Meg Gets "Taken"

Family Guy, S10E20

Meg went overseas to Paris with a friend and got kidnapped by human smuggling group.  Brian and Stewie went to save her, going through many typical action movie steps before they do so.  Meg almost had a terrible thing turn into a wonderful dream, but it was literally blown up in front of her face before that could happen.

For a Meg story, which are rarer in these days, I wasn't expecting much, but it turned out to be a spoof of the movie Taken, which made it a lot more interesting.  I had a feeling it was based on that story when Meg and Ruth got in the car with a dubious stranger, but as soon as I saw the place that she and Meg were staying, I instantly knew it had to be going down that road.  It's a little exciting to watch a spoof  that I recognize on any of the Seth MacFarlane shows because I feel like I don't know even a fourth of the movie references they make.

I liked that when Peter got a call from Meg as she was getting kidnapped, Peter realistically told the man on the phone that he would never be able to find him and told Lois that Meg was dead.  Even for this show, no one would have been able to believe that Peter would have the skills to rescue Meg in a foreign country he's never been to.  I actually thought they were going to be cruel enough to just let Meg be, but thankfully Brian seems to have a bit of a soft spot when it comes to Meg (he's about the only one), and he got Stewie to come with him to get her.  When I saw that Stewie was on the job, I knew that they would be able to successfully get Meg back.  Plus, it also meant that this was more of a Brian and Stewie story than Meg, really, so it wasn't going to be as bad.

Most of the jokes, however, weren't that great while they were finding out information about where Meg had been taken.  They weren't necessarily bad, but they didn't make me laugh either.  My favorite joke was when Brian and Stewie stole a car and it had "car chase GPS."  That was a cool way to mock the typical development of most car chases in any given action movie.  If there was such a car that had that, it would be pretty cool.  I mean, most people would crash within a few minutes of attempting most of things that people try in those sorts of scenes.

Because bad things always happen to Meg and it's treated like normal, I was a bit happy when her kidnapping turned into her being possibly engaged to a wealthy, handsome prince.  But I already knew that before their lips touched that Stewie was going to shoot him in the head.  There was no question in my mind.   I think Meg deserved a happier ending after all the shit she has to put up with her family, but of course, it wouldn't be funny in a horribly ironic way if Meg had her dreams come true.  At least Stewie wiped her mind (though not the part where she met the man of her dreams) and got her to safety.  Even with Peter poking fun at Meg that she got no mail while she was gone at the end, at least she was home in one piece.  I guess, this show can't be that heartless to her and have her abandoned somewhere.  No point in sending her somewhere exotic to be miserable when she can be miserable at home.

I think I liked the spoof element best in the episode, overall anything else.  It would have been great if they could have had better jokes, but it was at least nice to see a Meg-centered story where she wasn't treated too much like a lesser person.  Thank goodness for Brian who cares enough about Meg not to treat her life like garbage and for Stewie who is a bad ass skilled and equipped well enough to handle an international rescue.