When a Stan Loves a Woman

Infobox American Dad! episode
Title =When a Stan Loves a Woman
Series =American Dad!


Caption =
Season =2
Episode =16
Airdate =April 29, 2007
Production =2AJN23
Writer =
Director =
Guests =
newspaper_headline = "Airlines to Screen Emotional Baggage"
Episode list =List of American Dad! episodes
Season list = Infobox_American_Dad!_Season_2
Prev =Four Little Words
Next =I Can't Stan You

__NOTOC__"When a Stan Loves a Woman" is a second season episode of the animated series "American Dad!". It originally aired on FOX on April 29, 2007.

Plot

Stan visits Francine's sex garden, which contains a rose bush for every man she's ever had sex with...and which turns out to be the biggest sex garden in North America (featured on the cover of "Sex Garden" magazine). Stan, who has never had sex with anyone but Francine in his life, becomes so disturbed by this that he cannot stand having sex with Francine and begins to experience erectile dysfunction. Francine tells him that though she has had sex with numerous men, she never loved any of them but Stan, and that sex with someone you do not love is no big deal, and even suggests that he have sex with another woman so that he can see that. He refuses, saying that even with her permission he cannot cheat on her. She then legally divorces Stan, so that he can have sex with another woman and the two can then remarry.

Stan goes out clubbing with Roger, who has mastered the ability to attract floozies who he treats like dirt; however, Stan finds no success and leaves. Soon after, he goes to the shooting range where he gets into a competition with a woman named Joanna over who is better with firearms; the event culminates with them shooting each other, then going out to dinner (both were wearing bullet proof vests). They have a romantic evening, which Stan then goes home and tells Francine about. When she objects, saying he is just supposed to have meaningless sex with another woman, he explains he's "easing into it." As Joanna calls him on the phone and he goes on picnics with her, Francine begins to realize that Stan is not so much interested in sleeping with Joanna as he is falling in love with her, and becomes worried. To her horror, Stan and Joanna wind up spontaneously getting married, which Stan justifies by pointing out that they are, technically, divorced.

When Joanna and Stan go on their "honeymoon," Francine is determined to stop them and rushes to the hotel. However, after searching all the rooms with occupants named "Smith," she cannot find them (they switched rooms with someone else). However, just as Stan is about to start having sex with Joanna, he is shown hesitating.

Meanwhile, Francine is in the bar, depressed that she is now single and will have to endure the sleazy men that come with it. However, Stan shows up, rescuing her from one such sleazy man, and tells Francine that, as he was about to have sex with Joanna, all he was able to think about was her. Francine is overjoyed that Stan did not sleep with Joanna, and tells Stan she now realizes how he felt when he saw her giant sex garden. However, Stan then tells her that he "did" sleep with Joanna---five times, in fact---but happily tells Francine that, as she said, having sex with someone you don't love was completely meaningless. Francine is stunned.

Meanwhile, Steve tries a new energy drink of Hayley's, and quickly becomes addicted to it. As he runs out of money, he resorts to begging, panhandling and then conning, as he tricks his friends to paying him for fake "Battlestar Gallactica On Ice" tickets. Later the friends hold an intervention for him---where they beat him senseless as revenge. Steve then goes to live with Joanna, who got primary custody of Steve---as well as most of the Smith's possessions---in the divorce proceedings with Stan.

Notes

*Joanna is the third wife Stan has had in the series, the others being Francine and "Thundercat" (see "Stan of Arabia").
*When beating Steve, Barry comments that they should kill the rest of the Smith clan, crazily screaming "Kill them all!" This recalls the episode "With Friends Like Steve's," which reveals him to be a psychopath.
*In the earlier episode Not Particularly Desperate Housewives the "LadyBugs" look down on Francine due to her normal boring uneventful life, when in fact this episode clearly shows that Francine has most likely had more sexual encouters then anyone in the entire U.S. Most, if not all of these encounters, probably happened before she married Stan, and that her normal life came from a lack of meaningful events since her marriage.
*Steve's addiction to the energy drink is strikingly similar to a methamphedemine addition. This includes his increased energy, fascination with assembling and disassembling objects, jaw clenching, skin picking, and sleeplessness. His Japanese friend even says he's "chasing the orange dragon", referring to the slang term for inhaling drugs.

Cultural references

*This episode's title is a play on the song and/or film "When a Man Loves a Woman".
*The song "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by C+C Music Factory is played when Steve was dancing on the kitchen table.
*References are made to the movies: "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", "Unbreakable", "The Sixth Sense" and "The Usual Suspects". Since Stan vowed never to reveal the true endings of "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable", this would imply he's a fan of M. Night Shyamalan. He however mixes up the ending of "The Usual Suspects" with that of "The Sixth Sense", but it might suggest that he really "did" keep the latter's ending a secret to those who haven't seen it.
*Stan says his penis is "not a dog. It's Batman".