Episode 15 - Brian Griffin's House of Payne
29 March 2010
Synopsis: Stewie discovers an old script of Brian's and shows it to him. Brian forces Lois to read it and she loves it. She uses her connections at CBS to get him a pilot deal. But the network wants to turn the drama into a sit com and Brian goes along with it. Meg and Chris accidentally knock Stewie out and try to cover up what they did.
The Good: Peter using his wish bone wish to ask for no gravity (after nailing his chair to the floor) was certainly different and unexpected.
Flashback ratio (good-medium-bad): 0-1-0
The Bad: The Stewie head bump story was both gross and pointless. Quite how lots of jokes about maggots growing in his head or racoons chewing on his brain qualify as humour, I'm not sure.
Meanwhile James Woods is scripted to be his usual douche bag self but without being funny at all. The entire plotline about Brian's creative vision being destroyed was humourless. The CBS executives had no subtlety whatsoever so it was obvious early on that they were going to change everything about Brian's work. They were also charmed by Woods who just randomly said annoying and inappropriate things without any fun context. It's not as if Brian was given any opportunity to be involved in the decisions which changed the show so there wasn't much to the story of him selling out either.
The opening sequence which illustrated Stewie's play fantasy in great detail was a giant self indulgence on the part of the writers and animators. It was just another example of the disrespectful time wasting which the show indulges in so often.
Best Joke: The only flashback joke in the episode was pretty dumb but at least it was a joke. Stewie likens Lois liking Brian's script to Hitler meeting with his publisher to discuss Mein Kampf . The publisher does the old - we didn't like it, we loved it bit and Hitler is relieved and amused and adds "I could have killed you Mr Weinberg!"
The Bottom Line: A giant waste of time on several levels.
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