Review: Family Guy “Peterschmidt Manor”

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The Griffin residence is destroyed after a plumbing accident and since Carter has to leave town anyway, the family decides to stay at Peterschmidt Manor. When Lois learns that her former nanny Meredith passing is the reason why Carter is leaving town, she decides to go with him leaving the boys plus Meg to take care of the residence. To make a little extra cash, Peter wants to turn the manor into a hotel. Everybody gets important jobs to do, but Stewie and Brian opt to make matchmaker and try and get some of the single patrons to mingle.

Meanwhile, Lois and Carter take a road trip and along the way Lois reminisces about how influential her nanny was to her. When they arrive, Lois learns that Carter had an affair with Meredith which caused Babs to make Carter fire her which enrages Lois. After the funeral, Lois and Carter drive home and Carter builds a fountain for Lois in remembrance of Meredith.

Cutaway Gags

AFV, Haunted Radio, Kevin Spacey Matchmaking, Mixed up briefcases, Sheet Happens

Our Take

A break from the recent Family Guy new tropes that have popped up during the show’s 20th season but I feel like we had a wasted opportunity here. The episode itself is solid, the laughs are there but mostly in the cutaway gags, which lends me to think this episode could’ve been a lot better if both plots were broken up and allowed to spread out a bit. With the episode featuring a hotel bit, I couldn’t help but think we could have had a bunch more fun checking in with the other members of the Griffin household more often not named Brian and Stewie. I do appreciate the show maybe using seldom used characters here, what seems to be the show’s mantra for the season thus far, but Peter running a hotel has all sorts of potential here for what could have been a bunch more laughs.

The other end of the spectrum, Lois and Carter’s plot, which, I think could also have been it’s own episode. I really think we could’ve had a similar effort to the classic “Brian & Stewie” where we could’ve had a solid 22-minutes of Carter and Lois spending a lot of time together,  getting a few more flashbacks with Meredith, and then really sticking the landing with the pond installation at the end. This way the producers could’ve really driven home the importance of Meredith in Lois’ life thereby making the audience care. People forget, the voice of “Lois” is Alex Borstein, a now multiple-time Emmy award winning actress who I think can really carry full episodes of Family Guy given the opportunity. The Simpsons in later years always did a great job of trusting ancillary characters with whole episodes, Ned just concluded a two-parter, Skinner, Moe, and Marge have all done the heavy lifting when called in. Family Guy can very much do the same and not have to rely as much on it’s Seth MacFarlane-heavy cast.