This is going to be a difficult episode for me to review, because apparently it wasn't very memorable. Meaning, I sat down to write this review, and realized that I didn't remember the episode. I hadn't been drinking, and I wasn't engaged in another project while I watched it; I have no excuse. 

 

I even took notes, but not very helpful ones. I took five notes, and none of them has anything to do with the plot, or the episode as a whole:

 

1. The joke about the way that every pizza place ruins salad in the exact same way was hilarious. They killed me with the final flourish about setting the lasagna pan of salad atop a stack of hot pizza boxes!

2. The contents of an old person's fridge: eye drops, baking soda, batteries, and film.

 

3. This episode features a surprisingly accurate portrayal of knitting. As a knitter, I appreciate it. Often when someone is knitting on television, they are just stabbing at a finished afghan with a single knitting needle like a crochet hook, or just vaguely moving their hands around. But you could even tell what Barbara Pewterschmidt was working on - unless I miss my guess, a scarf in mistake rib. Nice work on the knitting!

 

4. Joe's Fiona Apple tribute video was as disturbing as it was funny.

 

5. The "guy who was too happy about not having died on 9/11" caught my attention. As you may know, Seth MacFarlane didn't die on 9/11, despite being scheduled to fly on American Airlines flight 11. MacFarlane was hungover and had the wrong departure time, and arrived at the airport ten minutes too late to catch his flight. Fifteen minutes later, the flight was hijacked and flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

 

MacFarlane has since downplayed his experience, saying that it didn't really affect him because he didn't hear about it until much later, and so forth. But I think we can reasonably assume that MacFarlane is pretty happy not to have been hijacked and flown into the Twin Towers. And that he is probably well aware that you can't really go around saying that kind of thing without looking like a huuuuuuuge a-hole. (I too am glad that he didn't die on 9/11, despite the fact that I sometimes get bitchy when the episodes don't live up to their expectations.)

 

So there you have it. I had to actually look this episode up on Wikipedia to even remember what it was about. Oh yeah: Carter Pewterschmidt is forced into retirement. Now I remember. (Wait… no I don't.) Does it really matter? This episode had some funny bits and some boring bits. There ya go.