Review: Family Guy “Start Me Up”

Overview:

As Quahog suffers one of its worst heatwaves in history, Peter struggles to keep his sweating under control. The sweat becomes so terrible that Peter is forced to work from home. Unfortunately, Lois is not as excited about having Peter around all of the time and goes to extreme lengths to get him to go back to work.

Meanwhile, Chris, Stewie, and Brian get in financial trouble after destroying thousands of dollars worth of merchandise at an electronics store. Desperate for money, the boys start a Kickstarter campaign under the guise of filming a new amateur movie. However, after they crowdfund more money than they need, the film must be made.

Our Take:

Good for me for banging out that synopsis. You know how some episodes of Family Guy are such a jumbled mess of cutscenes and plot points that by the end, you’re wondering “what the hell just happened?”  They have become much further and farther between in the later years. But, this was definitely one of those puzzles.

After watching multiple different scenes regarding Peter’s obtuse sweating, one which included him and Chris taking bites out of each other like manatees, and another that resulted in him blowing himself up, I was curious if there would be a plot to this episode at all.  Thankfully there was one hidden in ten-minutes after the show started.  And it just happens to be relevant to our current social climate.

With millions of people joining us freelance writers in working from home, Peter too is quarantined into his own house, though it is because his sweating is a hazard to the workplace. And, like many of you may be experiencing, one of the toughest obstacles Peter and Lois have to face is each other.  Sometimes a little space and time away from the significant other is a healthy thing. Which leads into one of the best lines of the episode when Lois tells Peter, “if this marriage is going to survive, it would be best if you were gone for most of it.”

Meanwhile, the B-plot gets out of hand extremely quick. In one moment, Brian is returning a keyboard to the electronics store, the next Stewie is making a movie about a dog that plays hockey.  Though I suppose Kickstarter may work like that for a few individuals. To be fair, this was an interesting story, and it would have been better if it had more airtime. Unfortunately, with only a few scenes dedicated to this plot, it lacked the substance that it deserved.

I am not saying episodes like this one with too much going on and quality time wasted on repeating jokes makes things unwatchable. Quite the contrary, this randomness and overindulgence of dumb humour is the backbone of what Family Guy is.  If my head is not spinning by the time the credits roll is the show really doing its job. Sometimes a half-an-hour of dumb brainless humour can cover for lack of substantial plot or theme.