Family Guy: The Man With Two Brians
By fred | November 10, 2008
(S07E05) Except for a disappointing season premiere, this season has been on a roll so far and last week was your typical perfect episode of Family Guy, one filled with many jokes and pop references thrown all over the place as the show knows how to do so well. Sometime it’s been criticized for it, but I always thought that’s when the show is at its best, when it does what it knows to do best unlike trying to do what everybody else does.
You know, one story lasting the entire episode and where every jokes is part of that big picture. Which is what they did this week, the complete opposite of last week. In a structure which, to me, sounded much like something The Simpsons often do, we had a short (and very funny) story leading into the big story of the episode, the one that would last til the end of it.
The first story was obviously the Jackass parody, and it was one stupid gag after the other, and while I’ve never really been a fan of Jackass myself, this all worked very well and was really funny. Peter getting his head up-side down and throwing on Brian, Quagmire and the bees, everyone just hitting each other, and of course the big finale with Peter, The Greatest American Hero, was great.
But then it all led into what the actual story of this episode would be, ladies & gentlemen meet New Brian. Because “Old Brian” is just that, getting old, very old even, so Peter decided to bring a new dog in the house to take over, New Brian. New Brian is perfect, never does anything wrong, loves everyone, never gets annoyed or bothered by anything, in other words he is just boring.
Just like that long story was, boring. And sadly, except for a couple of cutaway jokes - that I didn’t even find funny - we didn’t had much to enjoy there. All that was left was to hope the end was near and wonder why the Hell no one did anything, reacting to New Brian being boring in the long run, or Brian being gone - right next door.
It wasn’t until the very end, when New Brian said how proud he was to have humped Rupert, Stewie’s best friend and Teddy Bear, that finally we got to laugh again, when Stewie was back to his true self, who he really is and why we all love him so much. Next shot, he was dragging a trash bag out, leaving a trail of blood behind it, and Peter found the “suicide” letter. Finally “Old Stewie” was back, and so were the laughs. Sadly, the episode was already over.
This episode was a real disappointment, which to me isn’t surprising as the show is clearly at its best when it’s not trying to come up with a story to fill the entire episode but simply sticks to what it does best, and knows to be hilarious. Let’s call that just a faux-pas, and hope next episode will be back on track, so we can laugh again…
What did you think of this episode ? Do you like to sing about farts ? Did you like New Brian, or were you happy to see him “gone” ? Is Stewie the best or what ? Let your voice be heard in the comments…
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Family Guy
