Family Guy: Peter's Daughter

In the second of the series of episodes completed without Seth MacFarlane's approval, I am treated with a surprisingly funny story-heavy outing. With a combination of situational humor, random jokes, and Meg getting pregnant, this episode thoroughly entertains from start to finish, with only a few hiccups and missed opportunities along the way.When Quahog is hit by a flood, some obvious references to the tragedy in New Orleans are made, including an oddly familiar structure called "Quahog Stadium." Considering that the writers tend to take every possible opportunity to make political jabs at the current administration, it was an odd choice not to make any in this entire episode, when there were so many opportunities to do so.

In any event, the focus during the flood was almost entirely on the Griffin family, and the events leading to Meg falling into a coma. It's always been a running joke on the show to treat Meg as a useless character and give her as few lines as possible, but in this episode, the talented and lovely Mila Kunis gets to put on an actual performance. The circumstances leading to Meg's coma are absolutely hilarious, as Peter insists that Meg get some beer from the fridge in the flooded kitchen and she gets stuck underwater. How the suffocation turns into a coma is a medical mystery, but even while suspended in the water, and her subsequent tenure in a hospital bed - there's one thing about Meg Griffin that never changes: she always has her hat on.

In the hospital, Meg meets the man of her dreams, a young doctor named Michael Milano. In short, after Peter vows to become an overprotective father, Michael has difficulties in continuing dating Meg. A couple of weeks later, Meg claims that she's pregnant and this leads to sudden wedding plans.

In classic Family Guy fashion, Peter provides a slew of inappropriate jokes that will shock and disgust even the most hardened viewer. There are just so many of these subtle and not-so subtle jokes and they were expertly dispersed throughout the episode. Some of the obvious highlights include Peter showing up as a male stripper at Meg's bachelorette party, his amusing selection for the wedding cake figures, to statements about the dire condition of his Nerf football stand out in particular.

This episode even had a B-story going with Brian and Stewie buying a fixer-upper house together, which was highlighted by a "so-dumb-it's-brilliant" walkie-talkie conversation gag and culminated with a gratuitous explosion featuring Stewie and Brian jumping out of the exploding trashed domicile at the last second.

By the end of the episode, everything returned to normal as usual, but the journey was definitely a worthwhile one with the perfect blend of comedy and story. I've always said that Family Guy is at its best when it tries to tell a story along with the barrage of jokes, and this episode is a prime example. Not every joke was funny, and the story could have used a bit more development, but the sheer quantity of gags easily overcomes these minor shortcomings. Even without Seth MacFarlane's final approval, this episode manages to shine.