Review: Family Guy “Man-Fest Destiny”

Overview:

Fox recently dropped the latest episode of Family Guy, “Man-Fest Destiny,” which sees Peter get shipwrecked after making a wish. Meanwhile, Stewie gets hooked on memes.

Our Take:

After making a wish that he could live in a world of just guys while on a boat, Peter and his friends find themselves stuck on an island. Of course, Peter learns to be careful what you wish for when he realizes they’re stuck on Fire Island.

The island seems fun enough, complete with a lavish Christmas-style drag show. Granted, the lyrics are mostly, “Fa-la-la-la-la-Bowen Yang,” but you never know how much you needed to see Joe as Dolly Parton until you see just that. However. Peter learns too late that the place isn’t cheap and is in debt for $5,000.

The plot is resolved quickly enough, with Peter and co. managing to get back to Quahog. However, Lois talking about a dream she just had, a callback to a previous joke, has him back on the island, complete with money.

In the B-plot, Stewie discovers the world of memes, which starts to grind Brian’s gears, finding them a lazy way for people to get attention. He especially gets upset when Stewie gets a book deal, which is just a copy of memes. Swearing revenge, Brian and Chris force Stewie to have a “loboto-meme” when the exorcism doesn’t work.

The episode doesn’t really give Brian too much reason to hate memes. The only jokes the episode really makes about meme culture is ust Stewie overexplaining them, which is really more of a reflection of Stewie than anything. Granted, there’s also the issue of whether Stewie’s treatment actually work.

Interestingly, Chris plays both fields. He initially supports Stewie’s meme love, but later helps Brian to correct his little brother. Of course, as he himself explains, he’s Gen Z, so this is kind of to be expected. Sure, he’s been a teenager since 1999, but it’s always best to ignore any floating timeline for the sake of a joke.

The episode splits equal time between the two stories. In the end, both of them could have used a bit more meat, such as fleshing out Brian’s hatred of memes or make it harder for Peter to escape the island. However, it’s ultimately a fun, little episode.

Some viewers will also likely enjoy watching some of their favorite memes appear in the episode, like the “Success Meme” kid. Still, one wonders why the show didn’t just make parodies.