Review: Family Guy “Follow the Money”

Hope you like run-on sentences!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Carter, his seemingly usual miserly self, sends Chris one dollar for his birthday. Naturally not pleased, Chris throws it on the ground to be picked up by Stewie, who uses it as a betting wager to keep Brian from drinking, then grabbed by Peter, who carries it through a fast food fueled drive to The Clam to make change for a drinking game to Tom Tucker, who puts it in a tip jar at a coffee place where Lois and Ernie the Giant Chicken meet before a pretty underdeveloped “Chick-Chicken Chick Fight”. This knocks over the tip jar and gets the dollar picked up by RJ the “No Way” guy, who loses it in the wind where it hits the helmets of Tomik and Bellgarde, the “Foreign guys who have been living in the United States almost long enough to sound American” guys. It then flies past several cutaways or one-shot gag characters (that I don’t even know how to look up the proper names for) until it’s picked up by a pigeon to Seamus the peg-limbed sailor, who takes this as a sign to ask Meg out (lord knows why).

Carter stops the house by to give Chris a frame for the dollar, which turns out to be a rare misprint and therefore extra valuable, so the two rush off in search of it not knowing it’s in Meg’s hat. Meg later uses the dollar at the convenience store, where Stewie busts Brian for buying booze (technically not for drinking, he says), but ends up getting the dollar back in change. The two arrive at Dr. Hartman’s house (with guest cameos from Cleveland Junior and Mr. Washee Washee). to get pills that will somehow curb Brian’s alcoholism, but bring along a vagrant who shoots up the place. A rat picks up the dollar off a table and carries it through town before getting picked up on hoverboard by the late, great, Mayor Adam West as he wipes out and does a fail. The dollar flutters over to the water and is picked up by Seamus again, seeing the number still on it and believing Meg to have rejected him. Also, Black Screaming Dolphins.

Seamus returns to the bar just in time for Peter and the guys to finish their drinking game, giving Peter the confidence to bone his wife. Jerome gives the dollar to Neil, who disdainfully puts a flower on a memorial bench for his mother. On a nearby bench, Seamus runs into Meg again to clear up that she still had his number and, after some chart and map consulting, she and Seamus begin their date. The dollar then hits the front of Peter’s car, lands in the driveway and is picked up by Bonny, who takes it to dinner with Joe, who gets change for it from Seamus again, who goes with Meg to a restaurant with Ida Quagmire and Ryan Reynolds performing. Seamus leaves the dollar in the tip jar for Ida, who takes it to a strip club where Connie D’Amico and Tracy Flannigan (mother of Brian’s son Dylan if you don’t remember) work. The dollar gets lost in the shuffle but is finally found by Carter and Chris through use of the black light. Unfortunately, the dollar is now worthless with the phone number on it, but the two join the rest of the cast in a selfie with Ellen DeGeneres.

OUR TAKE

Contrary to this chore of a description, I actually really appreciate this different approach to an episode. I was starting to think I had gotten spoiled by Rick and Morty and couldn’t really take something as baseline as this as it were, but luckily we have this. And the fact that this was just a Washington as opposed to a Benjamin is oddly significant in its insignificance. We’ve seen the show handle characters chasing and lusting after even a small amount of money that they deem valuable, but for everyone except Carter (who cares more about money than most of the cast) and later Chris, this was just a near worthless piece of paper passing through their lives. This allowed for a more free-flowing structure as it passed from hand to hand to mouth to face to the jar to land to air to sea and so on, allowing us to see characters act candidly in ways we don’t usually see. And the fact that the dollar is still worth one dollar is used well, showing it used as a well-meaning gesture, to express romantic interest, sexual interest, getting change, bargaining, showing power, and exchange for goods and services. A dollar comes and goes but if it could talk, it would say a lot.

And of course, THE REFERENCES. I mentioned most but some you just gotta watch to find. This wasn’t the much anticipated 300th episode, but it might be what was meant for it. Family Guy is not known for getting their anniversary episodes right on the dot, with Season 6’s “Stewie Kills Lois” two-parter being 102/103, and Season 11’s “Yug Ylimaf” only being 192. Oddly enough, this was similar to the ACTUAL 200th episode, a Valentine’s Day anthology, so who knows what our actual #300 will bring.

And speaking of Valentine’s, c’mon Ernie. You’ve got a loving wife and eggs about to hatch. Don’t jeopardize that with Lois of all people.