A Fistful of Meg (Family Guy)
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| "A Fistful of Meg" | ||||||||||||||||
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 Behold: The episode where the running gag of Meg getting abused is cranked up to the highest setting imaginable.
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A Fistful of Meg is the fourth episode of the twelfth season of Family Guy.
Plot
Meg unintentionally spills her lunch on Michael, a new kid who is appropriately nicknamed, "Mental Mike." When he tries to kill her in retribution, she tries to find a way out of fighting him. Meanwhile, Peter repeatedly harasses Brian while naked until he snaps.
Why It's Also a Bad Fistful of Crap
- It's a torture episode for Meg and Brian.
- This episode to date is the ABSOLUTE WORST Meg torture porn in the whole show as it is extremely mean-spirited towards Meg, even by the show's standards.
- Mental Mike got angry at Meg for the dumbest reason: she accidentally got her lunch on his jacket, and it doesn't help that more of it got on Meg than him.
- The forced A Christmas Story joke didn't help, either.
- Principal Shephard didn't do anything to stop the fight, instead he openly encouraged the two to fight it out.
- The sign at the school says, "Meg vs. Mental Mike" and then "Meg's Funeral" afterward.
- In reality, Principal Shepherd would have likely been fired and charged with criminal negligence.
- There is a scene in this episode wherein one of her attempts to get expelled from school and therefore weasel herself out of the fight, Meg decides to upload a sex tape of herself involving hot dogs on the school computer, which does not work. This also got the show in trouble for indecency.[1]
- All of Meg's friends ditch her, as soon as she pisses off Mental Mike. Some friends they are.
- The main plot of the episode is significantly clichéd as it is derivative of the teen movie Three O'Clock High as it follows the “meek kid accidentally offends a bully, gets challenged to a fight, and tries to get out of said fight before the deadline”, plot cliché. Such a cliché has already been done in many other cartoons, including Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends, and South Park.
- Peter is completely unlikable in the subplot since all he does is repetitively harass Brian with his fat naked body for no reason whatsoever, even going so far as to deliberately mail his penis to Brian.
- In one scene, Peter openly admits that he has no remorse for his actions despite Brian's complaints, claiming that he can do anything he wants regardless of whether what he does is right or wrong such as continuously harassing Brian with his nudity on purpose just because he's the head of the house, which makes Peter even more of an unlikable prick than usual since he's abusing his power as the head of the Griffin household.
- Lois is also unlikable because she helps Peter with harassing Brian by tricking him into showing her naked body for him to "recover" from the harassment he got, only for Peter to show up with his naked body hidden in her robe, while she laughs at him.
- Not only that, but she also refuses to let Meg transfer to another school, because she doesn't want to fight Mental Mike. Wow, Lois...some mother you are!
- While justified because of Peter's behavior, Brian shaving off all of his furs and forcing Peter to feel his wrinkly skin is rather disturbing and hard to watch.
- When Chris sees shaved Brian, he scratches his face, causing it to bleed, which is also very unpleasant to watch.
- Quagmire telling Meg that her, "weird body can be used as a weapon", while helpful, is disgusting and nonsensical, at least in real life.
- He also tells Meg to drink his own semen, which is believed to be egg whites.
- The fight is terrible. Most of the fight involves Meg getting annihilated, until she kills him by, "being gross", which isn't very fun to watch.
- The running gag in which Mental Mike constantly punches Meg, causing her face to change and getting the other students' acclaim when her face changes, but them getting mad when she gets her normal face is unfunny and gets old quickly.
- Plot holes:
- Schools have student resource officers and cameras, why wouldn't they try to stop Mental Mike?
- How could Peter fit in Lois's robe without being seen on the outside?
- Meg viciously assaulted a driver in "Road to Rupert", but how come in this case she's portrayed as a weakling?
- When Meg kills her bully, her belly is very fat, but in other episodes like, "Barely Legal", her belly is normal.
- The two plots involving Meg/Mental Mike/Quagmire and Brian/Peter/Stewie are too similar to each other, hence the episode's self-originality.
- Excluding the cutaway gags, this episode contains some illogical scenes, even by Family Guy standards. Examples:
- When Peter cuts off his penis to mail it to Brian, he immediately faints as the result of bleeding way too much. But in the next scene, Peter is shown to have survived that, although the removal of a man's penis is proven to be deadly in real life.
- Near the episode's climax, Peter somehow can sneak his bare butt through the bottom of Stewie's bedroom door, despite how big and overweight he is, something which is impossible to be done even by animated sitcom standards.
- Meg shows Mental Mike her grossly obese belly, which turns out to be so horrifying to Mental Mike that he quickly melts to death in a gruesome fashion.
- The narrated segment where Meg mentions that she dies a year later of internal defrosting is not only pointless but also only there to show how much the writers hate her.
- Overuse of gross-out scenes, such as close-ups of the students that Mike killed, Chris taking Meg’s back off, and all the things Meg does during the fight.
- Misleading ending: Chris walks in and is surprised to see Stewie and Brian looking like Stewie. Stewie tells the audience that the next episode will be about this, but in the next episode, everything is back to normal.
Redeeming Fistful Qualities
- Mental Mike gets retribution for his abusive behavior and is killed by Meg, even if it was gross, as mentioned above, he had it coming for murdering some students Meg hired to defend her.
- Peter also gets his comeuppance in the scene where he is feeling Brian's wrinkly skin despite being unpleasant.
- Good ending: After Meg kills Mental Mike, the school celebrates her victory, and then she leaves with Quagmire despite the annoying narrated segment.
- The part where Stewie makes Brian look like him can be funny.
- Meg, Brian, Stewie, and Chris are likable in this episode. Brian isn’t dumbed down like he usually is, and this is one of the few times in seasons 8-15 that Meg has her original personality. On top of that, Chris isn't that much of a jerk to Meg in this episode either.
- While it doesn't excuse him for telling Meg disgusting things, at least Quagmire still shows that he loves and cares for Meg very much, and he's often willing to help her out when he needs to as he did try to help Meg out during her battle with Mental Mike in this episode.
- Lois' reaction to the shaved Brian is hilarious:
- "OH MY GOD! IS THAT A F**KING RAT?! PETER! HOLD IT DOWN! I'M GETTING THE GUN!"
Reception
"A Fistful of Meg", was panned by fans and critics alike for its excessively mean-spirited and disgusting humor.[2] In addition, the Parents Television Council filed an FCC complaint about the episode for its disgusting imagery and portrayal of bullying.[1]
References
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