, and I feel kinda bummed about it. Hopefully I'll be back and stronger than ever once everything is sorted, and hopefully any of my readers continue to enjoy whatever content I'm able to put out.
(Quick note: for those unfamiliar with American Dad, I'm not planning on doing any backstory or anything for the show. If you're new to AD, I highly suggest going back and watching older episodes; seasons 4-6 are some of the best seasons from any show I've ever seen.)
Boy, starting my coverage of the show with an episode about abstinence and incestuous father/daughter relations; talk about starting off with a bang, amirite? This episode's A-plot is centered around Steve's decision to join a purity group, wanting to spend time with his new crush, Shannon. Yes, I realize how ironic that is. Stan, traumatized by his own experiences with his father and his sexual habits, is desperate to avoid giving his son "the talk", and latches onto this group as a result. Can we talk about that scene with young Stan and Jack for a minute? It's obvious that a lot of Stan's problems in life relate to his father, but damn, that was some messed up sh**. It's at this point that the episode slows to a crawl, and starts to go through the motions. Alright, Stan's love of his sword is pretty great, and the incest jokes could be funny once or twice, but it kinda feels like the writers just ran out of material. Upon learning that Steve still had sexual desires, the purity group(I think they had a name, but I can't remember it) sends him away to "sexual aversion therapy". There's a montage of pictures of herpes sores, and some pictures of singer Axl Rose, and that's about it. Stan decides to lock Steve and Shannon in a broom closet, then has a sword fight outside, which I though was pretty hilarious. The plot had some steam at first, but lost me about midway through, and was spinning its wheels by the ending.
Over in B-plot land, Roger, Hayley, Jeff and Klaus decide to build a slide. It's your standard AD sideplot, though it did feature the return of Detective Turlington, which I enjoyed. He's as useless as ever. After a dumbo named Kyle managed to kill himself on the slide, Turlington investigates, and it leads to Roger being forced to prove the giant contraption wasn't the cause. Then he just goes down the slide, and that's it? I mean, there's a good visual gag at the end, but the ending to this story was a pretty major letdown. I was expecting a lot more craziness.
5/10
This wasn't the greatest episode to start out on, but hopefully next week's episode "OreTron Trail" is much better. Before I go, I do have some things to mention. Right now, I'm on the precipice of moving houses, which will take place next week. Because of that, I will most likely not be able to post regularly on this blog, especially The Revolution, for a few weeks, up to a month or more. I'll also be missing Backlash, although I will be putting up a Greatest Royal Rumble review on Friday. That will be my last post before the move, and I can't say when I'll be back to posting full time. As such, this will likely be the longest break my blog has gone on in a few years, and I feel kinda bummed about it. Hopefully I'll be back and stronger than ever once everything is sorted, and hopefully any of my readers continue to enjoy whatever content I'm able to put out.
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