10 Family Guy Episodes That PISSED People Off
2. Screams Of Silence: The Story Of Brenda Q (S10E3)
Who tries to make jokes and entertainment out of physical and verbal domestic abuse? There are times when Family Guy have crossed a variety of different lines, but an idea like this should never have even got off the ground in the writers' room.
The episode revolves around Quagmire's sister Brenda, who comes to town with her abusive boyfriend Jeff. He constantly bosses her around, degrades her, and beats her, over things as trivial as not understanding one of Jay Leno's jokes. He tried to force her to work 100 hours a week while he worked zero, and Family Guy tried to make a joke out of it.
In reality however, despite the writers trying, there wasn't a laugh to be had. How could there be in a story like this? The show has gotten serious before, but if they were going for a poignant story like in 'Brian and Stewie', the attempts at poking fun at domestic abuse stopped them from succeeding. There was no message to take away from the story, it was just brutal.
Through 20 seasons and almost 400 episodes, this is widely regarded as one of the worst ever. Shock value is one thing, but making fun of a woman getting pregnant by an abusive boyfriend by suggesting she call the child 'Slappy' or 'Bruisey' was arguably Family Guy's rock bottom, until another ill-advised episode aired just one season later...