Review: Family Guy “Meg’s Wedding”

 

 

Overview:

With Meg struggling to fit in at school and at home she makes a new friend at the local bowling alley, Bruce. Naïve Meg finds her relationship with Bruce blossoming, to the point that the two decide to get engaged. However, Meg comes to terms that Bruce may only be marrying her to appease his parents.

Meanwhile, Peter has his arms ripped off at a concert. Thankfully, his appendages will grow back. Although it will take some time and he must live with short arms for an entire episode.

 

Our Take:

I have been reviewing Family Guy for several years now. And I will come out top and say that this was by far the worst episode that I have ever seen.  

Family Guy deserves a lot of credit for being the anti-thesis of what makes good television. When sitcom television goes in one direction, Family Guy doesn’t just go the other way, it goes backwards, upside down, and turns back around, and for the most part, will land on something pretty funny. Typically there is a subtle commentary about the state of the world or what is considered socially acceptable and helps us to question the world.

Unfortunately, this episode proved that the show is not secretly one of the more intelligent sitcoms on television. In fact, “Meg’s Wedding” is so out-of-touch that it is next to unwatchable.

The series has never been afraid of taking on jokes about homosexuality. Even after making a statement last season about avoiding the topic moving forward. For the most part, the quips are clever and the commentary relevant. However, this episode took a dozen steps backwards.

Even Stewie comments that the theme of the episode is outdated and would have been much more controversial 25 years ago. A quarter of a century later, and a gay wedding is not as unique as the show would hope. And the homophobic jokes were so horribly distasteful that the people responsible should be embarrassed.

To make things worse, this episode decides to take on a couple more disturbing takes on what it deems humorous. A dad that is incapable of taking care of his own kids for an afternoon is a dead theme from an ageing generation. Spousal abuse is not only not funny anymore, but it should not have been allowed to air in this episode at all.

Considering it is what Family Guy is good at, we will put controversy aside for a moment.

The plot of the episode was dead in the water before it was written. Meg finds new love is a trope that Family Guy has covered countless times before. 

Hooking the high schooler up with the 50-something gay neighbour is a stretch that highlights the lack of ideas coming out of the writer’s room. Never mind the craziest thing they could come up for with Peter is to give him short arms and a vest and call that primetime worthy television. It can only be described as lazy and uninspired.

The episode could not even make the new characters of Bruce’s parents interesting. There was an opportunity to give them interesting traits or outlandish behaviours that would help to give Bruce some depth. Instead, we are introduced to two of the blandest uncharismatic characters to ever appear in the series.

The cutaways could not even help breath life into this episode. Most of them, including a supercut at the conclusion, involved putting short-armed Peter in silly situations like playing the Wheel of Fortune or attempting to swim. Sometimes giving Peter something wacky to do pays off, but this was a lousy rip-off of jokes better performed in the live-action Deadpool films.

This episode was worse than bad. It disappoints a loyal fanbase while being degrading and insulting. I am left wondering who at Disney allowed this to be aired. Nobody should watch this, and the jokes should go back to the 1960s where they belong.