Tuesday, December 17, 2013

'Family Guy' Rant Part 2 AKA The Return of Brian


(Spoilers!)

Well, a few weeks ago, I expressed quite a bit of angry thoughts over the episode of ‘Family Guy’ called ‘Life of Brian’. It was the episode that was touted as the one that would be killing off one of the main characters of the show ‘permanently’ and, as that episode title suggests, it ended up being Brian, who got hit by a car. Obviously I wasn’t too keen on that decision, not only because Brian was one of the best characters, alongside Stewie, left on the show since it started to suck, but the episode itself was just tasteless. The writers tried to make us forget about him immediately by having the Griffins buy a new dog instead and apparently eliminating any possibility of Brian’s return. As for the new dog Vinny, it may have been only the first episode he was in but I didn’t care; you can’t replace Brian no way no how. On a show filled with insane/over-the-top and, let’s be honest, rather unlikable characters (mainly in recent seasons), he was the sanest character on the show and the most likable alongside Stewie.

Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one who was against this as pretty much every fan of the show was as well. There were numerous petitions filed (I will openly admit that I myself signed one of them) and several fans said that they would be boycotting the show unless Brian was brought back (I too was also one of them; I haven’t been watching the show for about two years but after this episode, I decided to have it stay that way). Two episodes later, during this past weekend’s Christmas-themed episode, ‘Christmas Guy’, fans received the Christmas miracle they were hoping for. After coming across a past version of himself while at the mall, Stewie was able to get a new time machine and traveled back to the precise moment where Brian was hit by the car and pushed him out of the way, effectively saving him from his death. For the record, I just watched the episode and I am glad that Brian is back. Sure, perhaps my initial reactions towards the character Vinny were rather hasty. ‘Sopranos’ alum Tony Sirico did do a good job in the role and while I found the character to be rather annoying at times, his final scene with Stewie (where he accepts the fact that by saving Brian he won’t be the Griffins’ pet anymore) was a pretty touching character moment.

However, that doesn’t change the following fact of how pissed off I still am at the writers for doing this. According to show writer Steve Callaghan, the writers ultimately decided to kill off Brian as, and I quote, “a fun way to shake things up…” I don’t know why they thought this was a good idea because killing a character is not ‘a fun thing’, especially when that character is beloved like Brian is. Again, my problem with this storyline wasn’t that they killed him off. As proven by Joss Whedon shows/movies, it can happen. My problem with it was that the death itself was not handled properly. Also, now I’m left wondering this; was the decision to bring him back from death just part of the writers’ plan in the first place or because we as a fan base were very much against it? I seriously hope that this is the case of the latter scenario, because if it wasn’t, then this would easily have to be one of the worst marketing ploys that I have ever seen. To quote A.V. Club writer Eric Thurm in his review of this episode, “If anything, ‘Christmas Guy’ proves that Family Guy probably doesn’t have a heart except for Stewie and Brian.”, which is something I completely agree with.

Here’s the link to Eric’s review:

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