Review: Family Guy “Petey IV”

You got The Simpsons? We have Family Guy.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In a Survivor-style recap of the last episode, we are reminded that Brian has been exiled from his house to a depressing apartment. Fading back in to present day, Brian tries getting ahold of the Griffins to see if they can get him some week late rent money, only to realize he’s been ghosted. Thus, he commits to getting a job at a suicide hotline. Also, side note: Brian looks weirdly naked without his collar. It’s like a Henry-Cavill-Superman-without-red-underpants situation. It’s just…not right. Anyway, Brian tries hitting on a hot co-worker (Who Else But Brian?) who turns him down but reconsiders just in time to see him jacking off to Facebook funeral photos of her. Scared of being fired, Brian turns to his landlord (who we now learn his named Lou), who suggests he plant drugs to make her go away first. He does this, just as he finds out she actually took the jacking off better expected. If only it had worked out that way for Harvey Weinstein, Wocka Wocka! Anyway, she gets arrested, but he gets pushed down the stairs and breaks his leg.

Back at the Griffin house, it’s Dolph Lungren’s birthday, so that means time to rewatch Rocky IV. But seems the disc has been played out, ruining the beloved celebration of said Swedish actor’s birth. Luckily, the convenience store happens to have a bargain bin and, after some self-barbing about A Million Ways to Die in the West, they find a copy. It’s a Russian bootleg with a rather controversial alternate ending: Rocky loses by a landslide. Enraged, Peter writes Russian President Vladimir Putin an angry letter that leads to him unexpectedly arriving at his home. The two fist fight, with Peter being held back by bodyguards, but they soon come to respect each other. Eventually, this leads to taking Peter back to Russia and revealing he hacked the 2016 election…but more importantly, ALSO FOOTBALL GAMES! Peter puts his foot down and decides the best way to settle things is with a recreation of the final fight in Rocky IV. Without the bodyguards, Peter does pretty well in the ring, even winning the crowd’s favor, but a trauma-induced hallucination of Lois convinces Peter to stop, so they settle for a Lionel Richie coordinated dance as Peter narrates that he was poisoned on the way home.

OUR TAKE

Oh yeah, they’re REALLY committing to this Brian storyline, right? Well, slow your roll, he was dead for three episodes and the Christmas break is coming up soon. They’re not going to keep their meal ticket duo of Brian and Stewie apart for any considerable amount of time. Also, really bad timing for an episode where a character ends up harassing a female co-worker only for that co-worker to be the one more punished at the end. Though given how this show handles things, Brian’s probably not gonna be in that job by next week.

Interestingly, this is not the first time Putin has been in a Family Guy episode, though last time was in an homage to the 80’s comedy Spies Like Us with Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. There, he was a lot more helpful and disparaged the KGB, but given new national context, that obviously couldn’t be replicated. Also might be the closest we get to a Trump episode for a very long time.