Brian the Closer (Family Guy)

Brian the Closer (Family Guy)
The "Realty Bites" of Family Guy, but not in a very good way.
Series: Family Guy Part of Season: 13 Episode Number: 4 Air Date: November 9, 2014 Writer: Steve Marmel Director: John Holmquist Previous episode: Baking Bad Next episode: Turkey Guys

Brian the Closer is the fourth episode of the thirteenth season of Family Guy.

Plot

Brian's cosmetic surgery leads him down a new career path as a real estate agent, which gets him into trouble with Quagmire.

Why It Isn't Closer

1. The episode somewhat rips off "Realty Bites" from The Simpsons, and not in a good way.
   • Earlier episodes had similar plots or scenes, like with Lois having a gambling addiction much like Marge, however the conflict was different. Here it's the same conflict (Marge sells Flanders a murder house without telling/Brian sells Quagmire a dump without telling), except Brian has no sympathy.
2. All of the characters (except for Quagmire, Cleveland, and Joe) are unlikable in this episode.
   • Peter is very unlikable for driving his car to purposely get rid of Brian's rope, only to cause Brian to lose his teeth. Speaking of which, Peter gets no comeuppance for his actions or even apologises to Brian.
     • Peter also never got consequences for running a kid on bike.
   • The family also are unlikable as they refuse to help Brian fix his teeth after Peter finally gets rid of his rope because Lois said "they're not spending human money on a deformed animal".
   • Brian is also unlikable because Quagmire decides to help Brian despite hating him, and in return, He becomes a real estate agent, tricks Quagmire into buying a filthy hotel, and tries to hide from him to avoid the 72-hour warranty contract.
   • Bonnie is also unlikable as she is implied to be plotting to kill Joe by buying a house that was run down and allowed her to push a wheelchair off a cliff. This unfortunate implication is unfunny and it is very disturbing.
3. Brian without his teeth looks very disturbing, along with his broken nose, and him with teeth is no better. He looks absolutely ridiculous with his new teeth, and everybody acts like he’s the most good-looking person.
4. The scenes where Peter puts scissors in his nose are disturbing, and potentially imitable.
5. This episode only seems to exist to prolong the Brian and Quagmire feud, which has been going on since late Season 8, to the point where it becomes annoying and cliched.
   • Not only does the episode exists to prolong such a feud but it directly tries to make the feud justified in its existence towards fans by having Brian state that he is selfish and that only Quagmire calls him out on this and all his other flaws when nobody else in Quahog does. Unfortunately it also once again shows the writers awareness about Brian’s character derailment and flanderization yet they also do not care about it by having Brian make the rant on himself to eat up the time to finalize his scam towards Quagmire.
6. Some bad morals about animal abuse and neglect are taught in this episode: it is not only okay to neglect your pets if they have a mouth injury but also okay to hurt them if they misbehave, as shown with the Griffins refusing to pay for Brian’s tooth surgery and Quagmire assaulting Brian with a lamppost and portraying him as justified in doing so.
7. It is never explained how Quagmire managed to track Brian down at the motel near the ending.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Brian gets his punishment by Quagmire swinging a lamp at him, destroying his new teeth and ending his real estate career. However, he is shown having his teeth back by the next episode with no explanation given.
2. This episode brings back the dumb beaver from the episode "The Juice Is Loose!" which is nice.
3. Quagmire, Cleveland and Joe are the only likable characters here, and Quagmire isn’t flanderized like he usually is.

Reception

The episode has a 6.6/10 rating on IMDb.

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