Review: American Dad! “Criss-Cross Applesauce: The Ballad of Billy Jesusworth” (S13Ep17)

I had mixed feelings about tonight’s new American Dad! episode, “Criss-Cross Applesauce: The Ballad of Billy Jesusworth”.

Spoilers Below

On the one hand, you have a kind of funny premise about Roger being a good basketball player with his signature move, “criss-cross applesauce”. There are some funny things throughout, and as some may have surmised by now, I often judge a cartoon by how laugh out loud funny or weird it is– this episode has its spots. Especially early on.

The other part of the episode is Steve singing an R Kelly-esque ballad about being trapped in a locker, and all the chaos that ensues afterwards- let’s say we see a little too much skin from Snot’s mom. The song is really, really funny. Insanely hilarious. (Steve’s cornrows).

But this is my problem with the episode, however. It leads up to something you’re expecting to be some huge bombshell with the Steve story– I suppose the end of the song does bring together a lot of past characters in an interesting way. But the end of that, and the basketball story, and the end of the entire episode in general felt somehow anti-climactic.

I think some of that feel comes from the fact that anything following the sheer brilliance of the previous two American Dad! episodes, the Daesong Heavy Industries arc, will rightfully pale. Which leaves me wondering: why didn’t American Dad! save the Daesong arc til the season finale? Oh well. On to next week.