Mind Over Murder

"Mind Over Murder"

“Mind Over Murder” is an episode of Family Guy from season one. It guest-stars Alex Rocco as the masculine woman and Leslie Uggams as herself.

Plot

Stewie is in terrible pain from teething and cannot find comfort anywhere. When Lois tells him that his pain will ultimately pass, it gives him the idea to build a machine that will move time forward to the point where his teething will have already stopped; he plans to call it a "Time Machine". Meanwhile, Peter drives Chris to his soccer game, where he gets into a fight with another parent who insulted Chris for his playing ability. He punches the parent, who Peter then realizes is not a man, as he had assumed, but rather a masculine-looking and sounding pregnant woman.

Peter is put under house arrest for assault and soon finds that he misses his friends. Peter has a vision of the Pawtucket Patriot from his beer bottle label and opens a bar in his basement (a nod to Field of Dreams) so that his friends can come to visit and hang out with him. It isn't long before the basement bar becomes a local hotspot. One of the songs first heard at Ye Old Pube is "You'll Never Know." When Lois discovers this, she’s upset, but then she gets a chance to sing on stage before an adoring crowd. As she savors the spotlight over the next few days, Peter becomes increasingly uncomfortable with all the attention she's getting, especially from the male patrons.

After being told his wife is 'hot', Peter demands she quit singing, but she refuses. Peter is also cornered by the neglected wives of his bar's patrons, and invites them to drag their husbands out. Later, Stewie’s time machine plans are discovered, causing him to panic about the breach of security. Soon after, the wives storm the bar and Lois tells them how she only wants to feel appreciated and special, something all the other women relate to. Meanwhile Quagmire accidentally starts a blaze.

Upstairs, Stewie takes drastic measures to protect the plans, planning machine to go back in time before his plans were actually drawn. In the bar, Peter and Louis have a heart to heart, not noticing the bar is burning. As they try to escape the stairs become blocked and they are trapped. Meanwhile, Stewie reverses time just as Peter is having an epiphany about how poorly he treats Lois and seconds before the basement bar goes up in flames. All travel back in time, up to before Chris’s soccer game, where Peter trips on and destroys the time machine. Now he is unable to take Chris to soccer, thus he will not knock out the soccer mom, be confined to house arrest and build the ill fated bar. This also means he still doesn't realize how neglected Lois feels.

Without his Time Machine, Stewie is left to suffer with teething pain, with his two talking teeth waging a war against each other - but shortly after discovering they can't move decide to bite his tongue instead.

Censorship

In syndication, the following things were either cut or altered:

• Bert's "Son of a bitch" is cut in the Homicide: Life on Sesame Street cutaway (and Bert's rear cleavage is digitally painted over).
• Peter seeing the Pawtucket Patriot ends early after the Patriot suggests Peter build a bar, removing the part with Peter asking if he goes through the Patriot would that mean they've "done it", and the Patriot's response "Geez, what's with you and the gay jokes?"
• The peeing man's "Hey" in "Hey, you must be Lois" is skipped over.
• The flashback of Stewie peeing in Peter's eye is cut, although in promos, this part was shown intact.

Cultural references

• The songs Lois sings at Peter's bar are as follows: "You'll Never Know," "You Made Me Love You," "Don't Rain on My Parade" and "Steam Heat."
• Peter says to Lois that he is like Tim Allen that he "builds stuff and has a criminal record". This references the show Home Improvement, where Allen stars as Tim Taylor, a man that constantly makes mistakes after building stuff. It also refers to Tim's drug charges for which he spent two years in jail.
• Another reference to Home Improvement is when a man resembling Tim Allen sucks the scene through a straw. This not only references Allen's above mentioned cocaine charges, but also parodies the elaborate scene transitions Home Improvement used to employ.
• When Stewie's plans are snatched by men at the bar with his Time Machine, you will notice one of the men say, "There's the Flux Capacitor" which is a reference to a component which makes time travel possible in Back to The Future.
• The "Mintos" ad is a parody of the jingle and commercials for the candy Mentos, and the assassination of American President Abraham Lincoln.
• Pawtucket Ale and its mascot, Pawtucket Pat, are a take off on Samuel Adams, a popular brand of beer in New England.

References

• Callaghan, Steve. “Mind Over Murder.” Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1–3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 26–29.
• Delarte, Alonso. “Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 1.” Bob’s Poetry Magazine March 2005: 10–12. http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Mr.pdf

External links

• Template:FGwiki
• Mind Over Murder at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com episode
• Watch Mind Over Murder on OpenHulu.com