American Dad: “The Missing Kink”

Making fun of Stan Smith’s prudish conservatism was the bread and butter of American Dad’s early seasons, but it was also the limitation of the premise that held the show back. When it became less beholden to Stan as the absolute center, and less concerned with lampooning his politics, the show grew into the more surreal animated sitcom it is today. But bringing that back once in a while can still work. After all, what’s the fun of having a stuffy, stubborn prude as a patriarch if you can’t knock him down a few pegs and call him out for his missionary-only preferences?
“The Missing Kink” is the first time this season that I can remember finding a plot centered on Stan and Francine’s marriage so funny. Stan celebrates successful sex with a conservative yet insane “Missionary Accomplished” sign, but Francine wants more from their sex life. When she inadvertently discovers that she likes when Stan spanks her, she hatches a plan to get him to indulge in his kinkier side—which of course will run amok and backfire, but that’s what these kinds of sitcom plots do. Thankfully, a lot of funny dialogue and two comedic set pieces in the first half of the episode mask that trope.
First, Francine’s ploy to get Stan to spank her—without actually talking to him about expanding their sexual horizons further—involves shaming Steve for not checking the ball to Klaus before shooting in a game of one-on-one basketball. The escalating levels of outrage, from Klaus to Francine to Stan, to Steve throwing Klaus and the water dish, built nicely with more laughter.
It helps that Roger’s role in the plot is a great character, the bartender in speakeasy-esque attic of “Roger’s Place,” counseling Francine and Stan separately and egging on the situation in order to not only bring out Stan’s deviant side, but push it to the extreme. As a trendy bartender, he serves his own piss to Francine as an Imperial IPA, then goes on about whipping up some duck sliders and a fancy salad to Stan, before picking out some garbage on a plate. I like Roger’s costumes and characters more when they fit into a story as a supporting character instead of separating him out in his own satellite plot. “The Missing Kink” accomplishes the right balance of memorable, funny character with Roger’s underlying bored agent of chaos. When Roger breaks into song while nudging Stan to be more adventurous in the bedroom, it takes the episode in the standard bizarre overdrive direction.