Overview
After pleasuring herself for the first time, Lois embarks on a journey of self-discovery-which includes dating Bonnie.
Cutaways
Exact change, Vacation, Masturbation Ed, Castaway, Temptation to Christ
Our Take
In the 1990’s, Larry David wrote an episode of Seinfeld called “The Contest”, the premise was about the show’s principle characters who wager a bet on who can go the longest without masturbating. The reason why that episode was so ahead of it’s time is that 1) none of the cast actually mutters the word “masturbate” and 2) despite all of that only one sponsor pulled from what was the biggest series on broadcast television and would continue to be for decades to come. So who was right, the creative or the advertiser?
Anytime the PTC, the religious right, or the extreme woke left complain about comedy they usually forget that there’s a 99% of the planet that doesn’t give a shit what they think and instead want to just be entertained sometimes in different ways. In this instance, it’s sex humor. Family Guy writer Maggie Mull was raised by one of the true geniuses of comedy in her father Martin Mull, but even with that can a young female writer get away with writing an episode all about masturbation in the year 2025, the year of our flying spaghetti monster?
You can if it’s as well-written as this week’s episode. For starters, the show does the smart thing and mostly throws away a B-plot and instead uses Peter and Joe’s contributions to this week’s episode as a supporting arc to the overall premise of the episode which is Bonnie and Lois running away together for a fling. Everything works correctly this week and it’s glimpses like this that gives me hope that the future of Family Guy is safe and sound because Maggie might be a top five writer on the show right now, and the if there are four people in front of her it won’t be for long.
The cutaway gags this week were excellent but the show still deploys enough funny punch lines in the dialogue that both played off of each other really well yet everything felt like it was working together which makes for a much more inviting episode than the traditional A/B plot episodes that sometimes feel crammed for time. Family Guy kicks off it’s summer run with a real bang and it should not be missed. And hey, Gary Janetti is back! Where has he been?