Review: Family Guy “Prescription Heroine”

Overview

Everyone’s out for the day except Lois and Brian, but when Brian falls down the stairs, she takes a trip to the vet with a dog that has a broken arm. The vet fixes the arm and prescribes prescription drugs. Lois decides to take a pill and it resets her mind which right away gets her addicted. When Brian learns of Lois’ addiction he locks her up and throws away the key until she gets better. Eventually, Lois does come around and thanks Brian for fixing her.

Meanwhile, Peter attempts to throw out a ping-pong table but Cleveland takes it and refurbishes it. Eventually, the whole town gets in on what’s sort of a local attraction courtesy of Cleveland Brown. When Peter attempts to take back the ping pong table, he’s denied, and Cleveland challenges Peter to a ping pong match with the winner getting the table as the prize.

Cutaway Gags

Target Cashier, Netflix/The Office, Cocky Jogger, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Hofstra University, The Shining, Expired Coupons

Our Take

We’re not getting new episodes of Family Guy for a few weeks, which sucks, because this was by far the funniest episode in years. YEARS.

First up, let’s talk about Lois’ bit. Addiction is a very tricky thing to make funny, especially nowadays. Somehow, Emily Tower does this in spades all-the-while throwing in some classic Family Guy bits in the process including Petercopter (which helped kick off Peter’s “B-plot”), Lois begging Stewie, and Brian’s loyalty to his family above all else. Peter’s “B-plot”, probably not as original, but a ping-pong table is yet another item in the character’s long list of items that fascinates Peter to the point of almost too big a deal right up until the end. It’s a tried and true method that can sometime be complacent, but this week’s felt fresh and hilarious.

The cutaway gags were in a league of their own tonight. The Target Cashier bit is a top ten of all-time, the Netflix/The Office one may be out-dated for source material, but still hit strong, and Peter going nuts over the Cheetos had me gasping for air. Moreover, Stewie’s audio book starring the Hemsworths made me lose my fucking mind.

Family Guy continues to evolve but also stay true to what got the show here after so many seasons. On a night when adult animation got a back-hand from Disney, it’s good to see the front hand is still working.