Review: Family Guy “Peter’s Def Jam”

Family Guy is finally back from hiatus! I found this week’s new episode “Peter’s Def Jam” incredibly funny in a lot of ways, despite some of its obvious shortcomings.

Spoilers Below

First of all, the premise of this week’s episode has been done before ad nauseum– but I do feel like it still works, and can be funny. Peter, Quagmire, Cleveland and Joe all try to do something together– in this case, they decide to start a podcast.
The second story is that Lois has allergy issues, and thinks it might be Brian. She pushes Brian to move into Stewie’s room instead of sleeping with her and Peter. There’s not much Chris or Meg in this episode, except for a very amusing family table part– where all the family members are really picking at each other– super funny stuff.
Eventually, the guys decide they’re not great at podcasts after Cleveland goes on a long diatribe (laugh out LOUD funny) and Quagmire insists people do NOT put up with boring podcasts (ha). Peter accidentally plays a bunch of weird laptop sounds together and so. of course. a guy in the bar thinks he’d make a great DJ.
Brian and Stewie aren’t getting along great while sharing a room– some hilarious scenes here. Let’s just say weird friends and violent pets and trash on the floor everywhere. Pretty gross. Eventually, Peter is offered a DJ gig on his own. Before he can perform there, though, he thinks he loses his hearing from the loud music in the clubs he’s been frequenting.
At the end of the episode, we see that both Peter’s hearing loss and Lois’ allergies are both not what they seem. There are some wins in this episode. But there are some definite misses with some anticlimactic plot points and also with some weak cutaways. Not ALL the cutaways fail, but there are some real bombs thrown in there among the good ones. Strange mix this week. There are some lame non sequiturs and some super unfunny jokes mixed in with some really great jokes.
Also, the ending of “Peter’s Def Jam” was kinda weak. However, I really enjoyed this episode, even despite the very familiar feel of the conclusions to both stories. Regardless, this was another pretty high point in an overall decent Family Guy season so far. More episodes like this are always welcome.
SCORE
8/10