Review: Family Guy “The D in Apartment 23”

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OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Instead of dropping him off at daycare, Brian takes Stewie with him to the local university under the guise of advancing his education, when really he’s there just to prey on college students. Striking out every single time, the two run into a nearby protest calling for the firing of a teacher. Brian makes a snarky and one of the protestors suggest he tweet that, getting Brian wrapped up in the world of making topical tweets for attention. Or at least, he assumes they get attention but they actually don’t. On his way into a movie, he writes something a vaguely racist, and based this action going very slowly we know this is something that will change everything. As he enjoys his flick, Brian finally gets a tweet to go viral, but not in the way he planned. He exits the movie to find an entire mob out to get him that follows him home. Deleting the tweet won’t fix the damage already done and the rest of the Griffins are suddenly shut out by friends and co-workers, so he goes to apologize in person…but it turns into a tirade about how sensitive society is and ending with threatening to kill them all. With no other options left, Lois suggests Brian move out and he reluctantly accepts. He eventually finds an apartment (the 23rd one to justify that canceled Krysten Ritter show based pun title) and settles into his sad, sad life.

OUR TAKE

Well, I’ll give them this, I spent the last act becoming increasingly curious how things would all go back to status quo and then was left pretty surprised when it didn’t. Though once that faded, I was left with two probable outcomes, neither of which is especially promising. On one hand, sudden shake-ups to the cast aren’t anything new for this show, and we’ve had bigger ones than this (including ones involving Brian, who “died” not too long ago for ratings and buzz) being completely undone soon after. So, if this is resolved within the next few episodes like those and Brian is once again welcomed home, this whole thing is a non-issue. On the other, I can’t possibly see this impacting Brian’s involvement in the regular goings-on in any meaningful way, especially since he’s in the next episode description as being up to this usual silly antics at a suicide hotline center.

And while I can’t wholeheartedly give a negative rating for what could very well be an incomplete story, it’s still kind of unclear what this episode is even about, assuming it has anything worth saying. Accidentally getting caught up in mob politics of the internet is still…relatively topical, but certain lines seem to suggest some mixed messages. Stewie smugly makes comments about students making protests for stupid reasons and always being on their phones, and that’s seemingly meant to be taken ironically. But then talking to the protestors and the flash mob has that same rhetoric and stale jokes parroted straight-faced to show their response is the problem, devolving the story into the tragic downfall of one guy who was brought down less by his own mistakes than our rampant PC obsessed culture, as opposed to his own mistakes (not that the mob is any more excusable). Neither option really makes either side come out looking good OR understandable, and regardless of if this is leading up to some bigger payoff, it’s definitely not going to be one of this season’s stronger episodes. Also interesting that people still decry Brian as a mouthpiece for MacFarlane’s liberalism when he’s meant to be the victim of it here.

But hey, at least they had a much appreciated Kingsman: The Secret Service reference AND made this the second time within a year that a Seth MacFarlane show has used the Baywatch franchise as the key impetus for major plot progression. There’s still time to make this three for three, Orville!