'Family Guy' Season 10, Episode 3 Recap - 'Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q'

Season 10 of "Family Guy" has taken a turn.

I had high hopes after the premiere, which played out like a traditional, sitcom-y episode of "Family Guy," with a light plot and some solid jokes. Then came "Seahorse Seashell Party," which was far too serious and included a violent magic mushroom trip in Brian's head... but that was excusable, since that episode was written and produced last year.

But instead of a return to the usual fun stuff we enjoy from "Family Guy," we got an episode that focused on domestic abuse. The title, which I guess is supposed to be a joke referencing the dramatic titles that the made-for-TV Lifetime movies usually get, refers to Brenda, Quagmire's sister. Yep, apparently Quagmire has a sister. He has a brother too, as we find out later. But that's neither her nor there.

Brenda is dating an abusive douchebag named Jeff, who finds every reason he can come up with to hit her. Of course, this is "Family Guy," so every violent outburst is an excuse for a joke: for example, Jeff doesn't understand a Jay Leno joke, so he hits her. So we're supposed to laugh at domestic violence.

Of course the writers aren't advocating that any of this is okay, and in fact everyone tries to have an intervention with Brenda and eventually Quagmire and the guys take Jeff out in the woods to kill him (yes, seriously). But that doesn't change the fact that at the center of this episode is the idea that we would find this angry, abusive boyfriend to be funny.

I'm usually a bit of a "Family Guy" apologist. I've stuck with them for 10 seasons, through the good and the bad, watching and usually enjoying every episode. There are few times that I consider the show to have crossed the line. However, I have never found any overt jokes about domestic abuse to be funny.

There's only one in particular that I can think of, and I didn't enjoy it: it was part of that gag in which Tom Tucker and the Channel 5 News replays the emergency landing of the plane that Quagmire was supposed to be flying in order to make it more shocking. Having the plane run into a school was kinda funny. Having it run into a school for bunnies was funnier. Having it crash and having the sole survivor go home and savagely beat his wife (and showing us the beating) was not funny. It made me incredibly uncomfortable.

And the fact of the matter is, I'm not even someone who experienced any kind of abuse in my home life, so I can only imagine how uncomfortable that joke, and this entire episode, must have been for someone who has experienced or witnessed abuse.

It almost seems as though "Family Guy" is desperate to push the envelope in order to keep things fresh. I don't think that's necessary, especially not in this way. The show has always had shock value, but that's not why we watch. We watch for the jokes in this episode that were good and not particularly shock-worthy, like the ridiculous Iraq Lobster (my god, the dance was funny) or "Aww, that yellow lab looks like he's dying!" "Peter, that's Gwyneth Paltrow. She's fine."

There are times to push the envelope creatively. The delightfully oddball "Road to the Multiverse" was fantastic, and the bottle episode in the bank vault ("Brian and Stewie") with its teleplay dialogue and rack focus and dramatic reveals was breathtaking. But centering an episode around how hilarious it is that Quagmire's sister is being abused is not the right way to get us to say "Wow, they went there."