Stewie Kills Lois

"Stewie Kills Lois"

"Stewie Kills Lois" is part one of the two-part episode of the FOX animated television series Family Guy (Part 2 being Lois Kills Stewie). It was scheduled as the 100th episode, preceded by "Family Guy Clips", a clip show episode hosted by Seth MacFarlane. 10.5 million viewers tuned into this episode, making it the third most watched since 2005 behind "North By North Quahog" (11.9 million) and "Blue Harvest" (10.7 million).

Public debut

A version of this episode's script was performed as a public table read, featuring material that had not yet been reviewed by the standards and practices department.

Plot summary

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Family Guy's 100th episode

The episode opens with the family at a dinner celebrating Lois' birthday; the family gives her mediocre gifts. To their displeasure, Brian gives Lois a pair of tickets for a cruise, which she assumes are for her and Peter (Brian intended otherwise). Lois and Peter take the trip alone, not even taking Stewie. This greatly upsets Stewie and, as soon as he returns home, he begins to plot his revenge against Lois for leaving him behind, which he intends to carry out as soon as Lois returns. Brian notes that Stewie has never followed through with any of his diabolical plans before. Stewie realizes that he is right, so he decides to take immediate action.

Meanwhile, Peter proves to be a continual embarrassment to Lois: he defecates on the poop deck (the name of which he claims is misleading) and tells an abortion story at the captain's table. Humiliated, Lois has a falling out with Peter and goes outside to clear her head. At this time, Stewie, who has made his way onto the ship via speedboat, finds and confronts Lois, who is confused by his appearance. To her shock, Stewie pulls out an uzi and, after a brief moment of tension, opens fire. Lois' body is graphically riddled with bullets and she falls overboard; Stewie is ecstatic that he has finally killed his mother.

Six days later, Lois is considered missing, and Stewie is elated to discover that no one suspects foul play as the other Griffins begin to worry. Since she has been missing for so long, Joe tells a distressed Peter that the search for her has been called off and he must now accept the fact that Lois is gone. A year passes and, during this time, the Griffins have managed to move on with their lives: Peter begins dating other people (with little success), Chris has been led to believe that Lois is merely away at a health spa, and life begins to look up for Meg now that she is the woman of the house. It is at this moment that Stewie, out of sheer pride, hints to Brian that he murdered Lois. Greatly appalled, Brian swears to find evidence and bring Stewie to justice.

At the Drunken Clam, Peter mentions to his friends that his wife's life insurance has finally paid out. He causally casts suspicion on himself by noting that he took out the policy while they were on the ship that fateful night, just after having secretly wished she were dead after their fight. Suspecting him of murdering Lois, they decide to search his trash for clues. Coincidentally, Stewie realizes that keeping evidence of his crime as mementos is too risky with Brian snooping around, and throws into the trash his drawings depicting Lois getting killed in various ways and his machine gun. Joe and the others find these items just after Stewie disposes of them, implicating Peter as the murderer; Stewie discovers that this means he is now exempt from accusation.

Peter is brought into the police station for questioning where Joe reluctantly informs Peter that he is the prime suspect for Lois' murder and that things look bleak for him. At his trial, Meg and Chris begin to believe he killed their mother. Brian, however, convinces them to not judge him too quickly and that he is innocent, though Stewie attempts to convince them otherwise. Carter Pewterschmidt testifies against Peter, presenting a video recreation of the crime in which he plays Peter and an Asian hooker (who is actually shot and killed by Carter in the video) plays Lois. Chris is then brought to the stand and asked to recall anything bad Peter did; Chris responds by telling the court of a time Peter picked his nose and wiped his finger on Meg's hat. Peter is then brought to the stand and denies killing Lois, stating that he loves his wife. However, the prosecutor manages to get Peter to reveal things that would make it seem obvious why he would kill her (such as drinking, striking her periodically, and being aggressive).

Towards the end of the trial, Peter is found guilty and is sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. But before the sentence is carried out, a mysterious figure barges into the room — the court is stunned to discover it is none other than Lois herself, very much alive. The Griffins are greatly relieved to find she is safe and that Peter didn't kill her after all. Lois then goes on to say that someone else did indeed try to kill her. When Peter asks her if she remembers who it was, Lois responds to the entire court, pointing to her incredulous infant, "It was Stewie!" The episode then ends, setting the stage for the next episode, "Lois Kills Stewie". As the episode closes, the font and music used is deliberately evocative of a two-page season cliffhanger from "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Notes

This episode was originally intended to air as the season five finale (with the following episode, "Lois Kills Stewie," airing as the season six premiere) but, due to extended contract negotiations, production was halted and it was not completed in time. The episode is the second two-part episode in the series thus far, the first being "The Thin White Line" and "Brian Does Hollywood" (which was also intended to be a season finale/premiere combo, but Fox had changed the air dates, so they had to be aired a week apart).

This episode reuses the Kool-Aid Man joke from the pilot episode almost exactly; this time, however, the judge complains that people need to stop saying "Oh no!", as it inevitably summons the Kool-Aid Man.

Cultural references

The Beatles Sequence parodies the fact that Ringo Starr has the least songwriting contributed to the Beatles

The promotional poster for this episode is a parody of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Coincidentally, the Simpsons episode that aired the same night also contained a parody of Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

The font of the 'To Be Continued' line and initial ending credits is the same as that used in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The music played during this sequence is a homage to the episode "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I". The music is by series composer Ron Jones, who also scored "Best of Both Worlds".

The way Stewie shoots Lois and the way Lois returns is reminiscent of The Punisher, although it does resemble Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.

Herbert standing outside of Chris' window and holding an old-fashioned record player over his head is a parody of a similar scene in the film Say Anything, where John Cusack's character does the same thing with a boombox.