Family Guy Talk

I… wow. I just… sometimes words fail me, you know? Everybody has their line with this show. And for me, I guess they crossed that line when one of the show's main characters was kidnapped and sold into the sex slave industry. For laughs.

 

To be fair, if the show tried to grapple with this issue in a serious way (the way it has recently tried to grapple with the ethics of the Iraq war, or with domestic abuse) the result would have been absolutely horrific. So maybe it's better that they played it for laughs? 

I mean, the problem is, this is a real thing that really happens. Women really are kidnapped and sold into sex slavery. The statistics on human trafficking are absolutely horrendous. I'm sure the show's creators are well aware of this. But is the audience? 

 

Okay, so, to judge the show on its own merits, regardless of my distaste for the subject, it was fairly competent. I had to roll my eyes at the fact that it heavily borrows from the movie Taken because, like… talk about the opposite of a timely, punchy reference. (Even when the movie was current, four years ago, it only received a 58% on RottenTomatoes.com.)

 

Also, it creates two bizarre call-backs, which are apparently unintentional? I am left to conclude that I have watched more Family Guy episodes than whoever wrote this script.

 

The first is the most obvious: Quagmire's line regarding the Asian sex slaves in his garage. (Something along the lines of, "You know that movie where Liam Neeson rescues his daughter from the kidnappers before they turn her into a sex slave? Those are the girls whose fathers didn't get them back." Sorry, I'm not having any luck Googling up the original.) This references both Taken and the sex slave industry, but from the other side. Didn't feel the need to bring that up in this episode, which is literally all about that? Well, okay.

 

And the second is the bit where Brian wants Stewie to put the trip on his card, but Stewie's like "I always feel that when we do that, I don't get paid back." But no mention of the epic beat-down when Stewie was collecting his $50 from Brian?

 

The biggest problem I had with this episode (aside from the fact that it parodies a movie I haven't seen and have no interest seeing) is that it never explains why everyone is trying so hard to get Meg back in the first place. You would think they would be all "Good riddance" at most, or completely fail to notice her absence at worst. 

Some episodes of Family Guy fail because they go too far in one weird, unpleasant direction or another. (Need I bring up the issue of the "very special Thanksgiving episode" that was all about the Iraq war? Ugh.) Other episodes fail because they bring nothing of interest to the table.

 

This was one of the latter.

Even the worst plot can be enlivened by funniness, or even an all-out wackiness extravaganza. (I'm thinking of jokes like the time Peter started laughing, and then his laughing turns edgy and harsh while he crawls towards the camera. I don't remember the episode or even the set-up, just that he was lying in bed alongside Lois at the time.) But this episode just marched along on auto-pilot. At the end it even tossed in a helping of "Mom's On Strike," a sitcom standard so trite I was hoping Brian would poke his head into frame and say, "Careful with that joke, it's an antique."

 

I was also a little surprised that the show went back to the Jolly Time well again. What a strange thing to keep bringing up. That kid's show, hosted by Mother Maggie, is practically attaining "giant angry chicken" status. Anyway, Mother Maggie quits, for reasons that don't make sense in a way that I found very distracting. 

 

After all, you can have fertility treatments AND keep working. Obviously if the treatments worked, Maggie might have to leave the show after five or six months. Or would she? It seems like if there's any show where it would be okay to be visibly pregnant, it would be a kid's show. At any rate, those considerations would be about a year off, given that most couples find that fertility treatments take several months to really "stick." (Remember, you only get one shot at it a month. Unless you're doing IVF of course.)

 

Do the show's creators really know so little about how the human body works? And if you have so little life experience, wouldn't your show's fact checker speak up? Or was this originally going to be a "hormone treatments" joke implying that Mother Maggie was transgender and in transition, a joke which had to be pulled from the script at the last minute?

 

By the time I had come to this conclusion, the episode was almost over and I was like, "Oh, is Peter done playing Krusty the Klown?" And then it was time for American Dad. The end.

 

I really need to watch this episode again in order to appreciate it properly. The entire time I was watching it, I kept absent-mindedly assuming that the plot had rambled off the rails, as it always does. And then time after time I was startled to suddenly realize that its plot had actually stayed right on track, even meandering off and connecting in some directions I didn't expect. It says something about this show, that it's surprising when it turns out a well plotted episode. Has the whole world gone topsy-turvy?

There were a lot of elements of last night's show that I didn't like, but at least it managed to veer away from being overly preachy (unlike so many other episodes this season). 

 

When Lois in this episode begins a tirade about obesity, it's hard not to wonder about her own culpability here. Isn't she the one who fixes all the meals in the Griffin household? Maybe she should choose some healthier fare for Peter and Chris? I was waiting for this to devolve into another sanctimonious tirade in one direction or another. Instead, the episode sent them both off to fat camp. I feel like this let Lois off the hook a little too easily, but whatever.

 

Family Guy has often played fatness for a laugh, like the episode when Peter suddenly realizes that he is overweight. (The gag where Brian throws things into orbit around Peter is completely over-the-top, if funny. Particularly Peter's reaction to the television as it rotates around his midsection.)

 

You can imagine my surprise when that turns out to be a relevant thought. If you will recall, the episode where Peter discovers that he's fat is also the episode where Lois' brother Patrick escapes from the mental institution and begins his reign as the Fat Guy Strangler. Lo and behold, he's the one responsible for the deaths in this one. OR IS HE.

 

I didn't connect with this plot as much as I did with the B Plot, in which Stewie develops an irrational (yet developmentally accurate) fear of a Queen album cover. Brian, naturally, uses this to torture Stewie. At first, I thought that it was too pat that Peter needed fifty bucks, and Brian gave it to him in exchange for the Queen album. 

 

Fifty dollars being, of course, the exact amount that Brian lost on a bet, and which Stewie beat Brian mercilessly over. Now I wonder, was this a deliberate reference, to make us feel less bad about Brian spending so much time scaring a baby? If so: well played! 

I suppose it's a function of the fact that Rhode Island is… well, an island… that there have been so many fishing-related Family Guy episodes. I can think of three off the top of my head, not to mention the recurring character of the Sea Captain. 

 

Nevertheless, there are so many things to do in the world, sometimes it feels a little lazy for them to keep going back to the same well. Heck, last night American Dad climbed Mount Kilimanjaro (and the artwork for that location was INCREDIBLE). But here we are on a show which is in every way inferior to American Dad, and we're fishing again.

How much you like this episode will, I suspect, hinge on how much you like Ricky Gervais. The episode is very much about Gervais' schtick, which - again - I thought was funnier on American Dad when he had a brief appearance as the guy in a medieval suit of armor who had been guarding Stan's secret underground passageway for decades.

 

I hate puns, and even making it a joke about how puns are really bad can't help the fact that you're still basing everything on a lot of bad puns. So… I was not particularly enchanted with this one. 

 

I was more fascinated by the "B plot," where Brian discovers that Stewie's daycare is the worst place ever. But he decides to pretend it's fine, because the woman in charge of the day care is hot and Brian wants to sexy time with her. 

 

This plot went in some pretty dark, uncomfortable directions in order to get a laugh (what is that hobo going to do with that kid?) and I found the process itself fascinating. Not necessarily always funny, but I was spellbound by waiting to see how much farther Family Guy would push it. In this sub-plot it rivaled several South Park episodes, and that's a real compliment. 

 

It was blunter than it had to be, when Brian meets the girl's boyfriend and we immediately cut to the cops arresting her. This storyline would have been better if it could have been fleshed out into a full episode. Then again, maybe we've had enough episodes about how Brian is a jerk and gets even more jerkish around women. (I'm reminded of the Cleveland Show joke from earlier on the same night, "Don't worry, we're not going to show it to you.")