Review: Family Guy “Must Love Dogs”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Quagmire meets a girl during Halloween and he’s smitten, but the problem is this girl loves dogs, thereby making it almost mandatory to be a dog person. With the next date at a dog park, Quagmire opts to enlist his longtime nemesis Brian to help, but the match hasn’t exactly been made in heaven. Brian decides to make Quagmire’s life hell by faking a proposal. On the date of Quagmire moving in with his new fiance, we’re introduced to a dozen or so handicapped dogs that are also moving in, but Quagmire continues to make a straight face. At the engagement party, the dogs wreck the event that subsequently cancels the engagement and puts Quagmire and Brian at odds again.

Meanwhile, Stewie’s Halloween candy is stolen so he opts to set a trap for the culprit. We come to find out it’s Peter so Chris teams up with Stewie to teach the young padawan where to hide his Halloween candy in the future so Peter doesn’t take it. Unfortunately, the new hiding spot does nothing as the rest of Stewie’s candy is taken by both Chris AND Peter.

Our Take

That’s more like it! Stewie’s Halloween candy was a premise of an episode years ago, but fortunately, we didn’t spend too much time on it. The real bit was Quagmire vs Brian which is one of the show’s longest running feuds ever since Brian “fucked his dad”. This episode also sees a potential growth for Quagmire who has been under some recent scrutiny for his somewhat aggressive ways in which he usually ascertains women, in it’s stead is Quagmire nearly finding love, only for it to all fall apart at the end.

A Halloween episode, this really isn’t, especially compared with the other premieres that happened across the FOX Sunday Night lineup. But, one of the better episodes of Family Guy was still had in recent memory. The show was able to pull off laughs without even really needing cutaway gags, and Sam Elliott is beginning to be tested to his comedic limits that I don’t think we ever thought would be possible. I’ll never understand the reasoning that in Family Guy some dogs can talk while others cannot. I would’ve liked to have seen maybe some trash talking between Brian and the other dogs, but alas, that doesn’t seem to ever happen. A somewhat original premise, growth of characters, and both Seth and Rachel MacFarlane delivering in spades makes “Must Love Dogs” a must watch.