Review: Family Guy “Christmas Guy”

Posted on December 16, 2013November 22, 2019 by Tommy North

Spoilers Below

It’s Christmas time again in Quahog and all are merry… well, all but Carter Pewterschmidt. At a family outing to the mall, the Griffins learn that the Christmas carnival was cancelled by the Scrooge incarnate, Carter. When confronted by Peter, Carter confesses that he hates Christmas and doesn’t want anything to do with it; claiming people expect so much of his wealth and give nothing to him in return. Now it’s up to Peter to convince Carter to get the carnivale on tracks. In a nutshell, it’s a pretty funny scrooge scenario.

Meanwhile, Stewie confesses to Santa at the mall that the only thing he wants is his friend back, Brian…. well, that and a bicycle. As a result, Vinny then tries to help Stewie cope with the loss of Brian. And well, I hope you guys caught this episode because the news that Brian would return was indeed true. It was very interesting how they pulled this off. But, I’ll come back to this.

Christmas Guy was a pretty good episode overall. The first half the episode was getting the jokes out of the way and the second half was the needed damage control. I found myself laughing at most of the jokes and cut-aways, especially the opening gag about the movie Home Alone and if the robbers had been more competent. Most of the jokes revolve around Christmas, appropriately. The only parts that left me with a straight face were the ones with Vinny. As much as I disagree with killed characters returning from the grave, this was much needed. The stereotypical Italian-American gags with Vinny feel like a dumbed down taste of what I could get watching Fugget About It.
Time for Brian. If you don’t want to know how he comes back from the dead, stop reading here. You’ve been warned.

Well, as Stewie and Vinny are browsing the mall, Stewie comes across his past self buying a toy that was not available in the past. Present-Stewie comes up with a plan to steal the time machine used by Past-Stewie and prevent Brian’s demise. After distracting Past-Stewie to get the machine and saying good-bye to Vinny, Stewie returns to the past. Stewie then runs into the street and pushes Brian out of the way of the car. Stewie then begins to fade away because saving Brian extinguishes the timeline where Brian did die. Guys, this makes a lot more sense if you watch the episode.
Anyway, the last scene is on Christmas morning in the Griffin home. The family is happy and the only one who knows Brian died is Brian himself. The show found a way to bring back Brian and erase Vinny from every character’s memory in twelve minutes flat.

For those of you who enjoyed Vinny, I’m sorry for your loss. But the majority of us are just happy to have Brian back!