Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows

"Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows" is an episode of Family Guy.

Plot summary

Brian frets that he will never find an intelligent woman to love; after drinking heavily, he is arrested for drunk driving. He is sentenced to participate in the "Elderly Outreach" program and is assigned to a mean-tempered, elderly shut-in named Pearl Burton. Brian tries to deal with Pearl as patiently as he can, but after absorbing her abuse for several weeks, he loses his temper, releases his own storm of verbal abuse upon her, and storms away.

Watching television that night, Brian sees a "Mysteries and Scandals" show on E! about Pearl. In the 1940s and 1950s, she was a very successful "jingle singer", attractive and possessing a beautiful voice. Her attempt to become a normal, "serious" singer was a failure; in her 1961 debut at Carnegie Hall, the audience simply kept demanding that she perform their favorite jingles. After this disgrace, she disappeared from the public eye.

Brian is amazed to discover that there is much more to Pearl than the cranky old woman he has seen. He returns to Pearl's house just as she is preparing to hang herself. He apologizes to her and tells her that he had never heard a more beautiful version of "Habanera" (from Bizet's opera Carmen) before. Brian spends much more time with Pearl on a voluntary basis, and they grow very close and affectionate. Through an extravagant musical number, Brian encourages Pearl to overcome her agoraphobia.

Heartened by Brian's belief in her, Pearl strides proudly into the street, where she is immediately struck by a truck. Brian accompanies her to the hospital, where Pearl tells him not to blame himself; it had been the best day of her life. Brian shares a virtual reality experience with her in which they marry, have children, and grow old together; Pearl quietly passes away as the vision ends.

Meanwhile, Peter decides to grow a beard and a rare bird nests in his facial hair. Initially irritated by the squawking, Peter is delighted to discover that three baby birds are growing in his beard. Peter's paternal instincts take over, and he becomes a better parent to the birds than he ever was to his own children. When they mature, he tries to keep them from leaving his beard but finally has to bid them a sad farewell.

Notes

• On some airings of this episode after 9/11, the shot of the World Trade Center towers were digitally erased, and the part of the song were Brian sings about how nobody knows how the world will end replaces a shot of a tarot card depicting a drunken George W. Bush with a beer bong with one featuring Jerry Springer. The Cartoon Network airings, TBS airings, and the DVD version of this episode has the Twin Towers and the Bush tarot card shots intact.
• This episode contains the Emmy Award-winning song "You've Got A Lot To See". The song won the award for Outstanding Music and Lyrics at the 2002 Emmy Awards. Music was composed by Walter Murphy, lyrics by Seth MacFarlane [1].
• On the episode's DVD commentary, Alex Borstein identifies it as the only episode of the series to contain "genuine human emotion."
• On the episode's DVD box (Region 1) and on the DVD menu, the episode title is written as "Brian Wallows and Peter Swallows".

Cultural references

• Lois and Brian discuss his love life as one of Lois's students plays piano exercises, in a parody of Meredith Wilson's The Music Man.
• "It's great to learn, 'cause knowledge is power!" is from Schoolhouse Rock!.
• Peter imagines the birds as his children. When he can't think of Meg, he imagines the third as Boba Fett.
• Peter's funeral flashback references JonBenét Ramsey whose death has been speculated to be the fault of her parents.
• Grizzly Adams is the main character in a movie, and later a television show called The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams.
• The binary scene is a parody of a scene from the movie and play The Miracle Worker, in which a deaf girl learns to say "wa-wa" for "water".
• Peter and his friends argue over who of actors Johnny Depp and Richard Grieco they would rather sleep with.
• Meg confuses the astronaut Neil Armstrong and the trumpetist Louis Armstrong.
• The song during the laser show is "One" by the band Three Dog Night.
• When Lois complains about Peter's beard in the courtroom, Wooly Willy complains, prompting Lois to say, "Relax Wooly Willy, there's lots of fun things to do with your hair!" She then takes out the magnetic stick and moves his beard into an Afro.
• Mayor Adam West's line about Pee-Wee's famous wrist, references Paul Reubens' (Pee-Wee's real name) famous arrest for masturbating in a porno theater in Sarasota, Florida in 1991.
• Peter and the baby birds may reference the limerick by Edward Lear.

References

• S. Callaghan, "Husband, Father... Brother?" Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1-3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 152 - 155.
• A. Delarte, "Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 3" in Bob's Poetry Magazine, 2.August 2005: 52 - 53 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Au.pdf