Review: Family Guy “Coma Guy”

Overview:

Peter’s newfound appreciation for Van Halen causes him to drive recklessly to the loud and up-tempo music.  Soon enough, his dangerous driving catches up with him, causing him to crash and slip into a severe coma.

Advised that Peter is lost for good, Lois and the family make the hard choice to pull the plug to Peter’s life support.  Surprisingly, he wakes up just in time to catch his wife in the act.  Unable to forgive them, Lois is left with no other choice but to leave Peter if he will not forgive her.  But when Peter is left by himself, he realizes he is not much of a Family Guy without them.

Our Take:

There are Family Guy episodes that break the mold of what an animated sitcom can be.  Then, some episodes fail to make any coherent sense leaving you with a headache by the end of the half-an-hour.  Then there are episodes like this one.  Just average episodes that recreate old plots with fresh jokes and relevant cut scenes.

It is not that these episodes are terrible, they just lack any excitement.  There are plenty of moments and anecdotes that make this an episode worth watching.  Truly the highlight involves Peter’s newfound love of Van Halen.  Blasting “Panama” he is able to outrun the cops, make an impossible jump over a canyon, and face-off in a drag race with his long-time arch-nemesis, Ernie the Giant Chicken.  Maybe it was just the lore of this classic rock anthem, but each of these scenes seemed a little more bad ass than usual.

Additionally, the episode does touch on a serious commentary about allowing our loved ones to pass when they are all but gone.  A decision like this would be impossible for most of us, however, it is one that many people have to make.  This situation happens to involve animated characters that can make a surprise recovery.

Though it does raise the question about how we would feel if we knew the decisions that are loved ones make about our lives.

Once again, I find myself reading in too far to a show that survives on fart and gay jokes.  Honestly, no one is expecting for this series to get philosophical, and that is not what happens here.  No, the theme was more of a vessel to create some animosity between the married couple.  Still, the idea does have more depth than on the first inspection.  Is this perhaps some meta-commentary of the show itself, in which we are seriously contemplating pulling the plug on the Family Guy himself, Peter Griffin?

To wrap this up how do we decide how a run-of-the-mill average episode should rank?  Family Guy is no longer the breaking edge vessel of humour that it once was.  Even the over-emphasized commentary on modern television no longer holds the same bearing as it did in the early 2000s.  In fact, Family Guy has become everything it hated and made fun of, becoming its own average sitcom with repeated storylines.  Episodes like this one will be quickly forgotten after its offering of brainless entertainment for twenty-odd minutes.  Though sometimes that is all we need, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t expect the best from this series each week.