Initially, I was a little apprehensive about the crossover gimmick, but every Griffin appearance was balanced out and then some by the inspired stunt casting of THE NATURE BOY RIC FLAIR and his Male Friendship Camp. "I know divorce, I know wrestling, and I know male friendship! Wooooo!" (And a million zillion cred for correctly spelling "Woooo!" without an "H" for nerds on the Internet JUST LIKE ME.)
Another better than expected outing and now I am going into "Family Guy" hoping that there's one more hour of front-loaded seasonal quality.
Yes, Flair's cameo was just freakin' hilarious. He SUPLEXED A CANOE! That's just brilliant! He NEEDS to be a recurring character! He NEEDS to be this show's Adam West! Hell, a recurring cameo would solve a lot of Flair's money problems, so what's stopping him? It certainly beats wrestling into his 60's.
And on the other end of the spectrum, are they purposely trying to turn Peter into an unlikable douchebag? "We were neighbors and drinking buddies, but we were never friends," has to go down as one of the meanest things I've heard out of a MacFarlane show. And really, the resolution didn't feel all that satisfying.
Peter: See, Cleveland, that's the difference between our two shows. On our show, we would have shown the rape and done a showtune about the rape. Cleveland: And I would have just been the black guy!
I felt the opening third was possibly the worst start in any of the McFarlane shows I have ever seen. I'm tired of seeing the Family Guy characters 'crossover' and yet another Rocky 4 bit parodied, how surprising. I was ready to give up on this episode when the Ric Flair Camp came along. Man, was that a good bit of fresh air. The rest was so-so (the Cleveland/ Peter reunion part and Peter's reasoning for the breakup & makeup felt like it was written at the last minute to eat time in the ep while the Rallo story was OK though it picked up with his speech in the end), but between Flair and Cleveland's Intervention cry, it barely gets a thumbs up from me. Barely.
One of their better episodes. Loved evil monkey kicking ass. Flair does need to be their Adam West. I did love the fact that even the Cleveland show guys are hesitant about Peter.
The Wee Baby Sheamus.
Twitter: @realjoecarfley its a bit more toned down there. A bit.