Dial Meg for Murder
Meg becomes a hardened criminal after a prison stint.
"Dial Meg for Murder" is the 11th episode of season eight of the animated comedy series Family Guy, which originally aired on Fox in the United States on January 31, 2010. The episode follows teenager Meg as she falls in love with an inmate, hides him in the family home, and is sent to jail, returning as a hardened criminal who tortures her family. It was first announced at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con and received mostly positive reviews.
Quick Facts
- Series
- Family Guy
- Season
- 8
- Episode
- 11
- Air date
- 31 January 2010
- Production
- 7ACX12
- Writer
- Alex Carter; Andrew Goldberg
- Director
- Cyndi Tang-Loveland
Facts from the source article.
Plot
When a rodeo comes to Quahog, Peter decides to compete. He practices by lassoing Meg and burning her with a branding iron, but Mayor West takes Meg away, so Peter uses Chris instead. At the event, Peter is thrown from his bull, and the bull sexually assaults him off-screen. Meanwhile, Brian gets a job from the editor of Teen People writing about the average American girl. To research, Brian and Stewie follow and spy on Meg, learning she is in love with a jailed young man named Luke, whom she met through a school pen-pal program. Brian tells Peter and Lois, who forbid Meg from seeing Luke. Luke escapes during a prison riot and hides in the Griffin house. Brian finds Luke in Meg’s room, and Peter walks in; Peter only understands what is happening after reading the episode’s plot summary in TV Guide. Luke flees out a window, Peter calls Joe, who captures Luke and arrests Meg for hiding a fugitive. Meg is sent to prison. Three months later, Meg comes home with a hardened, rebellious attitude. She abuses her family: she beats Peter unconscious, sexually assaults him in the shower with a loofah, uses Lois’s shirts as toilet paper, and keeps a bucket of feces by her bed that she refuses to empty. At school, she attacks bullies, beating Connie D’Amico and her friends with a sack of unopened soda cans and then tongue-kissing Connie, leading to her suspension. Brian says the prison system turned Meg into a monster. The family blames each other until Peter blames Stewie, and everyone agrees; Stewie says, “Oh, so now everyone understands me?” Lois ignores him and tells Meg they are worried about her.
Production and development
Actress Mila Kunis first mentioned this episode at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con. Alex Carter and Andrew Goldberg wrote it, and Cyndi Tang-Loveland, who previously directed for King of the Hill, directed it as her second episode of the eighth production season. Peter Shin and James Purdum acted as supervising directors, while Goldberg and Carter served as staff writers. The episode was included on a three-disc DVD set released in the United States on December 13, 2011, alongside the other eleven episodes from Family Guy’s eighth season. That set features brief audio commentaries from various crew and cast members, deleted scenes and animatics, a short feature on animating the episode “And Then There Were Fewer,” a mini-feature called “The Comical Adventures of Family Guy – Brian & Stewie: The Lost Phone Call,” and footage from the Family Guy panel at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con. Guest performers included Allison Janney as the editor for Teen People, Chace Crawford as Luke, Lisa Wilhoit as Connie D’Amico, and Dave Boat, Peter Chen, Camille Guaty, Victor J. Ho, and Rachael MacFarlane in various roles. Recurring guest voice actors Lori Alan, Johnny Brennan, writer Steve Callaghan, Chris Cox, writer Danny Smith, writer Alec Sulkin, and writer John Viener also made minor appearances, along with Patrick Warburton and Adam West.
Cultural references
The title references the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock thriller Dial M for Murder. At the beginning, Stewie rhetorically asks if he can call TV Guide "The Guide." When Brian spies on Meg, Stewie warns that "not all dogs go to heaven," cutting to a scene with the Disney character Goofy in hell, where Satan claims Goofy was part of plotting 9/11. Goofy justifies his part by pointing out the United States' support for Israel, then is thrown into a pit of fire using his famous Goofy Holler. Stewie refers to Meg as "one of those crazy chicks, who hooks up with an even crazier guy," with a photograph of Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey shown. The song "The Ballad of Billy the Kid" by Billy Joel is used in Peter's flashbacks about being a cowboy. Meg mentions meeting Wesley Snipes and his movie Passenger 57. The ending references The Simpsons: Meg makes an unfunny joke, Peter says he is not amused, and Meg sarcastically states "Always end on a strong joke." The closing credits are styled to match those used in The Simpsons credits.
Reception
The episode was viewed in 6.21 million homes in its original airing, according to Nielsen ratings, a significant decrease from the previous episode. The 52nd Grammy Awards and the Pro Bowl aired simultaneously to the Animation Domination block, resulting in lower than usual ratings. The episode acquired a 3.2 rating in the 18–49 demographic, surpassing The Simpsons, American Dad!, and The Cleveland Show in both rating and total viewership. Reviews were mostly positive; Jason Hughes of TV Squad stated that the show "finally found an angle for a Meg-centric episode that was fully engaging and entertaining." Ahsan Haque of IGN praised the episode, saying the writers focused on a coherent storyline relying on contextual humor, and called the ending "somewhat touching." Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club criticized the storyline more harshly, saying it relied too heavily on politically incorrect humor and ostensibly funny violence. The Parents Television Council named "Dial Meg for Murder" its "Worst TV Show of the Week" for the week ending February 5, 2010, due to excessive violence and a sequence where a bull implies raping Peter, calling it "sickening."
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