Review: Family Guy “Brief Encounter”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Quahog opens a new laundromat/bar so the guys head on over and check it out, but Peter walks out with Quagmire’s underwear. As a result, Peter starts acting more like Quagmire and vice versa. When the two get word of the switcheroos, they supposedly fix the issue, but learn that more work needs to be done. Ida and Lois get wind of the issue, and Quagmire decides to move away from Quahog. Before he can leave, Peter and ol’ Quags embrace, and agree to work on their friendship.

Meanwhile, Stewie gets a new hand-me-down toy from Lois named “Chi-Chi”, a stuffed monkey. Problem is, this thing’s causing stress with Stewie and Rupert, so he makes a deal with Doug to…”get rid of the problem”. In exchange, Stewie heads to Doug’s house to get rid of Miss Tiggywinkles the new house cat. Unfortunately, the cat is too cute for words and Stewie can’t come to grips with killing the family pet. To help, Stewie enlists the help of Brian to do what dogs do best, but that goes nowhere. Miss Tiggywinkles dies of natural causes but Doug frames Stewie and we meet Tyler.

Our Take

While The Simpsons seem to be singing every other week, Family Guy has been leaning heavy into “Doug” episodes and I’m loving every second of it (I hope Tyler also becomes a permanent fixture). For fans of classic Family Guy lore, this week’s episode features the most prominent of examples. Doug’s need to kill very much reminds me of throwback Stewie’s attempts on Lois’ life, complete with the slice and dice of Brian’s corpse.

I thought Quagmire/Peter’s story was just as strong, and definitely of the same pathos that brought us ideas like the “Petercopter”, however, I would have liked to have lived a bit more of Quagmire’s life as Peter which had teased both a chicken fight and a “Surfin’ Bird” cameo, neither of which were put on prominent display. We even got an “Ida” sighting, though her bit was more “blink and you’ll miss it”. In fact, if the ladies of the show had never got involved in the episode at all, I’m not sure anything would have changed by the end. No sign of Meg this week, but Chris’ ongoing gag about his sleeping habits was a good chuckle as well.

So far, this season of Family Guy has become increasingly solid, and I look forward to more.