Brian & Stewie

I don't care what anybody says, I love this episode so much; it's one of my personal favorites of all time. I know people complain that it wasn't that funny or it was boring or whatever. Think what you want. It won't stop me from adoring it. 'Brian & Stewie' was a bit out of character of what 'Family Guy' normally does and that may cause some backlash but for me, it was a bold move Seth McFarland did. I love Peter Griffin but the whole 'animated idiot fat drunken father' seems very indistinguishable compared to Homer Simpson. Brian and Stewie stole the show; these guys are the most interesting characters and the most likable. Why? Both a baby and a dog can talk, and act like full grown people. They go on strange quests together, sing together, dance together, fight together--well you get the point. I just love how dark this episode was and not in the crude-humor dark way; dark as in serious. I love when some comedies or satires take a break from the gags and try to illustrate a point from a dramatic standpoint. Brian and Stewie are locked in a bank's vault by accident and have to wait until it opens. And that's all I'll say but I will say that the ending is unexpected and actually tragic, even by 'Family Guy' standards. And I know people say it's so stupid, that it sucked because this is something 'Family Guy' would never do, but that's not the only thing that makes it so good, it's the depth of our characters. And we learn something new about Brian that really makes my day. Don't get too upset with the fact that it's not as funny as you'd expect, look at it from another standpoint and you might enjoy it as much as I did.

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.

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.

This episode came out 10 years ago and the world has only gotten more small-minded.

"The 150th episode should be the funniest!"

You've put Family Guy in a shallow box, and Seth did exactly what he should've: shattered your expectations. For the rest of us with an expanded view of genres and their place in the world, this was a great episode.

This is the first time I have ever reviewed anything on any site. I know it's random, but I have to say something about not only the episode but the bizarre response from some people. Then I will get off my soapbox.

Not liking the episode is one thing. Dismissing it entirely because it goes against the wave of the very controversial and often criticized style of a typical "Family Guy" episode makes no sense to me. Nearly every negative review says the same things. "Where's the cutaway gags?" "It didn't make me laugh once!" Answers: "They aren't there" and "It wasn't trying to." Okay, so maybe the momentary way over-the-top gross-out humor and drunk Stewie gags were meant to elicit laughs, and I'll admit that on the former it failed to do so. But I can forgive it. I loved this episode. It is the first time "Family Guy" has really challenged viewers intellectually and spiritually. It is by far the darkest and most existential of any episode. It is the first time that you could actually close-read an episode of it (Brian reading David Copperfield to Stewie as a bedtime story is completely loaded with meaning, FWIW.) So yeah, feel free to expect one thing from "Family Guy" and be disappointed if you are not satisfied with the radical shift in tone. But it's perplexing to see someone say "It didn't make me laugh!" or "There were no non-sequiturs!" Those points are not inherent demerits. For one episode, just one, they were kind of the point.