Review: American Dad “Roger Needs Dick”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Matters of the heart are never easy to reconcile and this is even truer when Roger is the one whose heart has been ripped out. The latest romantic endeavor of one of Roger’s many personalities begins as a mild inconvenience for Stan, but it develops into a larger concern that has the whole family on edge. The Smiths try to figure out a solution that will help them restore balance, but they’re left with even larger problems to reconcile once the heartbreak of one of Roger’s personas begins to spread and taint the whole bunch.

Our Take:

Roger is a character that is usually driven by his various vices, but these obsessions of his aren’t always negative things. Yes, Roger tends to lean towards the more decrepit things in nature, but it’s not a firm rule. “Roger Needs Dick” taps into a surprisingly emotional place when it looks at Roger’s pursuit for romantic fulfillment and the chain reaction that such love can cause. Roger has developed some kind of infatuation with most of the characters in American Dad, but this entry pairs him together with Dick, the oft-neglected member of Stan’s CIA squad.

Some American Dad episodes see everyone in total mystique of Roger’s personas as he effortlessly blends into these characters, while at other times he’s immediately unable to fool the people within his inner circle. “Roger Needs Dick” fits into the latter as Stan is quickly nonplussed over how Dick has fallen for the allure of Becky Tenderhearts, one of Roger’s many personalities, as well as how this new distraction is stealing focus from the Roger personas that Stan actually does enjoy.

A lot of episodes of American Dad this season have boldly only gone with an A-plot and not broken up their story with supporting plotlines. ”Roger Needs Dick” continues this trend and solely focuses on the romance between Roger’s Becky and Dick. However, the installment effectively spreads the focus to the rest of the Smith family as they all get let down by Roger in various ways. Shout outs to Legman, Jeannie Gold, Radar Dave, and Clip Clop are very satisfying and a fun way to break down Roger’s shifting priorities. The chain reaction that happens during the absence of Roger’s personas due to Becky’s rise isn’t nearly on the same apocalyptic level as in “The Two Hundred,” but each member in the Smith family experience some personal disappointment due to Becky’s developing infatuation with Stan’s friend.

“Roger Needs Dick” takes some wild swings after Becky and Dick’s breakup, but heartbreak is an unpredictable animal. Francine takes the reigns for Becky and tries to throw her into Under the Tuscan Sun mode so that the power of the Italian vistas can magically cure her. It’s an entertaining direction and it looks like loads of casual sex help Becky get her groove back, but it turns out to merely be a temporary solution. The episode takes another turn when Dick’s newest flame triggers some destructive jealousy in Roger as he attempts to settle the score. Dick’s new girlfriend happens to have Roger’s exact body type, which is a very good joke. “Roger Needs Dick” also incorporates Rogu exactly when I thought that the episode had forgotten about him.

Both the subject matter and how it’s explored in “Roger Needs Dick” are exceptional, but this is another episode of American Dad that just has a very polished script that helps every scene pack in a little more comedy. There’s a very call-and-response Sorkin-like nature to this episode’s dialogue that works well and it never becomes so overbearing that it ever feels awkward. There’s a really glorious digression in Tuscany where Francine needs to be taught Italian so that she’s able to stop a bus because the driver doesn’t speak English. From that point onward Francine’s imbued with the necessary language skills to help out Becky. It’s a fantastic example of how to correctly pull off nonsense. It feels like a joke from out of Airplane.

“Roger Needs Dick” is an episode of American Dad that presents itself as a very silly, ridiculous story about the impossible nature of Roger’s personas, but in the end it’s a very powerful tale about the emotional side of Roger’s personalities and how he’s in less control than he realizes. This is really the sublime kind of entry that features lots of satisfying visual gags, a hilarious script, and a story that takes numerous developments and is able to stick the landing. The events of “Roger Needs Dick” are unlikely to irrevocably change the “mythos” behind Roger’s personas, but it’s a good look into how captivating stories can be told from that material.

And Francine is totally right about her interpretation of steam punk, for what it’s worth…