S3·E14 An Apocalypse to Remember

Episode recap

In this episode of American Dad!, Stan arrives late to a Central Intelligence Agency nuclear drill and mistakenly believes that it is real. Convinced that an actual emergency is underway, Stan makes the decision to move his family away from their home and into the mountains in order to survive what he believes is the apocalypse.

After relocating to the mountains, Stan eventually realizes that he made a mistake and that the nuclear event was only a drill. However, rather than immediately clearing up the misunderstanding, Stan finds that he enjoys the attention and appreciation he is receiving from his family as a result of their survival efforts. Because he likes this dynamic so much, he chooses to keep the truth from them and continues the ruse.

The deception comes to an end when the family encounters a mountain man. Through this meeting, the family learns the actual truth about the situation, leaving Stan with some explaining to do for deceiving them about the fake apocalypse.