Summary
Brian finds love in an unlikely place in “Boy’s Best Friend”, while Joe gets an unexpected inheritance gift.
This recap of Family Guy season 19, episode 11, “Boy’s Best Friend”, contains spoilers.
I’m a simple man, so I find every joke revolving around Brian being a dog to be funny. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, since he’s usually the smartest character in any given room, and Family Guy often makes him indistinguishable from a human being. “Boy’s Best Friend”, then, which devotes an A-plot to Brian and makes plenty of gags at his canine expense, was right up my street humor-wise, even if it didn’t really amount to much in the end.
The hook of the episode is that Brian gets a new girlfriend, Holly, who he thinks might be the one, but ends up forming a tighter bond with her son, Kyle, than he has with her. It starts with him defending Kyle from bullies and amounts to him being depressed when Holly breaks up with him just because he can’t see the kid anymore. The solution — on Stewie’s advice, of all people — is to track the kid down and be his babysitter while Holly dates other men. It’ll do, I suppose. Regardless, it excuses a lot of dog banter, such as Brian licking Holly’s face during a kiss because he can taste her last meal, and dropping an anxiety turd on her front lawn that he pretends to pick up when someone walks past. Simple stuff, but as I said, I’m a simple man.
The B-plot of “Boy’s Best Friend” involves Joe’s uncle leaving him a vintage sports car in his inheritance, but his Will contains specific instructions never to drive it (and to turn his garage into a ’50s diner.) Naturally, this isn’t good enough for Peter, Quagmire, and Cleveland, who want to ride around in it. Using a fake telephone survey to distract Joe, they steal the car and, naturally, end up crashing it, inadvertently killing Oscar the Grouch in the process. (Cleveland has the best line of the episode when Peter assumes he hotwired the car: “The key was in the ashtray but your presumption will not be forgotten.”)
As it turns out, Joe is kind of relieved not to have to take care of the car anymore, which makes for a whimper of an ending to Family Guy season 19, episode 11. But the dog jokes are good, so what can you really say?
