Surro-Gate
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| “Surro-Gate” | |
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| American Dad! episode | |
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| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 7 |
| Written by | |
| Production no. | 3AJN07 |
| Original airdate | December 2, 2007 |
| Newspaper Headline | Bowler's Union Strike |
| Season 3 episodes | |
| American Dad - Season 3 September 30, 2007 – May 18, 2008 |
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| ← Season 2 | |
| List of American Dad! episodes | |
"Surro-Gate" is a third season episode of American Dad.
[edit] Plot summary
Greg and Terry, the Smith family's gay neighbors, tell them they are planning to have a baby through in vitro fertilization. Francine is happy for them, but Stan, having just recently come to some level of acceptance of their homosexuality, is against the idea of bringing children into a non-traditional family, believing it will make them dysfunctional (among other things, such as an unproven theory that it could lead to horses eating each other). The pair soon come into a problem, however, as they cannot find a surrogate mother they can agree on (Greg doesn't approve of anybody that Terry suggests). Francine volunteers to help them, and secretly becomes pregnant with their child without telling Stan out of fear of his reaction (filled with the thought of Stan attacking her with a jaguar armed with a chainsaw). She doesn't tell Stan, even though she promised the unborn she would eventually. Stan soon thinks that Greg and Terry have returned to normal life and Francine had become fat.
Stan eventually finds out (six months into the pregnancy), and while he is at first furious, Hayley, taking advantage of his pro-life values, reminds him that the baby is there and all he can do is do what is best for the baby instead of thinking of himself. Stan realizes she is right, and soon becomes enthusiastic about preparing for the baby's birth. With Greg and Terry, they take parenting classes, the former being more adept. Soon Francine goes into labor, and she, Stan, Greg and Terry rush to the hospital, where she delivers a baby girl. Stan, however, soon kidnaps the baby, and goes on a cross-country drive to Nebraska, where gay couples do not have parental rights, so that the baby (whom he names "Liberty Belle") can have a normal family (i.e., at an orphanage).
Greg and Terry call on the "Rainbow Truckers" union for aid, and Stan and Liberty soon find themselves fleeing from gay-rights activists trying to stop them from reaching the state border, only finding support in the local bystanders he comes across. They are rescued by a woman on an ATV named Lily, who takes them to her home. Stan is impressed by Lily's two polite, well-behaved children, until he meets Lily's spouse (played by Jane Lynch) Al--short for "Allison." The pair explain they are a lesbian couple who decided to bring him to their home to show him that a gay family can be stable and hopefully convince him to return Liberty to her parents. Stan, however, simply abducts their two children and steals their truck. As Stan drives all three kids to the state border, the newest abductees argue with Stan that their family is great. The two then start fighting with each other, and Stan instinctively yells at them by calling them "Steve" and "Hayley"--he realizes that the two do not seem any more dysfunctional than his own kids, and so he returns the children to their respective families, just as he stopped the truck he stole an inch from the state border. Greg and Terry put a restraining order on him as punishment for kidnapping the children, while allowing Francine and the others to play with the baby in the park, though they let Stan come (on the condition that he stay far enough away, of course); his methods of cooing her from afar are obviously ineffective.
Meanwhile, Steve and Roger play a joke on Klaus by throwing him in his bowl down a water slide, and Klaus swears horrible, excruciatingly painful revenge on them. As a result, they grow paranoid and live in the attic for the nine months in which the episode takes place, starving, wearing diapers and not eating any can out of their sight for a second. The two eventually go insane and try to kill each other until they realize that the only way to regain their sanity is to confront Klaus. Klaus, however, says he had forgotten about his threat, though now that they have reminded him, his vengeance is renewed. The two then put a stack of books on top of his bowl, trapping him, and wonder why they did not think of that before.
[edit] Notes
- The title is a play on the word "surrogate." It is also a pun on using the suffix "-gate" to describe a political scandal, based on Watergate.
- Though Stan is correct in saying that some states, such as Nebraska, do not allow gay couples to adopt, technically either Greg or Terry is "Liberty Belle's" biological father (the episode does not tell which one), so in actuality they would be able to get her back.
- "Liberty Belle's" real name is never given.
- Francine is chosen to be a surrogate mother in this episode, even though Stan said in the episode The Vacation Goo that the goo he kept putting the family in causes a woman's uterus to rot (which is why Hayley looked shocked).
[edit] Cultural References
- The headline is a reference to the 2007 Writers Guild of America Strike which affects the show itself.
- Greg and Terry are seen reading Everybody Poops, which also appeared in the Family Guy episode Brian in Love and also during the FCC musical number.
- Stan says he'd watch every episode of Star Trek except Deep Space Nine. He has a list of reasons why, though he does not get a chance to explain. (This may be a reference to some themes of Deep Space Nine that could be considered liberal.) Francine, however, seems to like it. To further add to the irony, the plot of this episode is actually similar to the DS9 three-episode arc where Kira Nerys was the surrogate mother of Kirayoshi O'Brien.
- Stan accidentally kills a bald eagle and tells Steve to ask Donovan McNabb to autograph it.
- "Liberty Belle," the name given for Greg and Terry's baby by Stan during his kidnapping of her, is also the name of a DC Comics superheroine, Liberty Belle and Blossom's hero-self in The Powerpuff Girls.
- Stan refers to "horses eating each other". This is one of the signs of foreshadowing in Shakespeare's play Macbeth.
- When Stan discovers that Francine is being a surrogate for Greg and Terry, he begins to attack them, but Greg and Terry dodge him by dancing a reference to West Side Story where rival gangs dance/fight in the streets of New York City.
| Preceded by “42-Year-Old Virgin” |
American Dad! episodes | Followed by “The Most Adequate Christmas Ever” |
