Review: Family Guy “Stand By Meg”

Can Stewie make Meg popular?

 

Overview:

Chris is sent to vocational school so that he can learn a trade.  Nervous at first, he settles in nicely as he makes friends and tries new foods.  After he joins up with the other boys to murder the Michelin man, Peter and Lois try and get him back in public school.

Meg saves Stewie from choking on a whole grape – a grape that promised not to choke him.  Grateful, Stewie works to make his sister’s life better.  Failing to make her more popular, they try and get her a boyfriend.  The only person they can find is Kevin Swanson, who is ready to commit suicide.

 

Our Take:

Family Guy has done an unbelievably great job at making Meg the most unloved character in adult animation.  From the first season, Meg has been the brunt of all the jokes, left out of substantial episodes, and invisible most of the time.  It has all worked to make all of her episodes uncomfortable.  Just putting Meg and Stewie into a plot together is a formula for awkward hilarity.  Stewie took on the impossible when he wanted to make Meg’s life better.  But, I guess that was the whole point of the storyline.

There was a good injection of humour.  The highlight of the episode is Stewie thinking he can make Meg popular by signing her up for every role in the school play.  It was quite enjoyable to watch Meg trying to navigate this situation, especially considering all the awkwardness I mentioned earlier.  The other great part was when the grapes promised not to choke Stewie.  You can never trust a grape.

Chris going to vocational school was a bit of a strange plot.  The whole idea that going to trade school would lead him to join the mafia was a good idea.  It just wasn’t executed very well.  One minute Chris is in a class with a bunch of greasers and the next he is a murderer.  There were a few steps to the plot that were missing.  The murder itself was done in a side sequence and it was difficult to even tell if it was part of the actual plot.  And suddenly Lois and Peter want to put him back in public school despite Chris making new friends and doing well.  It was all very confusing.

The whole episode just kind of fell apart near the end.  I find myself saying that a lot in my reviews of Family Guy.  It is beginning to be a pattern that the story starts out very promising, and then the episode seems to run out of time and important scenes and developments are missing.  By the end of the show, I feel more confused than entertained.  If they want to include as many cutscenes as they can – which I totally support – then they should simplify the plot.  Did we really need a Meg and Chris storyline?  If we had one or the other than they could have actually told the whole story.  Instead, I feel disappointed by missing out on two plots.

Score
5/10