Review: Family Guy ‘Peter, Chris, & Brian’

Spoilers Below:

Peter found out his mother’s house was sold and plotted with his friends to retrieve his childhood porn collection. (No, not child porn collection.) In the stash he also found an old video of himself as a kid and became upset at how he turned out. Vowing not to let the same thing happen to his son (and realizing he’s a lousy role model), Peter asked Brian to take Chris under his wing.

It worked, and Chris was more sophisticated, but he started acting too high-brow to hang out with his dad. He eventually realized that Brian is a bit of a poser and went back to his dad, who isn’t afraid to be himself.

In Case You Missed It:

1) Peter’s tape was addressed: “To Future Peter, from This Now Peter.”

2) Peter listened to the Goo Good Dolls’ “Iris” while depressed in his car.

For an episode called “Peter, Chris, & Brian,” something that invoked thoughts of unity, this one was really all over the place. It started out with a good laugh – something the classic Family Guy episodes were great at – with the Vodka Beer commercial. It was random, it was slightly offensive, and it was just relatable enough to hook the audience right away.

Not too long afterward came the biggest scene of the episode – and it was another cutaway. When the “easier than a game of pai gow poker” gag started, I was skeptical, especially since there have already been a ton of gambling jokes. When it continued unnecessarily long and veered off course, I was getting doubtful. But man, when that first suitcase hit a car and exploded, followed by the second, I lost it. The three parts after that just made it even better. This was easily one of the biggest laughs from Family Guy in a while.

On the other end, it also had a good closing, with Tom Tucker discussing talking over the TV in a way that poked fun at previous ends to FG episodes and those of other shows, without ruining anything. Props to them for pointing out something most of us probably never even thought about.

But in between there were some real bombs. The bloody nose joke, the Nook one, another Conway Twitty gag, and a few others were pretty dumb. For every poignant dig at Mumford & Sons and Lenny Kravitz there was another that was so unfunny it was almost embarrassing.

The story wasn’t great either. It was basically an episode involving Peter worried about Chris’s upbringing (which we’ve seen numerous times before) as well as another reminder that Brian – although worldly and sophisticated – is kind of a douchebag. Just what we needed. He used to be the voice of reason, and still can be, but it’s easy to forget that sometimes.

From the first few big laughs, I really had high hopes for this installment. I want to stress that I really laughed hard on that Vegas bit. I even rewound it to watch it again, to the delight of my co-viewer as well. But the episode as a whole just couldn’t keep the quality of the laughs consistent, and the plot was flat and overused. Not terrible overall, but the clips will be more worthy of repeated watching than the whole shebang.