Review: Family Guy “Dog Bites Bear”

Episode 300 includes the death of a long-standing character.

Overview (Spoilers):

Discourse between friends during a marathon of Fast and the Furious movies leads to a drunk Brian savagely murdering Stewie’s long-time best friend, Rupert.  When Stewie goes on a journey to the mountains of Vermont to spread Rupert’s ashes, Brian follows to make things right.  The truth comes out that Brian murdered Rupert in a rage of jealousy which divides the two further, resulting in Stewie breaking his ankle.  Brian carries Stewie the rest of the way, and the old friends make amends.  Brian, in the end, finds Stewie a new Rupert, and the three are all closed for it.

Meanwhile, Peter meets his long-time idol Booberry, the breakfast cereal mascot.  After shaking his hand, Peter makes a vow never to wash his hand again.  It takes the deliberate planning of Lois and Peter’s friends to get his hand clean.

Our Take:

Happy 300 episodes to Family Guy, this is a significant milestone that only deserved animated series could hope to earn.  Not many people expected Family Guy to last this long when it first arrived on Fox in 1999 but, here we are, and somehow they have managed to keep the show fresh and relevant.

Was killing off Rupert, the long-standing witness of everything that has happened in 300 episodes a metaphor from the writers that they are afraid to let go?  Probably not, in fact, there was nothing that deep or original about this particular episode.  From the moment you realise that Stewie is headed off to the mountains, you can pretty much predict the rest of the episode from there.

Peter’s side-plot about meeting Booberry was not much better.  Out of all of the pop culture icons that Peter has met over the years, Booberry is not a high-profile reason to sacrifice bodily hygiene.  I hope that after 300 episodes that the writers are not running low on references, as they do tend to cram as many in as they can.  And, Peter’s story ended as quickly as it began, and we gained hardly anything from it.

I do not want to come off as too harsh on such an important milestone episode so, I will add a couple of bonus points for the many years of laughs and entertainment.  Also, watching Peter Griffin play out as Deadpool was an enjoyable moment for me, and worth the watch.

Score
6/10