Review: Family Guy “Meg Goes to College”
Overview (Spoilers Below):
During her trip to college, Meg encounters an admissions scandal caused by Peter and Lois. Meanwhile, Brian goes on a fitness journey with Stewie as his trainer.
Our Take:
After 22 years and 19 seasons, Meg finally leaves the nest and is heading off to the next step of her life: college. She went through much trouble dealing with her family’s nonsensical personalities just to get to that point. Unfortunately, she’ll soon realize that nowhere is safe from their shenanigans, not even college.
It was only two years ago when the college admissions scandal shook the public with how it influenced undergraduate admissions decisions. That’s also how long the producers took to incorporate it into a show about a family with a talking dog and a talking baby. The result is a series of mean-spirited jokes that involve Meg getting crapped on by her parents. You think Lois had terrible luck in the “Customer of the Week” episode? Then you haven’t seen Meg getting hit in the head by Peter’s football twice.
The episode represented Peter and Lois attempting to get Meg into a good college through fraudulent admission. Meg wound up being accepted to Brown University, but her stay didn’t last long because of Peter’s constant meddling. Instead of showcasing Peter and Lois facing the consequences, the episode showed Peter and Lois helping Meg complete her accomplishments from the fake resume. The ending is what you would expect from Family Guy, with Meg failing to surf over Providence Falls humorously. This is another episode that only relied on the comical and despicable side of the real-life situation instead of balancing it with the consequential side and clever writing.
The episode also involved Brian getting in shape after failing to catch a squirrel. Unfortunately for him, he had to deal with Stewie as his trainer, who wasn’t nearly that helpful. It’s another passable Brian/Stewie misadventure that’s more tolerable to watch than the episode’s main plot. Primarily due to Stewie transforming Meg’s room into a workout room. Seriously, how was he able to get all of the equipment in that small room?
The humor did offer some good visual gags, such as Peter singing the “Mail Time” song from Blue’s Clues and Peter’s 911 emergency call. The one joke involving a family of Starbucks cups watching the final season of Game of Thrones will surely get a laugh from those who despise the show’s goofs and flaws. The running gag with Meg getting injured by Peter was a bit funny at first. However, after the third time, it made me wonder why Peter wasn’t arrested for child abuse.
Other than that, the “college scandal” episode is basically the “Let’s Ruin Meg’s College Life” episode. Meg has been through a lot of crap throughout the series as the ordinary member of the family, and sadly, this turned out to be one of them. This gag involving Meg being constantly ridiculed was pretty humorous back then, but after about 19 seasons in, it’s starting to lose its charm rather quickly. I guess this means that Meg should begin looking for another college to go to sooner rather than later.
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