Family Guy: Lois Kills Stewie - Part 2
By fred | November 12, 2007
(S06E05) Well, last week we had the 100th episode of the show, and as I explained in my review, while I thought it wasn’t anything “special” really, as an episode of Family Guy it was a good one, and that might just be all there is to care about in the end.
It was good, but it didn’t end. It was only part 1. This week we had part 2, so after Stewie killed Lois we were to see how she would kill him. And because of the way the first part went, I didn’t expect anything special about this episode, anything else than being a good and funny half-hour of television.
So I watched it, and while I would not call myself disappointed by the episode I thought it wasn’t really that good, or funny. As an episode alone, it was probably an okay-episode, nothing else. Compared to part 1, I’d have to say it was a disappointment. But let’s start with the end, because that’s the way things usually works, right?
So here’s a bit “twist” : this was all a simulation, none of what we saw was real. I won’t call it a pretty cheap move, but I fully agree with Bryan’s point of view on the whole thing : it felt indeed like a “giant middle finger“, but let’s be honest we all saw it coming. We could already suspect it from last week, because Lois revealed that Stewie tried to kill her.
From that point on, things couldn’t be the same on Family Guy, whether or not he was to be trialed, whether or not she was to kill him, things simply couldn’t stay as they used to be. Lois couldn’t just take her whole family and go home, knowing that the little Stewie once tried to kill her, no way. And there wasn’t many ways to get out of it, only one, in fact : that none of this was actually happening.
This is what this show is all about, this is how things works here. There are no such things as consequences or character development. It’s not new that things don’t really evolve as they would in reality in the world of cartoons, Maggie has been a baby for a few decades, Cartman and his friends have been eight years old or so for 10 years or so, and Bonnie (Joe’s wife) has been pregnant for an awful long time now, it always happens.
But on Family Guy, it goes further, with every episode being a succession of jokes without necessary the need for either a story or character development, and for certain none of what happens will stick around. So it wasn’t really a surprise, but I think we could have expected a bit more, maybe, for a special 100th episode.
Because in the end, while the first part last week was pretty funny, this one wasn’t. Sure, a few jokes worked — I really liked to way they recap last week’s episode, now that was good. Stewie falling asleep in the car and starting to shoot everywhere was hilarious, I loved the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes bit, and Peter’s reaction when he was in Lois’ body was only natural (and I assume they just triggered it again to switch back, and that Peter didn’t fight for some reason. I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better if from this point on, things occured as they did, only with Peter and Lois still not in their own bodies), and while it was more of a background thing I laughed when I saw how Cleveland’s dead body was “hidden” under the couch.
But overall it was disappointing, because even in a simulated world, in the universe of Family Guy, the way Lois got healed was really a non-sense. It felt like they need to have us believed she was actually dead, and then brought her back without having a real explanation for it. Just like the way she spend one year not knowing who she really was, just another cheap explanation for the whole thing that didn’t make any sense.
And besides that, the picking on Joe wasn’t really funny, the way Stewie got into the CIA and become President of the World was a bit too easy/quick, felt like another one of those quick things that just needed to happen but hadn’t been thought trough that much. And then, as a variation on the Peter versus the Giant Chicken we had Stewie and Lois to fight for some time, with a bit of The Matrix effects throw in…
Wake up, viewer. Nothing of this was real. The End.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Family Guy
