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.

Rallo, The Wingman

The Cleveland Show, S04E03

Holt befriend Rallo and paid him to help him get ladies.  Cleveland, Lester, and Tim opened a second Broken Stool in the airport on behalf of Gus and were terrified that Gus would kill them if it wasn't successful.

I guess I liked that this was an episode around Thanksgiving time, but there wasn't too much about the actual holiday in either stories.  After all, they've already done a Thanksgiving story before that was pretty memorable (not in a good way because who wouldn't like to forget that Auntie Mama and Freight Train got it on?), so I don't see it necessary for them to outdo what they've already done.  Overall, it wasn't the best stories I've seen on this show, but it wasn't too bad.

I didn't like the story about Cleveland wanting to set up another bar.  I did like, however, how the story started with Holt rushing to make his flight and the airport trying its best to help him get to the gate in time.  How great would that be if that was reality?  I hate flying so much, so it was funny to see the staff letting Cleveland and company bypass security and to see the lady at the gate comforting Holt when she told him he had just missed his flight.  It would be impossible for all airport personnel to accommodate all people who weren't able to get to their flights in time, but it would be nice if there was an ounce of compassion about someone desperately trying to not waste time and money by missing a flight.  I don't think you can overdo the jokes about how bad it is to fly in America because it's a wonder why anyone would want to travel that way if it wasn't necessary.

The rest of the story was pretty boring with Cleveland getting drunk and taking a plane out until it ran out of fuel.   I can't really think of how that story could have taken a better route to comedy, but it surely wasn't by making Cleveland nearly die in a plane crash.  I'm also not sure how it was that no one at all knew it was him that stole and destroyed a plane.  Anyway, there wasn't one second that Cleveland and the others got to sell even one drink, so it made his endeavor really pointless.  Unless you want to count that Holt got to use his new "swinging skills" to save Cleveland.

Now Holt and Rallo's story was a lot better, but it wasn't incredible.  I liked that before Cleveland had to look after him, Rallo was watching something called "Mystery Science Magic Johnson Theater 3000."  A very funny blend of two very different things.  It was little funny to see instead of robots (or whatever those things were on that show) these ghetto-sounding guys were shouting throughout the movie, but it was even better that Rallo was annoyed by it:

Y'all shut up!  I'm trying to watch a movie!

I think that was my favorite thing Rallo had said in this episode.  I also enjoyed when he was trying to get Holt to stop singing about how he was paying for a kid for sex and other easily misinterpreted lines.   But the only other thing that was worth mentioning was when Rallo was sick of Holt's dad calling them maggots (and generally being a dick):

[Rallo] You know what--you're a maggot!
[Gasps] [Holt's Dad] I am a human being.

I just love that Rallo had had it with that guy and wasn't about to listen to him call anyone a maggot again.  He is just the coolest little kid around (definitely within Seth MacFarlane world).

This episode was only okay because it featured Rallo taking someone under his wing.  There was minimum Junior, which was disappointing, but also minimum Roberta and Donna, so that was ultimately a plus.  I don't know if I've ever really liked a story that was about Cleveland and his friends getting into some stupid business thing or scheme, but I certainly didn't like this one.  Or maybe I just wish the scheme was a little better attempted next time.  Otherwise, fill that time with more Rallo because I can't get enough of him.