Brian Griffin's House of Payne (Family Guy)
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| "Brian Griffin's House of Payne" | ||||||||||||||||
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 Baby's First Head Injury: Family Guy flavored. (Now with a side order of executive meddling!)
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Brian Griffin's House of Payne is the fifteenth episode of the eighth season of Family Guy.
Summary
Brian pitches a pilot to CBS, but James Woods sabotages his script. Meanwhile, Meg and Chris try to hide Stewie after he gets accidentally knocked unconscious by them.
Why Brian's House Is Nothing but Payne
- Stewie's infected head wound. It is among the most disgusting things in the series to date, even by Family Guy standards.
- It's a 22-minute Brian and Stewie torture episode.
- Many of the characters except for Brian and Stewie are unlikable here.
- James Woods and the CBS executives are unlikable characters, as they kept mistreating Brian and ruined his show for no reason.
- Meg and Chris are also unlikable in this episode as they attempt to pretend that Stewie is still conscious instead of calling 911, tell Lois and/or face the consequences for their actions.
- Meg does mention taking him to the hospital at one point, but of course that doesn't happen because she said before, they or Chris and Peter at least don't want to get rightfully punished and scolded by Lois for their wrongdoing.
- This is also very out-of-character for Meg since she's usually the smart and responsible one. Sadly, in this episode, she acts just as idiotic and irresponsible as Peter and Chris.
- Peter is very unlikable as well, in fact, this episode marks the start of his flanderization. He is not only okay with Meg and Chris knocking out Stewie, but he's also proud of them for it, and reveals he used to knock them out all the time when they were younger.
- He also tries to trick Lois to thinking she ran over Stewie and have her in the wrong of causing Stewie's head injury.
- Speaking of Lois, she isn't any better than the others, she suggests covering the wound and framing someone for almost killing Stewie.
- This isn't too surprising given how before she spanked Stewie and even mentioned putting him in the oven a few times in a later episode.
- Joe is also unlikable in episode as after watching the pilot episode of Brian’s show, Joe tries to murder Brian by strangling him first and then upon being restrained by Peter and Quagmire, Joe draws out his gun and fires a couple of shots at Brian’s direction, which could have killed him or Lois or Bonnie.
- The fact that Stewie's head wound gradually rots away as the episode progresses is a very disturbing and disgusting sight.
- Adding to that, there's a scene where a raccoon attacks Stewie's brain.
- Plot hole: Why didn't Meg and Chris call 911 when Stewie is unconscious? Sure, Meg did suggest taking Stewie to the hospital at one point as mentioned in WBHINBP#3, but they didn't even bother taking him to the hospital since it doesn't excuse the fact that they don't want to get punished and scolded much to their paranoia. Wouldn't it be better to call an ambulance to let the paramedics take Stewie to the hospital?
- Continuity Error:. James Woods somehow gets back into Hollywood’s good graces as he manages to manipulate CBS into changing Brian’s show. This should have been more difficult for James to pull off as his career was ruined by Peter in “Back To The Woods” as revenge on James for stealing Peter’s identity.
- The main plot isn't any better where Brian is unfairly tortured and it's not fun to watch because Brian never did anything wrong in this episode.
- He becomes a victim of executive meddling after the CBS executives keep making changes to his passion drama project which ends up becoming a ridiculous sitcom starring James Woods, who's also responsible for turning the show into a comedy.
- Chris and Meg are never punished for injuring Stewie and lying about it and Peter is never punished for throwing Stewie under a car and causing Lois to run over Stewie and make her believe that she injured him.
- Likewise, James Woods and the CBS executives are never punished for ruining Brian’s show.
- Terrible ending: In the credits, Stewie wakes up realizing it's now November while his family shows no reaction to him finally waking up.
Redeeming Qualities
- The main plot with Brian, while not great, isn't as bad as the subplot.
- Stewie and Brian are likable here, and the latter isn’t flanderized like he usually is.
- Also, they are the only sympathetic characters in the entire episode.
- Quagmire is also likable here as even though he hates Brian, he does understand why Brian’s show turned out the way it did and that James Woods was to blame for it. He even protects Brian from Joe’s wrath when Joe threw a tantrum over the show and used his gun.
- The beginning was great, as it involves Stewie and Rupert fighting in a Star Wars-styled fighter jet. Not to mention the amazing CGI animation put into it.
- This scene. Enough said.
- "I love you so much right now. Let's go to the hospital." - this means that Peter did eventually take Stewie to the hospital.
- James Woods does eventually apologize to Brian for ruining his show in the later episode "And Then There Were Fewer" after James becomes a born-again Christian and invites the Griffin family to his mansion for dinner.
Reception
Although Brian Griffin's House of Payne has a 7.2/10 rating on IMDb,[1] it was met with extremely negative reviews from fans and critics. PhantomStrider ranked this as the 9th worst episode of Family Guy[2].
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References
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