Review: Family Guy “Boy’s Best Friend”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
Brian spends some quality time with his new girlfriend’s son. Meanwhile, Peter, Quagmire, and Cleveland take Joe’s new corvette for a joy ride, which results in them wrecking the vehicle.

Our Take:
It’s fitting that we’re concluding Valentine’s Day weekend with the return of America’s “favorite family”. Not only does this episode have Peter and his friends destroying Joe’s uncle’s corvette, but it also has Brian falling in love with a shoe store employee.  Brian being a ladies man (or dog) is a recurring theme that usually pays off well throughout the series, and this episode is no exception.  You seriously can’t go wrong with having a man’s best friend as a woman’s best soulmate.  However, instead of focusing on that relationship, the episode focuses mostly on Brian befriending his girlfriend’s son, which served as a nice, if not predictable, change of pace. That segment alone isn’t without its sincere moments, but it wasn’t enough to make me love this episode as much as Brian loving his new romantic partner.

The plot is two separate stories in one package that doesn’t connect. I prefer the Brian segment out of those two stories the most because it has a narrative that made me at least care for Brian and his relationship. The corvette segment was an unneeded addition that lacked any witty comedy or writing aside from Peter running over Oscar from Sesame Street. It had something going once Peter and his friends wrecked the car, but the way they concluded the segment was pretty weak in my eyes. The overall cast once again did their part in providing some dynamic energy to their respective characters as well as the humor. The problem is, the comedy didn’t click for me. It had some decent jokes that could have worked well in the episode’s favor, especially the part where they promote the show in German. However, the execution of the comedy wasn’t competent enough to make the jokes memorable or funny. Maybe it was the show’s fatigue setting in.

The “Boy’s Best Friend” episode is another middle-of-the-road chapter in the show’s 19th season. The Brian segment was the only part that I enjoyed because of its characters and its decent narrative. The Corvette segment, on the other hand, was just there to help fill the 30-minute runtime. It’s a subpar episode that’s not feeling any love tonight.