Episode 13 - Stew-Roids
22 March 2012
Synopsis: Stewie gets beaten up by Joe’s daughter Susie. Peter is so ashamed that he takes Stewie to the gym and gives him steroids to bulk up. Bored of the popular guys at school Connie D’Amico decides to date Chris and make him popular. Once he is accepted he leaves her and she seeks revenge alongside Meg.
The Good: I enjoyed this story as it unfolded, though it didn’t come to a decent conclusion for any of the characters involved. But the theme of Peter and Lois’ bad parenting was consistent and a plot following the three Griffin children was a nice change of pace from Peter smashing into everything every week.
Connie D’Amico has now dated all three Griffin men (214, 608) which is an amusingly consistent role for her. Chris becoming popular is a familiar story but its played out adequately here. The mocking of high school stereotypes definitely can be funny. I particularly enjoyed the increasingly ridiculous greeting noises and nicknames the popular kids gave one another. Concluding with Chris saying “Nazi Guy!” to a skin head class mate. We also get escalating unaware homoerotic pranks from one of the jocks, though announcing that he was in fact gay kind of ruined that joke for me.
Stewie’s steroid plot allows for him to prance around imitating muscle heads calling Brian “B to the rian” and “B minus” in his ever amusing tones.
The cut away jokes are mostly passable. Evil Johnson and Johnson was a nice idea. And Michael Vick (who ran a dog fighting ring) interfering in the tender scene from Lady and the Tramp was pretty funny.
If Joe’s son Kevin really is dead then this its definitely one of the briefest goodbyes in television history. “He died in Iraq” Joe says.
Flashback ratio (good-medium-bad): 0-6-3
The Bad: Chris doesn’t learn a lesson about being popular. Meg doesn’t learn a lesson about trying to be popular. Stewie doesn’t learn a lesson about steroids. I don’t suppose that matters too much but none of the stories come to a satisfying conclusion and there is a lot of good humour and good will that can be created by that.
Otherwise the majority of the jokes are repeats or just have no bite. Peter making fun of a one legged boy and a blind girl not being able to see are really tired lines by now. References to Family Ties and The Flintstones are fine but there isn’t really a joke behind either of them. Even drunk Santa is a nice idea but just doesn’t have a punch line, beyond exactly what you would imagine that would look like.
Lois essentially encouraging Meg to commit suicide just shouldn’t be in the show. It isn’t a funny joke and it can put ideas in people’s minds that don’t need to be there.
Best Joke: Having drooled all over Connie, Peter clambers on top of her (“to keep her warm”) when she gets knocked out. After a pause he looks at the “camera” and yells “What are you looking at, it’s a cartoon!”
I’m not usually thrilled when show’s acknowledge that they are a show. However Family Guy has built its formula around breaking conventions so it didn’t bother me too much. What I thought was good about this line was that the writers realised this deeply inappropriate moment needed some kind of comment. So much disgusting stuff happens on the show without comment that for Peter to acknowledge the obvious really took me by surprise and made me laugh.
The Bottom Line: A story focussed on the Griffin children is a fun change of scenery. There are lots of jokes to enjoy if you haven’t seen them all before.
Feedback
Add your comments on this episode below. They may be included in the weekly podcasts.
)