9. Brian Goes Back To College
Season: 4
Episode: 15
Original Air Date: November 13th, 2005 When an episode's main plot is strong, it can help to carry an episode to a solid "grade". When an episode's side plot is strong, it can also help to carry an episode to a solid "grade". When both the main and side plots are strong, as they are here, you have something special. In the episode's main plot, Brian returns to Brown University to finish his education so that he can regain his job writing for The New Yorker (he was fired earlier in the episode when they discovered he wasn't a college graduate). Stewie stows away and heads off to Brown with Brian, determined to live the college life, too. Stewie allows Brian to plagiarize his work for a test, giving Brian a high score. Brian feels guilty for cheating, but when he goes to tell his professor what he did, the professor tells him that he was on the verge of suicide before Brian's paper motivated him to keep going. Heading into his final, Stewie helps Brian to train for it, and we get a nice Rocky-esque training montage with them, only for Brian to eventually snap out of it and realize all they've done is spend hours working out instead of studying. Choosing to take the final the right way, and without cheating, Brian fails, but is proud of himself for not succumbing to the temptations of cheating. The Griffins, however, disagree and make fun of him for not cheating when he probably should have. In the side plot, Peter, Joe, Quagmire and Cleveland win a costume contest dressed as the characters from the 1980's television show, The A-Team. After winning, the guys decide to actually become The A-Team and go around helping the citizens of Quahog with the smallest of tasks, complete with a replica of the van used in the actual show. It's really stupid, but because it's Family Guy, that's a good thing.