Francine can’t help but notice that Greg hasn’t been the same on the news after Terry dumped him, becoming determined to find him a new man in the process. Her and Stan’s efforts might be pretty disastrous, but they end up revealing that Greg is actually missing a co-host on the air more than a life partner at the moment. It’s only a few Drew Barrymore film titles later until Greg and Francine realize they’ve got glowing chemistry, with her stepping in to fill Terry’s new shoes.

Okay, I’m all for a forward-moving Francine episode — hell, the tumultuous ride that is “Fartbreak Hotel” is one of the series’ strongest episodes in my opinion — but goddamn if I wasn’t all sorts of excited for Roger’s barely-a-plot of a story! He doesn’t even appear in the first act, but Roger finds himself obsessing over a fictional boy from the phone-based ‘90s game, Dream Phone, and — really, do you need to hear anything more than that?

It doesn’t hurt that I actually remember Dream Phone (and its commercial), but Roger’s story absolutely worked for me here. It’s not long after he “meets” Dylan that he’s launching into a Lisa Frank dripping dream sequence that’s towing the line in explicitness. Roger’s manic nature is one of my favorite things about him, so his ability to completely submit to what’s more or less a trading card of a fake boy is perfectly in character. This is someone after all who’s constantly transforming into fictitious personae, almost like a roving, belligerent, alcoholic version of Dream Phone himself. Steve pumping up Dream Phone’s narrative to satisfy his own imagination, with him being on the prowl of the Land Line Strangler is also perfect stuff, acting as icing on the cake to a plotline that’s already absurd enough.

Naturally the next course of action is for Roger to play this game to exhaustion, hoping to get a call from Dylan and realize this romance, just like so many teen girls from the ‘90s. “Anchorfran” bucks expectations here surprisingly early by addressing how silly it is for Roger to be pining over a photo, and escalates things rather quickly with Roger, Steve, and Hailey going on a road trip to track down the model that posed for the card. It’s insane behavior that’s only further underlined by the soundtrack to their madness.

I could see the entire episode being set around the board game, so kudos to them for pushing this further. The ending to all of this, albeit brief, is a great button to finish it off on. Darker American Dad! is always better in my opinion, and this one goes to some delightfully twisted places (i.e. homicide), giving the gang’s pump-up music a new jaded connotation.