Family Guy Epidose With Red Shirt Blue Shirt

Family Guy: "The Boys in the Band" Review

Brian and Stewie enter the cutthroat world of children's music.

Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.

The opening moments of "The Boys in the Band" didn't exactly fill me with hope for Family Guy's 15th season. That initial cutaway gag, with Willy Wonka making inappropriate overtures to young Charlie Bucket, is exactly the sort of cheap, shock-driven humor this show relies on far too often. Luckily, that gag wasn't indicative of the episode's overall quality. Typically lousy cutaway humor aside, "The Boys in the Band" turned out to be a pretty enjoyable start to the new season.Like so many episodes before it, this one hinged heavily on the Stewie/Brian dynamic. The pairing worked in this case because the characterization was a little less extreme than it's tended to be in recent seasons. Less "Stewie making nonstop homosexual passes at Brian" and "Brian being a pompous know-it-all" and more of the two simply hanging out and hatching a new scheme together. It definitely helped that this latest scheme involved forming a Wiggles-esque band called "Red Shirt, Blue Shirt" and going on tour. Musical numbers are often where Family Guy stands out the most. One of the reasons the Season 14 finale, "Road to India," was so disappointing was the lack of musical numbers that are usually so prominent in the "Road to..." episodes. "The Boys in the Band," whether intentional or not, felt like an apology for that episode.

The songs were a definite highlight this week. Sure, none of them were anywhere near the length or scope of the big song and dance numbers the show fires off from time to time, but they were catchy, funny, and full of wholesome, baby-friendly messages like why Mommy and Daddy are making those noises in the bedroom and how you can unlock that pesky gun safe. That's the kind of inappropriate humor the show does well. Not lazy pedophile jokes like the Willy Wonka gag, but humor that requires a little more effort and flair.

The Stewie/Brian storyline followed a pretty typical "rise and fall" arc, with the two finding success, only to be torn apart by mutual jealousy and then mend fences in the end. But the writers did spice things up a bit by bringing Stewie's ex-girlfriend Olivia (voiced by Rachael MacFarlane) back into the fold. The episode built nicely on her previous appearance in 2006's "Chick Cancer," which ended with Stewie setting fire to their cardboard home and leaving Olivia to die along with her new boy toy. Naturally, Olivia was in the mood for a little revenge, which compelled her to steal Red Shirt, Blue Shirt right out from under its two founding members. I do wish this storyline ended on a slightly bigger note (one to match Stewie's attempted murder of Olivia), but at least it allowed for The Sopranos' Tony Sirico to make a brief cameo as Vinny.

If only every job interview was like this.

The Chris subplot proved equally entertaining. What better job for a young, ambitious high school student than serving as personal assistant to Quagmire? This pairing allowed the episode to both celebrate Quagmire's sex-obsessed lifestyle and give Chris something to do that didn't simply reiterate how dumb and naive he is. It turns out that Chris has quite the knack for arranging Quagmire's complicated schedule and ensuring his many sexual liasons go smoothly. The gag where Quagmire and Chris treated one such encounter exactly like a visit to the doctor's office was especially clever. There was also the hilarious "sex toys in the dishwasher" scene. Lois' angry phone call to Quagmire is easily one of my favorite Family Guy moments in recent memory.

A few other stray observations about tonight:

• It's always odd how inconsistent the writers are about Stewie's sexuality. Several times tonight, jokes revolved around the fact that Stewie doesn't actually understand sex and romance; he's just repeating what he picks up from TV and so forth. Yet there was also the recurring cutaway joke about Stewie's "rock bottom" boyfriend he picked up at the grocery store.
• Most of the cutaway jokes were pretty lame (the overlong "Chris racing to the airport"gag, the "Frankenstein's monster working as a bank loan officer" gag, etc.), but I did get a chuckle out of seeing a teenage Stewie.
• Funnily enough, Amy Schumer had guest roles on both Simpsons and Family Guy tonight. Here she played the female factory worker teasing Stewie about his ambitious dreams.

All told, it was great to see such a solid premiere for Family Guy, especially after The Simpsons' disappointing return earlier tonight.

Hopefully this premiere is a sign of things to come for Family Guy's 15th season. Not all the humor connected tonight (with most of the cutaway jokes being duds, as per usual), but there were more hits than misses overall. And both storylines made great use of their character pairings. In particular, this episode suggested that, even after all these years, there's a lot of untapped potential when it comes to Chris.

In This Article

Family Guy

In Seth MacFarlane's irreverent and twisted comedy, we are treated to the follies of the Griffins a not-so-average middle class family. Week after week we get to experience a hilarious brand of humor that only the Family Guy can provide.

great

Family Guy's 15th season started off on solid footing thanks to a consistently entertaining premiere.

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Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/09/26/family-guy-the-boys-in-the-band-review

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