Review: Family Guy “Bend Or Blockbuster”

Overview

Hoping to get in on some family fun time, Peter takes the family to Bend, Oregon to visit the final Blockbuster so as to rent a movie. When the Griffins arrive, we learn that Peter owes over $30,000 in late fees which means no rentals allowed. When Blockbuster learns that they finally have their bounty, a chase ensues and the Griffin car is destroyed, so now we’re on the lam running away from the Blockbuster bounty hunters.

Peter gets one last chance at a movie night but it goes to hell and Prime Video has to make a save with their army of drones. Jeff Bezos has been listening this entire time.

Cutaways

Jeep, Movie Clip

Our Take

Wow, season 21 of Family Guy is already one of the strongest starts to the franchise in at least five years, possibly longer. This week’s episode was part “Road To” and in a week where Chloe Moretz made waves about another great episode that featured the Griffins having to flee for their lives by a civilization whose values are ingratiated in the past, we get a Fugitive-esque piece but with Blockbuster employees as the bounty hunters.

Twitter punchlines are starting to creep into Family Guy humor, which typically worries me, the producers of the show are all funny writers up and down, and just when you think you were tired of Bezos and Trump jokes, the show delivers pretty hilarious punch lines that may have the same underline premise that you may have heard elsewhere, but are wrapped in Family Guy packaging, so I feel like the grade of the joke is higher and more elevated.

I didn’t think the cutaways were all that great this week, but Family Guy deployed enough non-sequiturs that worked just as well, if not better. Cameos featuring the devil, Jeff Bezos, and even the Brown family (when was the last time we even HEARD from Junior?) helped spice things up. Another solid episode for Family Guy’s 21st season, we’ll see if the producers can keep the flow going next week.