Yes, Chris Is An Idiot

Family Guy, S11E09

Chris caught Peter and Lois talking about how dumb he was, and they tried to rebuild his self-esteem by sending him to a camp.  Chris picked Space Camp, which was mistakenly put in his brochures to choose from, and he quickly found out that he was miserable there.  The family came to bring him home and got trapped in space when they toured an active space shuttle before leaving.

 Chris being dumb is nothing new.  There's been many episodes about him struggling in school and such, but this time he just got sent away to camp.  Even though he went to Space Camp, it still wasn't very interesting, overall.  I mean, it didn't even help that the family got sent into space by mistake.  That part just seemed really unlikely and too much of a stretch for me (which is saying a lot because Peter sent himself up into space at one point when he got free gasoline).  But I realize that their problem was just an excuse to show that Chris had learned something and wasn't as dumb as dirt.  That's all well and good, but it didn't do much for me in the comedy department.

The jokes didn't have much impact on me, but there were a few that stood out to me.  The first was the one about Nathaniel Hawthorne.  I did like that he remarked that he was writing stuff to ruin the ninth grade for everyone.  I'm pretty sure anyone who completed high school could relate to that.

The second was when Chris called from Space Camp and wanted to come home and Peter also called.  Apparently Stewie was bullying him at the gym.  I didn't expect it to be his own son, so that joke wasn't too bad either.

The last I thought that was semi-funny was when Peter was being passive-aggressive about his annoyance to come pick Chris up at camp:

We spent thousands of dollars to send you here and made two trips to Florida in four days.  I'm glad we had you.

Usually I don't like when Peter's being a backhanded asshole, but in this situation it worked.  I think because I can sort of imagine a lot of parents who think this sort of thing when they agree to retrieve their kids from camps and whatnot.  Personally, I would make his ass stay.  Or at least say something worse than Peter to make Chris feel bad about it.  Haha.

They poked some fun at two things that I approved of.  One was Bob's Burgers.  They were horrified that the picture of Bob was turned in for Chris's art project.  Sometimes I forget that they're on the same network because the shows are so different.  But it's nice that Family Guy can get around to mocking all of the cartoons on FOX and not just The Simpsons.  The second that they mocked was Russell Brand.  Can't stand his ass, and they made his success seem dependent on simply an accent rather than his talents.  Even if they were just kidding, I agree with that.

There were also some racist jokes that I didn't care for.  The one about not being the black guy to stay alive wasn't too bad, but I think the one about the Chinese guy in the Japanese company was as bad as I was hoping it wouldn't be.  Really?  We have to show a guy with the hat, the teeth, and the water buffalo?  But I guess if they want to make sure that it's seen as a joke, they needed to go a little over the top.  Still, it would have been nice for them to do the opposite of what I was thinking they would do.  

Last, I just wanted to say it was kinda gross that Chris wanted to watch Peter and Lois have sex.  Uh, eww!  Even if he was curious, it's so freaking creepy.  And he was being obvious about it by listening by the door (which they should have closed if they were going to bad mouth any of their kids--they should know by now that they don't have any privacy with kids floating around).

I didn't care for this episode too much.  The jokes weren't that great and it focused too much on Chris.  He's not particularly boring, but we have seen a few stories already about him being an idiot and proving that he's probably not as bad as at least his father.  I'm just thankful it wasn't a Meg episode--the last one made me content not to see anything about her for a good while.

Tanjoubi Omedetou, Archer!

This week's Archer was about the car he got for his birthday.  Well, it wasn't a bounty-hunting story, so I was happy enough.

I was surprised anyone even bothered to celebrate his day.  He's the king of assholes, but maybe he'd be so pissy and whiney about it that they figured it was easier to acknowledge his birth, rather than ignore it.  I almost thought Archer was going to be nice to Woodhouse for a change when he made him a special birthday breakfast.  Unfortunately, Archer went right back to being ungrateful after Woodhouse dropped confetti on top of the meal.  Oops...

So Mallory gets Archer an incredible car for his birthday.  Now wait a minute--isn't ISIS broke right now?  Where did that money come from?  No one brought it up in the episode, so I guess it was plausible that she could afford it.  Mallory warns him not to let it get stolen, but of course, it gets stolen as soon as Archer parks it.  He goes to Lana for help, and Pam and Cyril get involved too.  They plan to get information about his car by going to the Yakuza-run car races that Pam frequents.  Well, it's not that easy.  Not just because Archer thinks he can just go in there guns-a-blazing and get answers, but also because they don't steal cars like Archer's.  Oops again.

They get out alive, thanks to Pam's driving and some luck.  But Mallory shows up and lets Archer know that she was the one who stole his car to teach him a lesson.  This is the same lesson she taught him when Archer was a child and thought he had lost his bike she had given him.  Upon learning the truth, Archer seems to check out mentally and walks away from the group, singing to himself.  Wow.  We can hate Archer all we want, but Mallory does have a pretty big hand in creating that narcissistic, drunk bastard.  I felt bad for him, actually.  Mallory seemed like she beat him when he was younger for losing a bike she stole!  And she never returned it!  Geez, lady...  Good thing Archer is an only child (as far as we know).

Oh, and gotta love George Takei.  That gave that episode a little extra kick.  I generally like anything that has to do with Japanese people or culture.  I especially liked that Pam's racing nickname was "Shiro Kabucha," or the "White Pumpkin."  She thought it meant the "White Shadow."  With stuff like Google Translate at our fingertips, there's no need to be so ignorant of such things.  Come on.  But it was good for a laugh.

I'd enjoy George Takei's character coming back to get Pam one day.  That'd be cool.  Mallory shot at him, but we didn't actually see him die, so it's possible.  This is the 3rd Adam Reed show I've watched, so with him, you never know how the overall storyline will go.  Just going to have to see what happens next week.