Episode 11 - Dial Meg for Murder
3 February 2010
Synopsis: Peter joins the rodeo and gets more than he bargained for. Brian writes an article about teenage girls for a magazine and decides to follow Meg around. He discovers that she has started a relationship with a convict. He escapes and she is arrested for harbouring him. When she returns from three months inside she is a changed person.
The Good: I suppose Meg treating her family like crap is what they deserve. Or it would be if the show took itself at all seriously.
Flashback ratio (good-medium-bad): 0-3-0
The Bad: Ignoring all the violent excesses this still wasn’t a good story. The rodeo stuff wasted time which could have been spent showing that Meg was sweet or kind (as Brian says she is later). That way the moral of the story might actually have meant something. Instead Meg comes out of prison and treats everyone like crap and then goes back to normal just because Brian was nice to her. Nor was her relationship with Luke dealt with at all satisfactorily, it was just a plot device.
As for those violent excesses, is there anyone out there laughing uproariously at it? If you’ve seen it once on Family Guy then the shock value is gone. Meg beating up her family is just uncomfortable to watch and goes to such excesses that it makes no sense why she isn’t back in prison immediately.
Then there is Peter being raped by a talking bull. I don’t know what else to say but eww. Why would I want to see or think about that? It’s beyond ludicrous and of course it’s only one of many jokes about abortion, molestation, paedophilia, anti-Semitism (and black guys are criminals for good measure) and poop. If any of these were an actual joke, as in with a punch line, I might be able to forgive it. But they aren’t jokes, they are just stated or shown in a way which is intended to shock. It just makes for unfunny and unpleasant viewing.
The few clean jokes are all dull or repetitive. Drunk Billy smashing things up with his helicopter is a one-note joke. The stock photos on websites is about as insignificant as satire can get. And while flies trying to fly out of a window is one of those amusing observations, the joke is delivered in a dry and straightforward way.
Best Joke: The Griffins are discussing what has happened to Meg. Brian uses the word “freak” as Meg walks in and the whole family pass the buck as to who said it. They all end up agreeing that Stewie said it to which he comments “Oh so now everyone understands me!”
The Bottom Line: Why so gross?
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