Thoughts on last night's episode of 'Family Guy'

(Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS!!)

For a very long time, one of my favorite cartoons was ‘Family Guy’. I consider the first six-seven seasons of the show as ‘classic’; the writing may not have always hit well, but it had plenty of memorable characters and moments, the latter thanks in part to the random cutaway gags that occurred in each episode. However, in recent seasons, the show has declined in terms of its overall quality. The cutaway gags were getting stale and only a few characters were working while some were getting really annoying. I stopped watching the show precisely after a line in the episode ‘Friends Without Benefits’ where Lois mentions that she’s put Stewie ‘in the oven’ before and I haven’t watched a single new episode since… until last night. This newest episode caught my attention when it was announced that one of the main characters would be permanently killed off. I wasn’t really supportive of the idea of killing off one of the characters who we’ve come to know over the many years of the show’s existence, but I was intrigued nevertheless. However, this ended up being one of the worst half-hours of television I have ever seen.

The episode starts off harmless enough, with Brian and Stewie immediately getting into trouble, like they normally do. Right away, they’re being chased by a bunch of Native Americans because Stewie used his time machine to go back in time to Jamestown, where he gave weapons to the Natives. After the two get things back to normal, Stewie then destroys his time machine, knowing that it’s caused way too much trouble before. All seems to go well until Brian and Stewie start to play street hockey outside of the Griffin house after they find a street hockey net in the junkyard where they have the time machine destroyed. Stewie heads back inside for a quick moment before Brian is… run over by a car. Yes folks, it turns out that Brian is the family member that ends up dead.

…Where do I begin? I wasn’t really supportive of the idea to kill off one of the Griffin family in the first place, but of all of those characters, why the hell does it have to be Brian? When Family Guy was beginning to go into decline, Brian and Stewie were the only good characters left on the show. They had such a good camaraderie, making any episode where they were not the main focus duller by comparison. Why not kill off Meg or Chris? In the case of the former, considering the character’s status on the show, it would have been a little obvious but she wasn’t really contributing much to the show anyway. Even then, that just proves my point in that the death of a Griffin was just the wrong idea. But you know, it could have worked had they handled the event properly.

And that’s my biggest problem with this episode… they don’t. The death happens just five minutes into the episode, leaving a lot more things to happen. The writers tastelessly try to add in a few gags during Brian’s funeral, a scene that should have never had them to begin with. There is a glimmer of hope that this isn’t permanent when Stewie tries to rebuild his time machine. However, he learns that his supplier can no longer provide him the materials he needs… so he just gives up on it. After that, there is not a single mention of the time machine and even worse, the writers try to make us forget that Brian ever existed by having the family adopt a new dog. I’m sorry, writers, but you won’t make us forget one of the best characters on the show. The new dog, Vinny, sucks by the way. I know this is only the first episode he’s in, but I don’t care. No matter what happens in future episodes (which I won’t be watching, for the record, not even the crossover with ‘The Simpsons’ which sounds interesting), you cannot replace Brian.

This has to be one of the biggest ‘f*** you’ moments in the history of television. Of all of the things that Family Guy has done, why did they have to kill off one of their best characters and what’s even more insulting is how the writers try to make us forget about him when there’s no chance of hell of that ever happening. I am officially done with ‘Family Guy’. I was going to give this episode a chance, despite the fact that they were going to kill off a main character (I’m especially against it now considering which one they got rid of), but this was just a tasteless episode. The reason why I stopped watching the show in the first place was because of a tasteless line, but this is way worse. (Sigh) Well, at least we have re-runs of the older episodes.

R.I.P. Brian Griffin for you will be forever missed.

(UPDATE: Since posting this, I read about how a future episode apparently still revolves around Brian. Will this mean that he's not going to stay dead? I kind of hope he'll be back, but even if that happens, that just makes this episode even more insulting.)