‘A Lot Of People In The Audience Look Pissed’: 5 ‘Family Guy’ Episodes That Signaled The Show’s Decline

A while back, I wrote an article naming 5 great Family Guy episodes from the first three seasons, in order to make the point that the show used to be quite good. Now, let’s turn the tables, and look at some of the episodes that lead to the show’s unfortunate decline. If you’re trying to convince your friend that Family Guy is actually an okay show, these are not the episodes to start with.

1. “Brian The Bachelor” – Original Air Date: June 26, 2005

When Family Guy returned to TV in 2005, this was the first sign of trouble. First off, the subplot with Chris and his demented talking pimple is stupid beyond belief and set a dangerous precedent for other ridiculous storylines in the future.

The main plot isn’t much better. Brian goes on The Bachelorette, acts cynical about it at first, then falls for the girl in question. It turns out the whole thing is a ruse and she doesn’t care about him at all. This was abrupt and underexplained, but even worse, it leads to Brian calling her endlessly, with every scene being more cringeworthy than the last. This was a poor episode in just about every way, and sadly, it was a major indicator of the direction Family Guy was heading.

2. “Mother Tucker” – Original Air Date: September 17, 2006

And here, we see the show reaching the point where characterization just doesn’t matter. Peter’s mom has a brief fling with Tom Tucker, who becomes a father figure to Peter.

It slightly works, seeing as Peter had a troubled relationship with his dad. But then it goes to such a weird place, with Peter basically reverting back to being a child. And for some reason, Tom completely enables this, basically acting like Peter is an 8-year-old.

The scene where Tom spanks Peter for eating ice cream before finishing his dinner was incredibly awkward and is really uncomfortable to watch. This could have been an interesting episode about Peter’s stunted growth and his lack of a male role model growing up, but instead it went to a weird place, and any emotional resonance was lost in a plot that made very little sense.

3. “Airport ’07” – Original Air Date: March  4, 2007

This was where the show’s over-dependency on shock humor became glaringly obvious. This episode features Peter trying to have sex with Meg, a clip of a man viciously beating his wife that appears for no real reason, and, of course, Prom Night Dumpster Baby.

OK, the last one is a little bit funny in an, “I’m going to hell for laughing at this” sort of way, but cramming so much of this type of humor into one episode illustrated that Family Guy seemed to be more interested in being as gross as possible than actually trying to be clever.

4. “The Juice Is Loose” – Original Air Date: March 15, 2009

This episode was the ultimate sign of just how lazy Family Guy was getting. Why? Because they play an entire Conway Twitty song! Yes, the writers apparently decided it was okay to not write a joke — or anything else — for four minutes. All because the idea of playing an old Conway Twitty clip is just so inherently hilarious.

The rest of the episode was no great shakes either. O.J. Simpson comes to town, befriends Peter, while everyone else is wary of him. Peter convinces them that O.J. isn’t really a bad guy, and then he stabs two people. “Oh, I guess he did do it.” Meh.

5. “Screams Of Silence: The Story Of Brenda Q” – Original Air Date: October 30, 2011

This one was just really, really dark, focusing on Quagmire’s sister’s abusive relationship. The episode doesn’t really mock domestic violence — it takes what’s going on pretty seriously — but it tries to combine incredibly dark scenes of Jeff abusing Brenda with unrelated jokes.

In one truly awful scene, Jeff hits Brenda for watching Letterman, saying he prefers Leno because of his non-threatening style. I guess we’re supposed to appreciate the irony, but everything is just done so awkwardly in this one. This episode could have sent a strong message about domestic violence, but its clumsy attempts to combine humor with a serious point made it extremely difficult to watch. Plus, the “Iraq Lobster” joke might be the single dumbest thing Family Guy has ever done.

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