Episode title: Dreaming of a White Porsche Christmas
Series: American Dad
Season: 12
Written by: Brian Boyle
First transmitted: December 1 2014
We have the same writer that gave us the rather superior "The Greatest Christmas Story Never Told", so there’s hope, there’s hope. Jealous of the footloose and fancy-free (and, one would assume, Francine-free - sorry) life that Principal Lewis leads, and hassled by his family to sort out Christmas, Stan wishes that his life was different and that he had Lewis’s life. He says this as he places a plastic angel - one he has not seen before, and got from Roger’s room - on the top of the tree. The next morning, his family is gone, there are sexy pictures of women all over the house, his tree has been replaced by, well, something in a bucket with a beer bottle on top, and there’s a white Porsche in his garage!
His shock doesn’t last long, and he and Roger go on the tear, but when he heads to Lewis to check out some pointers on how to be single, he is gobsmacked to see that the Principal now has his family! He’s married to Francine, and has a little black Steve and a little black Hayley. Well, he wished for Lewis’s life, and got it, and now Lewis has his life. Seems fair. Stan doesn’t think so though. After believing he can just undo the wish, pretending he’s learned a lesson when Roger tells him that might be part of the deal, he does what Stan always does: overreacts and takes his, I mean Lewis’s family hostage. The CIA soon turn up, as Lewis now has Stan’s job too, and Francine, seeing her chance to escape, pretends she believes Stan, who then lets her go to “explain to the CIA”. Rather stupidly (though Stan has never been a great thinker anyway) he lets her take the kids too. With no hostages left, it’s clear for the Agency to take him down.
Before they can though he drives off in the Porsche, and heads for Suicide Bridge. As he jumps, the CIA riddle him with bullets. And as he lies on the ground, smashed, full of holes and bleeding, they riddle him some more. As he begins to die, an angel appears and tells him that he has learned his lesson and may go back to his family, but it is not his family but another one. The angel tells him this is the kind of family he’s been wishing for, being so disappointed with both his son and daughter, and dismissive of Francine, so he now has the sort of family he deserves and wants. But Stan wants his old family back. He meets Roger, who doesn’t seem to know him as well as he should, but when he explains to him about his alternate life, Roger agrees to help Stan. He must make a wish, and place the angel on the tree. He does, as Stan holds on to his backside, as Roger did when Stan wished, which was why he ended up in the alternate reality with his friend.
Unfortunately, in every reality Roger is a selfish, stupid, self-centred narcissist, and he wishes for a white Porsche, which he gets, but which has now wasted his only wish. Stan is now stuck in this reality. His last chance is to get his new wife, Mary (oh come on! Mary Christmas? Didn’t they make the tired old joke in
Family Guy?) to wish she had never married him, but she is intractable, even when Stan rams Roger’s Porsche through the house. Finally though he hits upon her Achilles’ Heel: he criticises her homekeeping. She takes the angel, makes the wish and Stan is back, happy never to be single again, back with his own family.
Notes
While again so many Christmas specials rely on versions of
A Christmas Carol or
It’s A Wonderful Life - this on the latter - they can really use the device differently, and here we see, not Stan’s world without him, but basically Stan without his world. Fed up with his family and contemptuous of their desires he learns to appreciate them by being deprived of them It’s hardly original but it works well. The idea of Roger being dragged along because he was feeling Stan’s butt as he placed the angel on the tree is clever, and completely consistent with what we know of Roger, and it’s interesting to see wildman Lewis settle down with Francine. Not so good to see Hayley and Steve as little black kids, but there you go. Quite funny too when Stan runs into his new kitchen to ask Klaus what’s going on and realises he’s just an ordinary fish. “The fish doesn’t talk!” he gasps. “What kind of
Twilight Zone world am I in?”
You may disagree - I’m sure many do - but I don’t like Patrick Stewart’s character, so it’s no fun for me to see him heading the CIA rescue force, though thankfully he’s not in the episode for long. The overkill as Stan goes off the bridge is funny, though perhaps stretched a little when they continue shooting him as he lies on the ground dying. When they all walk off whistling “Deck the Halls” though it does kind of bring a smile to my face. It’s a good double-bluff, too, when the angel appears and tells Stan he has learned his lesson, and we think everything will go back to normal, but it doesn’t. Also good when Roger wastes his wish. To be honest, Francine is hot, but I’d stay with that other wife if I were Stan. Rowr!
It always slightly disturbs me though the way death is treated so casually in both Seth’s series. I know (shut up, I know) it’s only a cartoon but I wonder does it contribute even in a small way to the desensitisation of kids towards violence? I mean, we see Principal Lewis run over two people as he hares into the Smiths’ driveway, and nothing is said. Roger froths up a bottle of soda and causes two young girls to crash into a tree, and then they destroy a petrol station and nothing is said. It’s funny, yes, but is it overly or unnecessarily violent?
Family Guy, to its small credit, doesn’t tend to focus so much on the violence, but
American Dad certainly does. I just wonder if it’s appropriate in a Christmas episode? But then of course I thoroughly enjoyed “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls”, and you couldn’t get more violent than that. Still, that was a battle, and you could see it as necessary or at least justified violence.
Good to see they actually made an effort with the Christmas titles this time. No special song
a la Simpsons but they have Stan wearing a Christmas-themed pouch (um,yeah) and the words American Dad are fashioned from Candy Canes. Also, all the characters are wearing Christmas jumpers, antlers or other items and Roger is dressed, in Stan’s car, as the crucified Jesus, something I would have thought they would have done before this. That or Santa. At the end there’s a Christmas song, so it’s a lot more geared towards the festive season than previous ones, even the aforementioned “For Whom the Sleigh Bell Tolls” was.
Stan’s arrogance is always annoying, his belief that he is right no matter what, and it’s gratifying to see him taken down a peg or two; we wonder if he has learned his lesson, then remember this is Stan Smith we’re talking about. Of course he hasn’t. But for now it seems he appreciates his family, and I guess that’s as good as it gets. Overall a very satisfying episode, and enjoyable to watch. Well written, well thought out, well resolved. Well done, Mr. Boyle. We look forward to other efforts by you.