Brian & Stewie

If you're expecting a typical Family Guy episode you will be disappointed. You won't get much of the humour that the show has gotten us used to. However, if you have no expectations and watch this episode open-mindedly, you will be surprised.

It's one of my favourite Family Guy episodes ever, because of the different ranges of depth it indulges in. We get to know both characters in a very deep and intimate way, as if they were absolutely real people with real-life troubles and concerns. The humour is still there, and it's funny as always, but the episode is not meant to be your typical FG episode; it goes beyond that and shows us what these two characters (and people in general) are really made of.

I am sort of at a nonplus from both the negative reviews, and the actual talent the writers of this show displayed with this episode. It's rare to see a drama this good in modern times, especially in a show like Family Guy.

The rest of the family (except Chris) only appears in the other musical numbers at the end of the episode. Sometimes we have horrible Family Guy episodes we want to forget about like 420 and Seahorse Seashell Party, or mediocre episodes with moments we would like to forget, like April in Quahog or It's Me Peter. This may not be a great episode, but it's a good thing to watch if you need to turn off your brain and de-stress if you're having a dull or bad day.

It inspired me with so many ideas for other kinds of shows that could have bottle episodes like this where Brian and Stewie do random things in 1 room for 28 minutes. It's like that movie Saw where Adam and Lawrence did random things in 1 room for 100 minutes, but much less violent. Although Brian and Stewie itself doesn't shy away from disgusting or violent moments, it's a lot more downplayed than Fresh Heir and Herpe the Love Sore.

For all its disgusting moments, it's a surprisingly sweet story at its core, and the episode excels at telling a 28-minute story with no music or cutaways the would detract from the experience. They argue, they do dangerous fun things together, and they confess their feelings for each other. That's the least I can say without spoiling any details. It's still less impressive than Road to Rhode Island or Crimes and Meg's Demeanor, but another episode I can leave feeling happy at the end even when the plot is minimal, kind of like Frink Gets Testy.

By the way, this isn't the 150th Family Guy episode. It's only the 146th.

Family Guy in the last two years has really been hit or miss. This year, there seems to be even more misses than hits, but one thing stands through all of it, and that is that Family Guy is nothing but a goofy gag show. From the beginning Family Guy was this way, though during the first few seasons it would occasionally show a little bit of heart, which seemed to be completely missing in recent episodes. This episode completely goes against the normal Family Guy format, and also shows some emotional depth. It's so different than every other episode, and though not the funniest, still managed to be a real classic.

Brian and Stewie are locked in a bank vault overnight and have to put up with each other for this time. During the duration of the night, Brian does a disgusting deed for Stewie, pierces his ear, they both get drunk and they learn a lot about each other. No cutaways at all this episode, and only two characters, in one setting, giving us a more intimate setting, and more depth to the characters.

It was nice to stop on a couple characters and just linger on them. This show so rarely does that. It's normally one joke after another, with fart jokes, cutaways and Meg hate jokes peppered throughout each episode. Lingering on these two characters gave us an interesting character study, and despite that very little happened, we got to learn a lot more about two of Family Guy's most popular characters. And it's not like the episode isn't funny. It's funny, it just doesn't rely on the usual celebrity cut away references, so it isn't quite as random. It's a more focused episode on the relationship between these two characters. And actually, the end of the episode was really sweet and nice, and was probably the last episode of Family Guy to actually show genuine emotion since season 3's "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows".

Overall, this is one of the deepest episodes of Family Guy, and despite that it had to get rid of it's usual zaniness to achieve it, this was still a triumph and one of Family Guy's best episodes.

My rating: **** out of ****. 35 mins.

Most people have already explained why this episode is already great, but the bond between brian and stewie and the seriousness of this episode, shows that behind all the jokes and laughs theres something more. this episode has my respect and the subject of depression. (10/10)