American Dad: Morning Mimosa Review

“So we’re cool, right? Like the penguin says?”

We kick things off in the middle of a segment of “Mornings Mimosas!”, a morning talk show that we’ve never heard about until now. The show is hosted by Trish and Suze (“The Sizzle”) who go on five-hour binges discussing mimosas, turning on their guests by pelting them with taco meat, all in between determining if women are “Unsalvageable” or not. All of this and more get done, much to Francine and Klaus’ delight. The inebriated, mimosa-doused ornery studio audience is also consistently entertaining, as they’re slowly pushed to “Rage!!” sessions.

Immediately from this cold open, this episode feels a lot more like vintage American Dad and a step up from last week’s mediocre return. Focusing on a Steve and Francine plot on one end and a Stan plot on the other is always a strong episode structure and this time is no exception. One of these stories comes from a strong foundation, and the other one… well, the other one is just weird…. 

In what starts off in a pretty grounded storyline, Steve tells Francine to fuck off, literally, and the ungrateful gesture results in her icing Steve out and him needing to fend for himself. After he goes through the many trials of setting his laundry on fire and drinking soap mistakenly, he learns how to become an accomplished YouTube cook (the Orphan Chef) and this dovetails his storyline beautifully into the cold open and back into Francine’s lap. It’s some smart writing and the proper way to flesh out a story rather than randomly mashing events together. 

I’d just like to take a minute to talk about how wonderful a character Steve is. Scott Grimes does incredible, underappreciated work with the character and he feels like he’s been getting the shorter end of things this year. This episode has plenty of great Steve moments though and just his reactions to rattle snakes videos (“Pan snakes? No! Sure!”) instantly notch this episode up a few points.

The Steve material pans out—Get it? Because it’s about food and I said pa—in a satisfying manner, but meanwhile things with Stan are a little less clear.

Stan’s been having some bizarre plotlines lately and this one seems to have him thinking that whenever he snaps his fingers it either makes people disappear or turns him invisible. And something as incredulous as this isn’t even founded off of much in the first place. It’d really be something if this slew of plots from this season ends up accumulating to some stroke of tumor that Stan has, but I really don’t see things going that route. Anyways, here’s to hoping. It’d at least make all of this a little more palatable. Get it? It’s an episode about food and I said palata—forget it.

All things considered, this is a very solid, very funny episode of American Dad. The show might not have been perfect lately, but this episode has it back at being a mac and cheese omelet that’s comforting, familiar and delicious. That might not be the best thing for you, but it feels pretty good in the moment, and this episode was a big, gooey mac and cheese omelet of a good time.

Now fingers crossed on that tumor.

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