Love, Blactually (Family Guy)

"Love, Blactually (Family Guy)"
Better get used to this; Brian's gonna be doing this a lot.
Series: Family Guy Part of Season: 7 (Volume 7) Episode Number: 1 Air Date: September 28, 2008 Writer: Mike Henry Director: Cyndi Tang Previous episode: Long John Peter Next episode: I Dream of Jesus

Love, Blactually is the first episode of the seventh season of Family Guy. The episode guest stars Kat Foster as Carolyn.

Summary

When Brian meets Carolyn, the girl of his dreams, he decides to follow Stewie's advice to take things slow. This drives Carolyn crazy, and she soon moves on to another man. When Brian discovers Cleveland is the new man, he does whatever it takes (even if it means involving Cleveland's ex-wife, Loretta) to win Carolyn back.

Why It Sucks, Blactually

1. The main issue of the episode is that it encourages viewers that they should rush into a relationship and have sex immediately, which is really bad advice to any young couple.
2. It's a 22-minute torture episode for Brian.
3. All of the characters (except for Brian) are unlikable in this episode:
   • Cleveland is very unlikable, out-of-character and shows an early sense of his flanderization as he steals Brian's girlfriend and laughing at him for it.
   • The Griffin family (except for Brian) are also unlikable and shows an early sense of their flanderization, as they don't care for Brian's sadness, laugh at him for losing his girlfriend, and don't call out Cleveland for stealing his girlfriend.
     • Peter even scolds Brian for wanting Cleveland to return with Loretta so he can get back with Carolyn, even though it was Cleveland who took Brian's girlfriend from him in the first place.
     • Stewie is also unlikable and a terrible friend to Brian in this episode, as he keeps getting into Brian's business over a relationship.
       • His "advice" (which is taking things slow) leads to Brian getting screwed over.
       • When Brian confronts him for advising him not to have sex with Carolyn despite her wanting to, Stewie cynically avoids the blame and plays innocent, he never apologizes to Brian or accepts the fault.
4. It is the episode that basically spearheaded the recycled (and later plagiarized) plot involving Brian dating someone and then breaking up in the end, which would become the theme for many episodes were Brian dates someone, such as Married...with Cancer, "The Heartbreak Dog", Con Heiress and Bri-Da for example.
5. The cutaway with Horton the Elephant and hearing a husband as he assaults his wife (and possibly their infant) while screaming at her.
   • He also does not call 911, which is actually mentioned by Stewie before the cutaway and the joke happens. To quote the Joker: "If you have to explain a joke, there is no joke!"
6. The unfunny sequence of characters saying that "Laura Bush killed someone" for a bit of time. Is that really vital to grind the episode to a halt?
7. In some ways, this can be seen as a desperate attempt to get guest stars.
8. Continuity Error: Loretta accuses Quagmire of ruining her marriage with Cleveland which is not true as “The Cleveland-Loretta-Quagmire” showed that Loretta seduced Quagmire and made the adultery look like Cleveland’s fault, meaning that Loretta ruined her own marriage. This episode does not acknowledge this.
9. The episode completely undermines the ending of “The Cleveland-Loretta-Quagmire” as the ending to that episode has Quagmire apologize to Cleveland for sleeping with Loretta and showing true remorse in his role in the affair while trying to mend his strained friendship with Cleveland. Unfortunately, Quagmire is shown trying to seduce Loretta without a second thought and then lying about it to Cleveland, making Quagmire’s apology to Cleveland look insincere.
10. Due to these reasons above, it was a terrible way to start Season 7.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Cleveland gets his comeuppance at the end by getting screwed over for usurping Carolyn.
2. There are a handful of really funny jokes and dialogue in this episode:
   • Stewie's pronunciation for the word "ruined" was funny and is a nice callback to the "cool whip" joke in Barely Legal.
   • The scene where Brian does Snoopy's dance from Peanuts was funny, despite it was just there to reference something and started with Peter being bitchy and ended with Peter abusing him.
   • The lines "And boom goes the dynamite" (although the delivery was poor) and "I'm no meteorologist, but I'm sure it's rainin' bitches!" were hilarious.
3. The scene where Cleveland tells Loretta that he wants her to be happy and live her life is one of the most heartwarming scenes in the entire series.
4. The scene where Loretta hits Quagmire with an iron after Quagmire attempts to seduce her is cathartic given Quagmire’s perverted behavior
5. This episode has Loretta finally apologizing to Cleveland for cheating on him, after she failed to do so in “The Cleveland-Loretta-Quagmire”. Loretta also acknowledged that the affair was her own fault and not Cleveland’s after she previously blamed him for it.
6. Brian is the only likable character in this episode.

Reception

Love, Blactually currently has a 6.8/10 on IMDb, PhantomStrider considered this the 10th worst episode of Family Guy in 2015. He believed it was "the episode that begun the tidal wave of bad Family Guy humor"

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