Meg and Quagmire

"Meg and Quagmire"

"Meg and Quagmire" is the tenth episode of the tenth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. The episode originally aired on Fox in the United States on January 8, 2012. In the episode, Meg celebrates her 18th birthday, but no one comes to her party except Quagmire, who starts dating her. Peter tries to stop Quagmire, but Lois urges him to back off because she does not believe anything will happen.

The episode was written by Tom Devanney and directed by Joseph Lee. It features the guest performances of Alexandra Breckenridge, Johnny Brennan, Colin Ford, Ralph Garman, Julius Sharpe, Chris Sheridan, Danny Smith, Alec Sulkin, Joe Vaux, and John Viener. It received generally positive reviews from critics for its storyline.

Plot

Meg turns 18 and the family takes her to a Teen Choice Awards show. When they return, Peter reveals, to Lois' annoyance, that the cars parked on the street are people here for Meg's surprise party. When they go inside the house, they find that nobody has turned up to the party. Lois asks Chris what he did with the $300 she gave him to pay kids to come to the party; he reveals that he used it to pay Peter to come. It turns out that the cars parked in the street are for Mort's Jewish fight club.

Meanwhile, Quagmire comes to the party and starts flirting with Meg, leading to a dinner date. When Peter notices Quagmire is taking it too far, he slows it down by disturbing their dates and conversations. Meg tells Peter that since she is 18, she can legally make her own decisions. Lois, meanwhile, urges Peter to back off because she feels that Meg is doing it only to get a rise out of them, and that if they show objection, she will only push it further.

Quagmire asks Meg to go to his cabin with him, and Peter is fine with it. Lois is not, however, telling him that Quagmire calls the cabin his "sex cabin" (Peter replies that he actually calls it the "Stuff It Inn"). Peter and Lois then try to stop them from driving to the cabin, but fail when they drive away. When Quagmire takes his last step with Meg, Peter and Lois force entry into the cabin and demand that Meg go home. Meg is initially defiant, arguing that she is a legal adult, but Peter persists and tells her that even if she is 18, he is still her father and that it is his job to protect her from people like Quagmire, and demands Meg to get in the car, which she reluctantly agrees to do. Lois then warns Quagmire to leave Meg alone, or she will cut his penis off and feed it to Brian. Lois also demands that he stays away from their house for a month, and that they have use of the cabin for one week each month, to which Quagmire agrees. Back home, Meg thanks her parents for stopping her from doing something she would have regretted. Peter says he understands how she feels, and then delivers an audition-style monologue about his first relationship with an older woman, ending with "and...scene".

Reception

In its original broadcast on January 8, 2012, "Meg and Quagmire" was watched by 6.23 million U.S. viewers and acquired a 3.1/7 rating in the 18–49 demographic.

Kate Moon of TVFanatic.com gave the episode a 4.5/5 rating in her review. She wrote of the episode, "It was a nice touch for the show to involve more of the Griffins in the budding affair. In contrast to their normal lack of affection for Meg, both Lois and Peter acted like good, concerned parents tonight. Peter was up in arms at the thought of his daughter dating a “wiener” like Quagmire, while Lois played her “wise mother” card." She also wrote that "Quagmire’s text-seduction of Meg and his impressive ability to act like a generic teenager was both unnerving and funny." In a much more negative review, Kevin McFarlane of the A.V. Club gave the episode a D, stating that the episode was full of cliches such as the "not drawn yet" segment that's already been used in everything from Monty Python to SpongeBob SquarePants, and long time wasting moments that made the episode disappointing.

External links

• Full episode on FOX's website