Review: Family Guy “Adam West High”

Family Guy says goodbye to their old friend Adam West

Overview:

Peter and Brian petition to get the name of the school changed to Adam West High School after the former mayor.  With the citizens of Quahog happy with his accomplishment, Brian decides to run for mayor himself.  But, with him running unopposed, Quagmire begins to campaign as well.  As the two of them get into an argument things, escalate with them being put in a life-threatening situation.  The two have a bonding experience before sharing a near death experience.

Our Take:

Adam West, for many of us the one and only Batman, played a significant part on Family Guy for many years. Representing himself, West was the mayor of Quahog and often the hero of the town.  Sadly we lost the television legend in June 2017 to leukemia.  While Family Guy has dedicated shows to their mayor before, they have never given him a proper sign-off.  Until now.  The center of this episode involves the high school which has always been known as James Woods High, officially being changed to Adam West High to commemorate their lost friend forever.

The love for Batman does not end there.  Peter himself makes a montage video to commemorate his lost mayor.  Hilariously the video slowly turns into clips of Peter making basketball trick shots, however, the thought is still there.  Mayor Adam West also makes a surprise appearance during the episode, though it is shown to be a figment of Brian’s imagination.  To send off the show, and the season, live-action Adam West appears onscreen to ask for your vote to be mayor of your town.  The entire episode was a beautiful dedication to a star member of the Family Guy cast.

Despite being about the famous mayor, Family Guy recognizes the fact that this is mostly an episode about politics.  In fact, they self depreciate themselves when Peter has to ask if this is going to be a political episode, and when it is confirmed he says “no one likes those”.  There is a lot of commentary on politics, mostly about what drives people to get into it, mostly being about popularity.  Quagmire says that the only reason to get into politics is because of spite, and Brian admits that his goal is free pancake breakfasts.  They are saying that nobody actually does it to help people and change the world, but for there own selfish means.  And, looking at the worlds current landscape, they probably aren’t wrong.

The other thing at the centre of this episode is the feud between Brian and Quagmire.  Okay, it’s less of a feud and more of Quagmire having pure hate for the dog.  Ongoing for many seasons, on more than one occasion Quagmire, has listed the reasons why he hates Brian.  And it has even come to blows once or twice.  Quagmire does have some points against the dog, but this relationship is also realistic.  Often somebody just doesn’t like somebody, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.  So, it makes sense when Brian is running for mayor the first person to oppose him would be the pilot.  As much as Brian once again tries to mend their relationship, nothing changes, and Quagmire still hates him just as much, if not more, than he did at the start of the episode.

That’s a wrap on the seventeenth season of Family Guy, and we are going to have to wait all summer for a fresh episode.  There may or may not be a vote online for who fans think should be the next mayor of Quahog.  It’s hard to tell if it is a joke as Peter mentions it doesn’t matter, and it’s just a way to collect peoples data.  It might happen, we’ll have to keep an eye on the official Family Guy website to find out.  Anyways, this episode was okay, not great, not bad.  It fits into the mediocre level that this show has come to comfortably settled into.  Whatever happened to ending things with a bang?  And, doesn’t everybody hate politics episodes?  Though, we do have to appreciate the heartfelt dedication for the brilliant Adam West.