“Family Guy” Season 7 Episode 12 Recap: 420

While the guys are hanging out at the Drunken Clam, Quagmire calls and tells them to get over to his house right away. Turns out, he’s got a cat named James. And he’s crazy about him. Even after James uses Joe’s leg as a scratching post. Quagmire’s cat fancying gets out of hand, and when he goes to Vermont to buy James a birthday present, the guys decide to sneak into his house and shave the cat. But because they gave the straight razor to Peter, the cat ends up dead and Peter and Brian end up on an inebriated drive through the Rhode Island backwoods to hide the body. How could this not end well?

Actually, despite getting pulled over by the cops for drunk driving with a bloody corpse in the back of the car and a map detailing where a body will be hidden, they’re just about to get off scott-free when Brian’s dimebag falls into his lap. Out come the handcuffs and the jail time. When the Griffins bail him out and are done making prison-rape jokes, Brian launches into a tirade about the corporate beginnings of the illegalization of pot. Then he gets stoned in the living room, just before Joe shows up to do a random drug test. Stewie’s about to give him his own urine to use, when Lois shows up and scolds Brian for trying to get around the law. This inspires Brian to launch a campaign to legalize pot.

He doesn’t get very far standing in the park and yelling into a megaphone, so Stewie decides to help. Enter showmanship! In the form of a five-minute musical number about how everything is better with a bag of weed. As always, showmanship sways authority, and mayor West signs a bill legalizing pot. That night, the news anchors are stoned, the Blackuweather forecast is “not too bad” and Dr. Who‘s ratings are through the roof. Unfortunately, Peter’s too baked to set up a cutaway, so instead we get a list of celebrities Seth hates.

Peter gets kidnapped and beaten up by Mr. Pewterschmidt, who tells him that because everyone is making things with hemp now, he’s losing millions in the timber business. He wants Peter to turn people against pot. The ad they come up with is great: Hitler addressing the masses, saying that killing Jews is a great idea he got while smoking pot. Unfortunately, FOX News owns the rights to Hitler’s image and won’t have Hitler slandered. The new ad shows Peter telling people that, unlike Harold and Kumar, he got to White Castle in five minutes because he wasn’t stoned. But the ad isn’t enough — there’s no passion behind it to match Brian’s heartfelt anti-pot campaign.

Mr. Pewterschmidt brings Brian to a warehouse filled with 2 million copies of Brian’s book, Faster Than the Speed of Love, and tells him that he’ll publish it with an Oprah’s Book Club sticker on it if only he’ll come out against pot. At first, Brian flat-out rejects the offer, because Stewie tells him through his teeth that his book is good enough to stand on its own, but it’s a lie, and Brian can’t resist the chance of published fame and fortune. He sings a song about how pot is bad, pot is re-illegalized, and Brian’s book tanks under the weight of universal panning by the critics.

Quagmire shows up offering a reward for his cat (remember the cat?) and Peter tells him he killed it.

Highlights:

• Quagmire watching a movie with James: “This is the part I was telling you about! Right here!” and it’s the part where, instead of the MGM Lion roaring, there’s a little kitty mewing.

• Peter getting excited when movies say the titles in the dialogue: “The only way for me to solve this problem is for me to become Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.”

• The overly-sensitive car alarm

• Peter’s prison-rape joke: “The pieces are there — make something out of it.”

• The spoof of the drawn anti-pot commercial in which the dog is disappointed in the person.

• “And just like Helen Keller said…”

• A few of the celebs Seth doesn’t like: Geoffrey Chaucer, every rapper, everyone having anything to do with Chris Martin, Paul Tsongas

• Confusion over Bob Saget’s voiceover parts in How I Met Your Mother

•The fort Stewie builds with copies of Brian’s book: “My house is made of mediocrity.”

5 Comments

  1. On the first point, I think there’s a Hitler reference hidden somewhere in every episode. Like a toy at the bottom of the cereal box. At least that’s what I heard… 🙂

    On that second point, only if by creepy you mean completely awesome!

  2. Kinda creepy how they managed to work in a Hitler reference so close to his birthday, don’t you think?

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