Review: Family Guy “Three Directors”

I really need to watch Reservoir Dogs one of these days.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Peter introduces the premise for this anthology-style episode: Basically, the same story about Peter being fired will be told and retold in the signature directing styles of three well known Hollywood filmmakers. Which means more from the Force Ghost of Carrie Fisher, so that’s always fun.

First up, Quentin Tarantino. A black-suited, slicker version of Peter drives to the brewery in a rusty car with a nearly broken windshield while blasting Ides of March (at least that’s what the closed captions tell me that band is). He walks in and gets to work only to be stopped by a Uma Thurman-ized Angela, telling him he’s three hours late and to tell Christoph Waltz to tell him he’s fired. On the way out, Peter grabs a shining golden beer keg as payback. That evening at his house, Angela and a gunman shred him in bullets before she tells him his family’s dead and puts the final shot in his head herself. He wakes up from a coma (and stabs Dr. Hartman for extra Tarantino flair) before getting back to training from “a life he tried to leave behind”. In this case, that life is wearing a Ronald McDonald costume sans makeup and a Thundercats sword. He’s then picked up by Samuel L. Cleveland so he can return to the brewery to have a last Kill Bill style massacre of over a dozen Trisha Takanawas set to James Brown and bisecting Angela to opera as the viscera filled cherry on top. So basically a Chicken Fight but with more blood. He opens the gold beer keg to find…that.

Next is in the borderline indy style of Wes Anderson. Stewie narrates about a more formal and meticulously organized Peter is given an elegantly signed memo reporting his termination from the company. And also the play is off. He returns home to tell of the bad news, but not before locking his bike with the birthday of influential French novelist Marcel Proust (thanks, Wikipedia!). He informs dramatic fainter Lois at their overly bizarre house, telegraphs scientist and escapes artist Chris, Pickleball Champion Brian, and also Meg is there. But the family is dedicated to finishing the play, which turns out to be a recreation of “Max Dugan Returns”. The play is given mixed reviews which are placed on Peter’s casket and ending with a German version of “I’ve Got You Babe”. Apparently, Peter died chasing a Pokemon, which is how I wanna go.

Lastly, after an origin myth that might be closer to the truth than we would expect, there’s the Michael Bay version. Chizzled and sweaty working man Peter valiantly throws kegs into trucks but bursts one open with his bare fist to drink from. I have already grown more chest hair in writing that sentence than in all of Movember thus far. Megan Fox-ish Angela arrives to fire him, but not before an especially tongue-y make out session. Meanwhile at the White House…in Washington…where the President lives…President Adam West (#yesmypresident) is informed of the oncoming Decepticon threat against the Seven Wonders of the World, and that they can only be beaten by throwing a keg right at the center of their body. I don’t see this coming back into play later, so let’s move on.

So anyway, Carter arrives at Peter’s boathouse to recruit him as exposition fills in the audience on things already known. He accepts following a very patriotic consideration. He visits the guys to join his team and then heads back to his former house and reminds himself of his male children and their odd obsession with the exact things that are under attack. He and the guys head to Istanbul and finally run into a few bots and have a Linkin Park fueled the weirdly edited fight. Finally, Peter sacrifices himself to throw a keg right into the remaining Decepticon, dying a hero. Except later he apparently wasn’t dead. The end.

OUR TAKE

Unlike the Emmy episode, that turned into a nonsensical tirade of references that meant nothing, this is far, FAR more focused, settling only on three iconic styles of directors and keeping each segment easy to follow even if the viewer is only mildly familiar with any of their work, similar to the author related anthologies they did for Stephen King and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wouldn’t call this a celebration of these guys but it at least had something to say. I’ll get back to you on what that is, though. I mean, really, if the Emmy episode just worked like that with a framing device of just wanting to convince the academy to give them the award, it probably would’ve been fine.

And jeez, talk about tugging on the heartstrings with the remaining Carrie Fisher and Adam West audio! Not to mention the wounds are still raw from losing Chester Bennington a few months ago. But of course this doesn’t hurt the episode, just reminds us to appreciate talent in our time while they’re with us and HAVEN’T been revealed to be sex offenders.