![]() His fears were completely warranted! Stan clearly has some pent up aggression towards Roger about all of this, but rather than directly address those issues, Roger pushes on Stan his ideology to “take life’s ham.” Whether it’s ham-or anything-in life, Roger tells Stan that he shouldn’t be afraid to just take it, which is how he lives his life. Stan can’t believe that Roger has destroyed yet another thing he loves. Not a full meeting of the ham society passes before Roger manages to completely dismantle the organization and turn meat into a background element. Roger continually lets his loud, outrageous personality loose and even though Stan is mortified, the rest of the group grows to increasingly love Roger and his laid back attitude. So even though the development that Roger does eventually gain entry into Stan’s domain isn’t exactly surprising, what follows during his time there is certainly a worthwhile deconstruction of Stan and Roger’s relationship. ![]() Roger has invaded and taken over Stan’s interests in the past, which is precisely why he’s so protective of his ham club. It’s a disaster on all fronts, but when Roger embraces who he is through a ham-based rendition of Bob Fosse (both the performance and Stan’s realization of what’s going on are fantastic), he finds success. ![]() This initially manifests itself through extreme self-doubt in Roger when he tries to fit into the mold that Stan demands of him. Stan’s weary over Roger’s flamboyant personality and how that will clash with the austere vibe of the ham society. “Hamerican Dad!” handles Stan’s reservations over Roger in a compelling way. He sets up an interview for Roger, confident that he’ll get laughed out of the room, but unfortunately for Stan’s ham sanity, he kills it. Roger takes this news hard and worries for the safety of his sanctuary, but after some feedback from Klaus, Stan decides that Roger’s complete lack of ham knowledge is enough of an obstacle to keep him out. It’s for this reason that when Roger asks to join the prestigious meat group, Stan is firm over why he wouldn’t make a good addition. The same level of devotion is echoed in the extensive list of traditions and pageantry associated with the club. The clear amount of passion that Stan has for ham is evident in every line that he says about the organization. Roger also expresses the same indifference, but after he’s around Stan for a while and hears enough about the club’s odd details, he surprisingly becomes a fan. It seems like everyone but Roger is very exhausted over Stan’s ham club speeches. The only way to excel in the club is when someone passes away, so the recent death of a member has Stan in particularly high spirits and hopeful for the esteemed position of ham carver. Stan’s love for ham runs so hot that he’s a member of a select group known as the Tappahonnock Ham Society, who cure and age hams as they get away from the stresses of the world. Stan Smith is a man of many passions, but something that’s on the top of that list is the meat elixir known as ham. While “Hamerican Dad!” focuses on one of the show’s core dynamics, it’s also an episode that goes all over the place and turns into a wildly unpredictable bonding experience for Stan and Roger. Now at the same time, this episode is a deep look into who Stan is and how he could perhaps benefit from occasionally adopting Roger’s looser personality. Roger has plenty of fancy personas at his disposal and he could easily jump into one of these to mesh with what’s required of him for this episode, but he intentionally remains himself. Accordingly, devoting some time to Roger and his needs is a decent area to explore after Roger’s personas have become so cumbersome he literally birthed a smaller version of himself to help deal with the workload. Roger is often seen unburdened by a costume, but he can still feel like a cipher due to how he’s used on the show. It’s even easier to forget that Roger is his own character with his own desires when stories on American Dad constantly turn to personas that can cater to whatever situation is at hand. Roger so frequently operates like a caricature that it’s sometimes easy to forget that he has feelings and is real. ![]()
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