“American Dad!” recap: “Big Stan on Campus”

A bit of the reality of our current government and law enforcement came into play in last night’s new episode of American Dad!, called “Big Stan on Campus.” Director Bullock (Patrick Stewart) gives his CIA team the bad news that their budget needs to be cut (but he won’t give up his ornate “hover-throne” that he is seen using to get around, naturally) and that he needs one of them to take what he calls a “vacation” (actually an unpaid furlough). Stan agrees before fully understanding what it is, and then must find a way to earn some money during the month he will be furloughed. He quickly finds a job as a security guard at Groff Community College (Hayley is at first mortified that she’ll be seeing her dad at school, but Stan says he’ll be there during midterms, which Hayley avoids).

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Although Stan confidently says that while the pay from this temp job is far less than his CIA gig, he’ll be getting that lower pay on a more regular, weekly basis. The family isn’t as confident, and tries to think of other ways to help raise money. They give Roger the idea of re-opening his bed-and-breakfast, the Inn Under the Attic, in the Smith home. Roger is determined to maintain the “5 circle” rating that his inn has received in Trip Advisor (all the guests who rated it are merely Roger in various disguises, of course). When a perfectionistic guest arrives, Roger strives to meet his insane requests, ranging from scallops for dinner (Steve merely rolls up some hot dogs) to trimming the lawn at night. In the end, while Roger managed to meet the man’s requests, and the guest says he is pleased, the man leaves without paying. Running outside, the family sees why his demands seemed so crazy — he is an escaped mental patient, and he is seen being strapped to a gurney and put into an ambulance (“5 circle service,” as he calls it). Steve is heard screaming from upstairs about how the man has crapped all over his room — even in the DVD player, and inside Steve’s pillowcase (a silhouetted Steve is seen in his window letting the excrement slump out of the pillowcase).

The main plot focuses on Stan’s security guard job. At the college, he thinks things are going to be fun, and he strives to get the students to see him as a cool uncle, while his boss warns him not to become friends with the kids. Stan’s desire to fit in with college kids was reminiscent of a previous episode, “Spring Break-Up. (In one funny scene, Stan tries to prove his coolness with a rad air-guitar solo, see picture above; unfortunately, the kids just think he’s having a seizure.) Stan eventually does fit in with the students, but when he is assigned to break up a loud party with underage drinking, he finds it hard to do so. At the party, Stan asks the kids to keep it down and stop drinking, but they ignore their “uncle.” In a fight over the volume knob on a kid’s “jam box,” the device is broken, leading the students to protest outside the security guard headquarters. While the rest of the security guards are excited to put on their riot gear (actually borrowed from the school’s theater department) and confront the protestors, Stan is not so sure. He goes out with the other guards to try to disperse the kids, but when Stan is taunted by one kid who says he’s not a “cool uncle” but rather a “lame uncle,” Stan snaps, and he goes off on the crowd with two cans of pepper spray (a sight seen more frequently on newscasts covering protests nowadays).

Stan comes back to himself and regrets what he did, but the students are enraged, and the other guards leave him outside to face the mob. Just as the kids are about to beat down Stan, Bullock shows up in a helicopter and airlifts Stand to safety, telling him that he can come back to the CIA. In order to calm the kids down, Bullock releases a tequila-shooting device from the helicopter, spraying the happy kids and getting them drunk. Unfortunately, Bullock says this device came at the expense of helicopter maintenance, and shortly thereafter the chopper goes down in an explosion.