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personalblogformycat · 6 years ago

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Season 17 Review: Married... With Cancer

Alright, so let’s get a couple of things out of the way. It’s been ages since I’ve written up a proper review for this show. I’m not sure how many people who frequent my page here ever followed me back when I was on LiveJournal, but I basically used to put out reviews the day after a new episode aired. I did this pretty consistently for about three seasons, at least before huge life changes required me to take a step back from my hobby. Now, as I previously stated in a previous post, I’m not aiming to get reviews up as quickly as I used to, but I am going to try and get them up sometime before the next episode airs. Also, I might be a little rusty at this, so I guess we’ll see how this first review turns out. Anyway, just wanted to address all that before diving into the review proper, which we will do, now.

Here we are, back at that time of year, fresh off the Summer break and starting out a brand new season of Family Guy. Seventeen seasons. Been watching this show for a long time, and it’s almost hard to believe that it is still going. Still going pretty strongly at that, I would say. Others wouldn’t, but I was honestly very impressed with the show, for the most part, last season. So, my expectations for Season 17 are fairly high. I’m looking forward to seeing if the show can keep up this strong streak, and if the premiere is any indication, it just might. We’re off to a pretty strong start with “Married… With Cancer”. I’ve got a few minor nitpicks, but on the whole, I think this might be the strongest premiere the show has had in a good long while, very funny and very narrative driven.

Right off the bat, we’ve got douchey Brian in prime form, cringey but not entirely unlikable as he spouts off his best attempts at hip lingo. I find it very fitting that the episode essentially starts with Brian continuing his pursuit of “love” only to have Stewie right there pointing out his blatant hypocrisy. This will be a theme that reoccurs a few times in this episode. On the topic of that exchange, though, just want to say how much I love Stewie flat out telling Brian that he’ll never find a woman to spend the rest of his life with. We know he doesn’t want that, and frankly, unless something changes drastically within Brian himself, it’s a very true statement. Back to the nightclub, though, just want to give a quick mention to the visual gag of the guy wearing absurdly big headphones to contrast with Brian’s. Very funny. This episode wastes no time before jumping into its main story, which for Family Guy is pretty noteworthy. The initial interaction with Jesse is played very well, I feel. At least, the connection felt more natural than most of Brian’s flavors of the moment. I mean, I never like seeing Brian scoring with the randoms, but I was pretty fine with this. The humor sells it, special mention to Brian barking at a “squirrel”. So, our two lovers meet up, and then, it’s montage time! All in all, this is a funny little sequence. Also, let me just point out that, if Brian actually, you know, bothered paying attention instead of just focusing on the sex he was getting to have, he actually might have picked up on some of Jess’s habits pre-diagnosis. I’m just saying. There were a ton of food related items on that list. Speaking of food, the dinner scene was a highlight, in my opinion. The cancer puns were so bad but in the absolute best way, and Peter’s inability to throw a boomerang might have gotten the biggest laugh of the night. With introductions out of the way, the plot really gets moving. Jess suddenly learns that she’s only got a couple weeks to live. Feel like her doctors sort of dropped the ball on that one, but I’d rather this than wasting too much of the episode on that development. It’s Family Guy. Who here is honestly looking for realism? So, we get this news. Jess is understandably devastated and, in her grief, reveals that a huge regret in her life is that she’ll never get married prompting Brian to propose right then and there! What a great guy! …Wait…no…scratch that. Look, I completely understand why Brian did this. He’s Brian for crying out loud! But, I don’t think I can overstate just how STUPID his decision is here. Like, how long could he have possibly known Jess? A week? Less!? The point is, he does not know this woman, and he’s proposing. It’s just dumb, regardless if he was sure she wasn’t going to live long after the wedding, and he has no one to blame but himself for what follows.

So, act two begins, and right off the bat, we have a very unhappy Stewie making some very good points. Well, first we have a pretty humorous bit regarding one of Peter’s many failed business ventures, but THEN, Stewie gets to voice his opinion on Brian’s stupidity, calling the whole thing a “sham wedding”. Ouch. But, he’s right, and it’s good to see Stewie refusing to pull any punches. You can just tell that he is so done with all of this. I do kind of love that he immediately assumes that Brian is going to ask him to be his best man, though. Did anybody else need a barf bag for the Channel 5 News profile? I felt like I did, but unfortunately, I didn’t. I was forced to hold in all my disgust during that scene, which basically means that it did its job really well. “My name is Brian. I have a disease called love.” Somebody just shoot me… Ok, so here comes my first nitpick. So, Quagmire offers to throw Brian a bachelor party. Aaaaaaand, that’s it. He just brings that up, and then, the episode just drops the whole thing like it isn’t some huge freakin’ deal and these two have just been buddy-buddy for years. Uhhhh… Ok, then. You probably shouldn’t have even bothered bringing it up, then. It’s not like his offer was a joke. Wait… Was the offer in and of itself supposed to be a joke? If so, it’s not a very good one. It just introduces a thread that never goes anywhere, and the cutaway it leads into could have easily been cut for something more substantial, like other more mundane wedding planning things. Which brings us to the cake tasting, not that we get to see any actual cake tasting, but the episode assures us that Jess has thrown up plenty of flavors already. Hey, anybody else catch Brian eating what looked like a chocolate cake? I mean, I guess it could have been something else, but it sure did look like chocolate, which is weird since they just used him being allergic to chocolate for a gag literally minutes ago. Oh, well. It’s a minor detail, I guess. It’s much more important to focus on the two women who come to talk to Brian in the cake shop. I appreciate this episode really hammering home just how far Brian is in the wrong here. As if him choosing to marry a dying woman he barely knows isn’t bad enough, now he’s actively making plans to hook-up after her death. That’s right, you keep those priorities in check, you dumb mutt… After this, the episode keeps up its rapid pace, throwing us right into the big wedding, and you know what, I liked this scene. I didn’t like the fact that Brian was getting married, oh god no! But, I did find a lot of it very comical. Brian just keeps digging that hole as he invites Jess’s mother to come live with them, once again thinking that he’ll be able to shirk this responsibility he’s thrust onto himself once Jess is dead and in the ground. He’s such a good guy! Kudos to the subtle nod to Brian’s atheism, though. Ok, so who here likes Bruce? Because I quite like Bruce, and you know what, this is how you make good use of your Bruce. Everything with him is gold from his little jab at Jeffery to “power bottom vested in me.”. Quick shout out to Dylan! Ok, moving on. Turns out the doctors did drop the ball. Jess is going to live! What great news! …That is unless you’re a dumb dog who went into this whole thing banking on your wife dying, in which case, what horrible news! In case I haven’t made it clear, I have no interest in throwing Brian a bone here. He did this to himself, and I can only hope that this whole ordeal will finally get him to wake the fuck up and rethink the way he approaches his relationships. So, anyway, we get one more really funny bit with Peter and Chris before commercial. Time for the big turn.

I don’t think I can express just how much I LOVED seeing everything go bad for Brian so quickly. It was downright cathartic. Jess is good and healthy, now, which means she’s free to be more herself again. The only thing is that healthy Jess is quite a different animal from unhealthy Jess. Brian had no way to know this, of course, but hey, that’s why you don’t jump into lifelong commitments with strangers. The more you know! Also, something else I loved about this episode was that they made use of Brian’s old apartment again. It’s not a huge detail just yet, but I always appreciate some good continuity and seeing Lou again was kind of neat. After that, Stewie shows up in the third act for his third big appearance of the episode. Let me just say that, while I would have liked to have seen more of Stewie in this episode, I do like that he is basically still a constant presence throughout it, showing up at least one time per act to either tell Brian why he’s being stupid or to revel in the fact that he was right…again. And, boy, does he revel! I’ve already shared the image of him looking smug as fuuuuck, but he really lays into Brian here. He refers to Brian’s apartment as his “hell hole”. He comments on the dog’s current financial situation. He gets in a comment about Jess’s “Juicy” sweatpants, an item which we’ve seen him have disdain for before. He mocks Brian’s “great love”. Jesus! The boy is so done, and I don’t freakin’ blame him. Of course, Brian starts begging Stewie immediately to help him get out of this hole he’s dug for himself, but no, not this time. Stewie has no help to offer, and he’s going to let Brian ride this thing out. Good on him. I’m going to take a second to comment on one particular aspect of the episode that some people might find issue with but that I thought was just fine. Jess’s “transformation” is, yes, pretty over the top and obnoxious, and I can see why some people might find it to be too much. Not me, though. I was more than happy to watch things get so bad for Brian. Let me just point out once again that here were a few breadcrumbs thrown into the early portion of the episode to sort of indicate how Jess was going to turn out. Breadcrumbs that Brian could have easily picked up on, and who knows what all he ignored in the moments that we didn’t get to see. I think the way Jess turns out is fine. Yes, she’s disgusting. Yes, she’s pretty obnoxious, but you know what, I’m glad she is. I’m glad that Brian’s initial image of a person he claims to “love” gets to shatter so completely and so quickly. Let’s just see if he remembers this going forward. Not really much left to comment on. I like the “twist” with Jess’s death. Most of the people who actually cared, knew this was going to be a two-parter going in, but I thought it was kind of funny to act like, even if for a moment, the episode was going to resolve everything by the end like a normal outing. It’s like they’re teasing Brian by offering him this easy out only to rip it away at the very end. It’s wonderful, and it brings us to a perfect ending as Brian spouts an insincere eulogy before discovering that he’s still trapped in his situation, Snoopy-crying as we cut to credits. Great stuff.

So, was it good? Well, I already sort of answered that. Yeah, it was pretty good, a little great even. It exceeded my expectations in areas and kind of faltered in others, but all in all, I think it was a very strong premiere. I know this marriage is only going to last for one more episode, but for now, it’s nice to see Brian paying a huge price for his boneheaded behavior, for once. And, I’ll say once again, Stewie was in top form. He was all business, berating Brian at every turn, and I’m curious to see if that will continue through to the conclusion. That’s a huge ball dropped if he doesn’t factor into the main story in the next episode. He may be content to let Brian wallow in his misery for a while, but he’s not going to abandon him entirely. At least, we have no reason to believe he will. After all, a boy can only endure so much, I guess. Anyway, that about sums up my thoughts. I’m quite pleased, and Season 17 is off to a great start, in my opinion. Bring on “Dead Dog Walking”!

4/5

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