Dean Norris—best known for playing one of television’s greatest Hanks on AMC’s Breaking Bad—will be guest-starring on the November 10 episode of TBS’ American Dad. According to executive producer Matt Weitzman, Norris will be playing protagonist Stan Smith’s new boss-for-the-episode, the head of security for the community college where Stan’s daughter Hayley is a student.
The casting announcement obviously sends tremors into the very bedrock of American Dad canon. Why has Stan been given a leave of absence from his normal employer, the CIA? Will Norris’ character have any connection to the two guest stars his former co-star Bryan Cranston played in the show’s first and fifth seasons? Will the show’s producers stay close to type and cast Norris as an inquisitive, Javert-like figure, and if so, will he have some connection to Forest Whitaker’s recurring role as the suspicious Detectives Turlington? Will Roger do an Animal House thing, or is that completely played out? Questions abound.
In any case, as much as we love Norris, we’re glad that he’s only guest-starring and not permanently replacing Stan’s regular boss, Avery Bullock. American Dad can probably survive getting kicked to a new network, but nobody could come back from losing Patrick Stewart saying things like “Silence, man horse!”