Peter's Cheating Helps Their Marriage

Family Guy, S11E14

Peter got sued for stealing someone's property and the financial loss made it necessary for Lois to take up a job.  She thought she was getting an opportunity to do voice-over work, but it was only a job for phone sex.  Lois eventually got used to it, but she was shocked and hurt when Peter became one of her customers and seemed to get emotionally attached to her persona "Classy."

Somehow Lois getting into the sex industry didn't seem outrageous.  After all, being married to Peter is expensive with all of the random damages and fees that he builds up from his day-to-day mischief.  She basically needs to do whatever she can do to keep the family afloat, even if it's catering to people who need sexual relief over the phone.  Naturally, Lois didn't take too long to get the hang of it, nor even let her family know what she was doing.  I guess that's why she couldn't bust Peter right away because she would have to admit that she was doing phone sex in the first place.

As for Peter's infatuation with her over the phone, I felt like it did dance the line between cheating and being completely linked to Lois for life.  I would probably just call it a technical cheating because Peter was subconsciously falling for his own wife.  I do think it's weird that he would so quickly want to meet the woman and commit adultery, though.  Even if he felt strongly about her, he should have given it some time.  No wonder Lois wanted to fool him when he was being so impulsive about throwing their marriage away (as far as he knew).  Sure Lois was being distant lately, but that was no excuse for him to prepare to leave his family after what seem like a few phone calls.

However, I liked how Lois and Peter came to terms with the odd situation.  Sometimes, because Peter is always making jokes about Lois being old and unattractive, I forget that Peter loves Lois at all.  They have been married for over a decade, so they shouldn't be without their quarrels or complaints about one another.  Still, I liked seeing them reaffirm their feelings for each other in this story, no matter how twisted it was that Peter thought he was actually cheating on her.  For this show, it was sort of sweet that Peter fell in love with her voice and knew deep in his heart that the owner of the voice was the one that he was meant to be with.  It makes me wish that they had more sweet moments like that more often.

As for the jokes in this episode, there weren't many that I liked.  One that did work for me was when there was a cutaway to a man on a plane who decided to go back to coughing in a very annoying way when his magazine had a toenail in it.  It was funny that he grabbed a random baby and coughed in its face too.  I like how this was an exaggerated version of those types of people who seem to have coughing fits just when they happened to be trapped in a plane for a few hours.

Another that I liked was when Lois talked about Peter being in his anime phase.  It's not the first time that I've seen a cartoon poke fun at anime, but I still liked seeing Peter being drawn in a different way.  He had those too-shiny eyes and his body was all shaped like a big block.  He looked ridiculous, and I liked it.  I guess I enjoyed it because it was just so random for what was going on, like most good cutaways.

The last joke that I liked was when Peter was saying goodbye to his kids.  When he got to Chris he was unexpectedly abrupt with him:

Chris, people are gonna tell you you're stupid and that you're no good.

He totally left him hanging just like that.  Wow.  If those were the last words my father said to me, I'd be so struggling with that the rest of my life.   It was even funnier because he wasn't as mean with the other two (I mean, him farting on Meg is basically how he shows his love for her).

This was a pretty good episode.  There wasn't anything too gross and irritating about it, so I liked it a lot better than most stories I've seen.  Also, this was an unusually sweet story between Peter and Lois that involved being unfaithful.  It's strange that their night started off as Peter planning to go to bed with a woman he just met and Lois coming to see if her husband was going to go that far.  Instead of having a horrible and depressing ending, it turned out to make Peter and Lois stronger for the experience.  They may not be the sweetest couple in the cartoon world, but at least they do take the time every once in a while to remind us why the two of them have bothered to get married in the first place.

Everyone Has A Story, But Not A Good One

Family Guy, S11E12

The show did a parody of the movie Valentine's Day, and showed different stories about each of the characters on this holiday.  Lois and Peter spent the day in bed, Quagmire got turned into a woman, Meg went out with a boy she met online, Stewie went back in time to the Summer of Love, Stewie gathered together all of Brian's ex girlfriends to find out what Brian's problem was, Herbert helped his grand-niece talk to Chris, and Mayor West found out Carol was seeing another mayor.

I enjoyed the beginning of this episode that was made to be like a trailer of the movie they were spoofing.  It's nothing new, but I still like this setup each time I see in a show (usually, anyway).  One of my favorite parts of that was when it said "Comes more evidence of Family Guy's decline."  I tend to like their ironic jokes like that.

There were a lot of stories packed into one episode, but none of them were particularly great.  The top ones for me were Stewie's story, Brian's story, and Meg's story.  If I had to pick the most interesting of those three, it would be Meg's simply because it was a good story for her when you consider how most of Meg's romantic endeavors go.

Meg's date seemed to be going well at the beginning, which could only mean that something bad had to happen.  However, Meg turned lemons into lemonade when she didn't want to end her date just because she was down a kidney and bleeding everywhere.  Talk about low standards/desperation.  I was happy, though, to see that Meg had a pretty great day with Toby.  They had lunch, went ice skating, got caricatures done (Meg was drawn as a pile of poo, but I could let that slide), she got her kidney back as a present, and she got a kiss.  Toby is a criminal, for sure, but at least he's sort of a gentleman (though he is kinda gross using a dead, shriveled conjoined twin as a bookmark--eww).  Sadly, Meg couldn't do much better than him, but at least he seemed genuinely into her.  I liked seeing Meg have a relatively happy end for once, instead of her looking like a pathetic psycho.

Stewie's story where he kissed his own mother as a baby wasn't surprising (as I figured it might be her), but it does speak to the idea that Stewie has a lot of mother issues.  He already has this desire to dispose of her (though not so much lately), and now he has to deal with the fact he's a little attracted to her.  It just makes me wonder how messed up Stewie is going to be when he finally gets to puberty.

I thought that Brian's story, while grabbing my attention more than others, was a waste of time.  I don't know why Stewie would think he needed to gather all of Brian's exes to know what the problem with Brian is.  It's basically everything with Brian is wrong.  Stewie's been there through all of his failures, most of them fizzling out because Brian's ego got in the way or his mountain of lies finally collapsed.  I couldn't imagine any of them saying something redeeming about Brian because he's always been the worst lover/boyfriend.  Hopefully Stewie was really just gathering them for his own amusement to make fun of Brian's many shortcomings.   Or perhaps he knew that the riot of exes he sent after Brian would help him end up in bed with a bunch of different girls.  I surely didn't expect that.  That was the biggest surprise out of all the stories.  More random to me than Quagmire turning into a woman.  Don't know why anyone in their right mind would sleep with an asshole like Brian.

This episode was only okay because I thought it was going to be good since I enjoy spoofs.  The stories weren't terrible, but they definitely could have been funnier.  I appreciate that they didn't do a single Valentine's story and tried to do several.  It just would have been a bonus if most of the stories were really memorable and a little less uneventful.

Stewie Versus Sheldon

Family Guy, S11E06

Lois started acting like a 20-year old after Peter gave a speech at her birthday party that compared her to an old horse.  Peter was enjoying the perks of having a "younger wife" until he couldn't keep up with Lois' wild new behavior.  Stewie also got a new pet turtle who turned out to be stirring up trouble and trying to murder him.

This is far from the first time that Peter has mentioned in a not so tactful way that Lois is getting older.  So I didn't really have much of an reaction to his insensitive speech because that's what Peter does all the time.  I also didn't feel too surprised that Lois handled the problem in an extreme way because she's shown many times that she has a wild side.  The best part of the story besides when Peter decided to stop being a dick and appreciate Lois for the mature woman she has become was just seeing Peter so ragged from hanging out with Lois night after night.  He was having fun with her new attitude until his old body couldn't keep up.  Serves his ass right.  I could have been completely pleased with this story had Peter not went back to his regular jerk of a self by telling Lois to get out because she was older than 35.  There are only so many times I can watch a husband give shit to his wife about being old before the joke because tired and annoying.  We're definitely at that point by now.

Also, in that story, there was another cutaway to a Conway Twitty video.  I groaned more than usual to see the return of this gag because he was sporting some Bieber hair this time.  I don't know if it was because it was digitally altered so badly that I was annoyed or just annoyed that they would even try to put that on him.  Either way, it wasn't funny and I'm over those Conway Twitty jokes too.

The best part of the episode was definitely that Stewie had taken in Sheldon.  We don't know why the turtle was so damn evil, but it was pretty hilarious is a creepy way.  I would have never expected a little thing like that to be knocking over bookshelves and snapping seagulls' necks.  You would think that with Stewie being a bit of an evil person himself that he and the turtle would get along great, but I guess that just gave them a reason to have a fight.  I liked that Stewie was nearly bested by Sheldon (of all the people he's managed to defeat and a little turtle takes him down??), but at the end Super Mario appears out of nowhere and stomps on Sheldon.  And that was it.  Because it was Mario and very random, I had to laugh and enjoy that convenient conclusion to their fight.  Actually, that was the best ending I could think of.  After all, either Stewie or Sheldon would have had to kill the other.  I'm sure it wouldn't have ended up being funnier than a plumber dropping down on the turtle.  I just wonder if non-Mario fans liked that ending, though.

There were a few cutaways that I liked.  The first was when Stewie, as a king, was being mocked by a court jester and his response to the jester was unexpected:

In my office.  Now.

I had thought he might say off with his head or something, but instead his reply was much more contemporary, so it was a good joke to me.

Another good cutaway was when Lois was being tricked by Peter with a fake grocery store.  I don't know why, but when she knocked it over and was just standing around in the middle of nowhere with these huge cutouts, including the clerk who had just been talking to her, I started laughing.  I guess the idea of someone going to such trouble to fool someone (and someone falling for said trick) was just too ridiculous to imagine.

The third cutaway I liked stared Johnny Depp in his popular role of Edward Scissorhands.  You knew that as soon as he held that baby that it wasn't going to end well, but it still managed to be funny.  Especially since it was the actual actor and he was saying all these assuring things before he came back in the room immediately to tell the couple that their baby was dead.  How sick, but how nice to see them referencing one of my favorite Johnny Depp movies.

The only other thing I thought was kinda funny was when Stewie received Rupert's head in a box and then got an additional box with a stranger's head in it.  I just liked how Stewie was clueless of the guy's identity and indifferent to his death.  I don't know what Sheldon was trying to achieve with that.

I liked this episode.  For a story where Peter was making Lois feel shitty, it didn't make me that angry, so I was able to enjoy the comedy of it all.  I loved seeing Stewie fight a new pet and just watching that sinister turtle walking slowly around doing devious things.  I'm almost a little disappointed that Mario got him because I would love a round two.  Sheldon would make an excellent rival to Stewie in the same way that Chicken is to Peter (except not nearly as frustrating to watch).

Ya'll Messed Up The Grinch Story

Family Guy, S11E05

The man responsible for shooting Joe and paralyzing him escaped from the police after finally being caught after 15 years, and Peter volunteered himself and Quagmire to help Joe find him and bring him to justice.

The moment that Joe started talking about Briggs, I was like um, I thought the damn Grinch was the one that put him in a wheelchair.  Family Guy, however, is pretty good at addressing new stories that contradict old ones, so Joe explained that the Grinch story was just a coverup for the real story.  Boo!  I loved that the Grinch was the one that hurt him.  With that in mind, I couldn't really get into this story where Joe was trying to find Briggs.  Instead, I was just hoping he would capture him quickly and perhaps that would lead to a better story.  No such luck.

I think I disliked the stripper club part the worst where we saw a pair of twins that were fathered by Quagmire.  Ugh.  The last thing I want to see is a female version of Quagmire grinding up a man, saying his catchphrase.  I really wish he would use a condom sometime and stop having so many random children all around the world.  It was also sick that Quagmire made Tanya spit up in the air and catch it back in her mouth.  So freaking gross.  I had to look away before she caught it because that's the kind of thing that sickens me even if it's not real.

Also, when Brian was freaking fondling Lois' breasts--come on!  He needs to cut that shit out!  I'm glad that Lois woke up and didn't just overlook him acting like such a pervert.  Man, they really need to get him a damn girlfriend so he can stop drooling over Lois.  It's like his obsession with her gets worse and worse.  I seriously don't want to see that part again.

If I had to pick the part that was the funniest, it might be when Joe had shot Briggs in the legs and saw that he had killed him instead of just wounded him.  Quagmire very casually just slid over Briggs' body with his foot and said they could just kick him into Mexico like he wasn't even a person.  That was so wrong.  It was also messed up that Joe just killed the guy with no repercussions, but I guess that's not really shocking where this show is concerned.  A lot of people die and the other characters simply shrug about it.

All in all, this wasn't one of my favorite episodes by far. I guess there wasn't much hope for it since it was centered around Joe in the first place.  I can't think of any episode off the top of my head that was good where he was the main focus.  I'd also like to see even less of Brian sleazing on Lois if possible.  If not, there needs to be another story where Peter kicks his ass because Brian crosses the line too much.  Wish it was funny when he did, but it's far from that.

Stewie Finds His Soulmate

Family Guy, S10E19

Lois got she and Peter separate beds after suffering another injury after he rolled over her in his sleep.  Peter, unable to sleep properly without someone to cuddle, asked Quagmire to be his substitute in that manner.  However, Peter started living with Quagmire completely, living his life with him in an intimate way that looked like they were a couple.  He finally went home after Lois agreed to sleep in the same bed with him and confessed that she missed cuddling with him too.  Stewie met his soul-mate with a wicked girl named Penelope.  Brian, after watching the news of the international terrors Stewie and Penelope had perpetrated together, told him that she was a bad influence on her and should stop seeing her.  When Stewie told Penelope about Brian's thoughts, she demanded that Stewie kill him.  Stewie couldn't do it, so Penelope came to do it herself.  After an intense battle, Stewie bid farewell to Penelope and admitted to Brian that he was right about her.

I had to agree with Lois' decision to not sleep with Peter in the same bed since he didn't seem to think her breaking numerous ribs was a problem, nor did the doctor want to admit that Peter had any fault in her injuries.  If that wasn't bad enough, he was really annoying with his plume pen writing at night where he would actually say "dip" each time he dipped his pen into the ink.  It might not have been a bad idea for her to get her own place entirely if he was going to be that obnoxious.

It was also smart of her to leave Peter be for a while after he decided to sleep with Quagmire.  It was kind of weird when they first laid together and Peter was taking off Quagmire's boxers with his foot.  At least let him take it off himself.  Eww.  But I think when Peter moved into Quagmire's and they had a montage about how their were interacting with each other every day, it was kind of sweet (if you imagined they were a couple).  It's funny that just snuggling in the same bed could make them that close. I could have stood to see more of how their relationship deepened (besides that "giggity band") before Lois came to get her man back.  I'm glad that Peter didn't make too much of a fuss about it since, as his wife, I would hope she would be his top choice for spooning.  I felt bad for Quagmire that he was stuck to Peter's back and crushed just like Lois had been at the beginning.  Not sure if I can call that karma or not.  Or ironic.  But it is a little funny.

Stewie's story was okay.  It was interesting to see him find another person like himself who was perhaps a bit more evil.  She, unlike Stewie, didn't have a dog best friend who could convince her to stop creating havoc for kicks.  I liked when Stewie had to make a 20s theme with his tidal wave destruction and he chose flappers dancing on surf boards on the waves.  That was cute.  I'm just surprised that Brian figured out what Stewie and Penelope were up to so quickly, seeing as they were doing everything by themselves.  It was even better when Stewie defended his actions by saying it was nothing new for him:

[Stewie] I’ve always been about world domination.  What the hell did you think I was talking about when I said, “Victory shall be mine”?

[Brian] You have not said that in a very long time.
[Stewie] Well, I’m back on it.

I laughed at that because I had forgotten that Stewie did use to say that.  This episode reminds me of when Stewie killed Lois (in a simulation) because Brian questioned whether he had gotten soft about being evil.  Truth be told, I don't miss that Stewie too much because he's funny enough without being a mastermind trying to take over the world.  With Brian usually by his side, there's hardly any time for him to be thinking about killing his mother and such.

It was cute when Stewie kept coming up behind Brian and trying to kill him different ways, but just couldn't kill him.  We've seen enough episodes to know that Stewie doesn't give a damn about anyone when push comes to shove unless it's Brian, so it would be a little out of his character for him to off Brian now, even when he met the love of his life.  It wasn't surprising that a girl  who surpassed Stewie in evil would go off to finish the job herself.  I liked that before she arrived, the mail carrier kept looking like he was listening in on Brian and Stewie's conversation and even waiting at the door to for them.  However, he had just been killed by Penelope and was standing there dead.  Nice.

What I noticed about the Stewie and Penelope fight was that she really came prepared.  I mean, she had all kinds of gadgets and weapons ready to slash and fry someone to death.   My favorite part of their fight was when Penelope shrunk a car and Stewie later threw it at her and enlarged it to full size while it was still in the air so it would fall on her.  Too much happened that I can remember it all, but I did like her blade in her shoe.  I just kept wondering when Stewie would reveal some weapon on himself because he was a little disadvantaged.  Finally, at the end he pulled out a knife from his ankle and told her to stay away from his dog.  Aww.  He does care.  Plus, Penelope kissed him and sent him flying so the cord around him would be tied around a light pole.  It's possible she might return one day.  But I kept wondering how Stewie would get down from there.  Then again, a baby like him that can fight on top of a moving truck is capable of anything.

It was stupid at the end they had Brian ask Meg about her day, but she just opened her mouth and no sound came out.  Come on now.  Stop shoving it our faces that you don't give a damn about Meg's character.  You might as well kill her off instead of treating her like a roach.  Seriously.  It's hardly funny anymore.  It's like that damn chicken Peter fought or those vaudeville guys.

Not the funniest episode, but not bad.  I wish I could have enjoyed the guest star, but I'm not too familiar with her work, so it wasn't anything special for me.  I did like to see that Stewie could fall in love for once, instead of watching Brian's many desperate one-night stands.  That's getting old.  I wish that there had been more jokes that I enjoyed, but I guess it the stories were interesting enough that it didn't matter too much.

Maybe Meg Should Have Let Peter Die

Family Guy, S10E18

Peter's newest adventure was to start his own children's show to fill the void made by his recently favorite show, Jolly Farms.  His show was certainly not anything close to being appropriate for children (with Peter at the head, it was more like for teenagers who never matured from grade school), but it was popular enough to incite a mob of kids to attack Lois after seeing her mocked on the show as a puppet.  After being treated so badly, Lois threw in the towel with warning him against stupidly dangerous things until Peter tried a comedy bit with a puma.  If it hadn't been for Meg who had shadowed Dr. Hartman, Peter would have died.  No one acknowledged that, mind you, and Peter and Lois came to an understanding about her nagging.

It was cute when Peter and Stewie seemed to be bonding over Jolly Farms.  I got my hopes up that they would be friends again like they were in another episode, but Peter's attention zeroed in on just the show itself.  I suppose him getting on TV again and acting like an ass was better than him doing something silly (and funnier) with his youngest son.  What a waste.  Peter basically does his own selfish thing 70% of the time.  Usually to spite Lois.

Also, it was a waste to see Meg learning under Dr. Hartman.  Not because he is such an incompetent doctor, but because Meg had a story where she gained enough medical skills to be useful in an emergency situation, but they refused to give her any credit for that.  I wouldn't mind if they praised Meg for just a second and then treated her like dirt as usual, but no one was even going to mention what Meg did at the end if she hadn't brought it up herself.  Even for Peter's family, that is low.  Why even bother to have a mini Meg story at all if you're going to pretend she's invisible in the end?  Just take the damn story out and have Peter rescued by the puma or something else idiotic.  Since it obviously didn't matter who prevented his death.

My favorite joke of the episode was the one about Evites.  I've never used that (nor had anyone send me one, thankfully), but I appreciated their overtone of how annoying and frivolous their service seems to be.  I really liked the jingle for it:

Tell a friend and then kill yourself.

 It's hard to be generally entertained when the theme of the story is "screw you, Lois!" and Peter is acting too much like an ass for me to ignore it and just have fun with it.  We really needed more of Peter's friends in the episode, and Brian and Stewie are always welcome.  What we don't need are the kind of episodes where Peter is off being a dick by himself basically--those usually have the least comedy.  And seriously, don't use Meg unless you're ready to admit she's not a ghost or something.  I'm getting tired of the "Meg is a worthless pariah" joke.

A Hollywood Agent Is A Meh Job

Episode 13, season 10, of Family Guy wasn't very interesting to me.  Peter decides to move to Hollywood to become Tom Tucker's agent.  I think it's crazy that Lois doesn't really put up much of a fight, but with Peter, why would you bother?  He'll do whatever he wants whenever he wants.  You could say the same about Homer Simpson, maybe, but I feel like Peter is even more selfish and random about the sorts of endeavors he choose to do.  Anyway, Peter ultimately drops Tom for James Woods (not him again--damnit!!), who later drops Peter.  It's amazing how boring his little time in Hollywood was.  There was nothing really glamorous or funny about it.

What was mildly brow-raising was Chris dating a girl that looked just like Lois.  Um...was this the week for mommy issues, Seth MacFarlane?  Lois is oblivious for a while until Bonnie points it out again (because when Stewie and Brian talk, you have to ignore them).  I'm surprised that things turned out all right without it getting too weird or emotions bubbling over dramatically like this show is known for.  However, all it took was a talk with Chris (about his girlfriend's infidelity), and Lois set him straight.  Huh.

The little twist that made me gasp (if it's a good Family Guy episode, there's at least two of them) was that Lindsay's rebound guy after Chris was Quagmire.  He had her dressed in Lois' clothes.  Oh, God.  I should have seen that coming, but I didn't.  And apparently he had been using Mort as a Lois substitute before her.  Man.  Quagmire is such a creeper.

I hate saying this, but we needed more Stewie and Brian.  Or Peter's adventure needs to be grander and stupider.  This one was just selfish and boring.  And we don't need any guest stars unless they are going to be in the cutaway scenes.  Please, Family Guy, no more James Woods!