Summary
“PeTerminator” sends up the entire Terminator franchise, leading Stewie and Brian to a romantic moment.
This recap of Family Guy season 19, episode 13, “PeTerminator”, contains spoilers.
It’s surprising that Family Guy has taken this long to spoof Terminator, but it’s better late than never. Besides, with more references than ever in recent episodes to Stewie’s flourishing homosexuality, which the show seems determined to run with, “PeTerminator” gets to pull double-duty as not just a pastiche but also a kind of low-key romantic-comedy, with an on-the-run Stewie and Brian getting closer and closer, largely thanks to Stewie’s efforts. It’s a… weird dynamic, given one’s a baby and the other’s a dog, but what can you do? Love is blind, after all.
The inciting event of Family Guy season 19, episode 13 is Lois attempting to feed Stewie broccoli, which annoys him so much he sketches out the design of a Terminator disguised as Peter whose mandate is to kill her. The technology, though, doesn’t yet exist, so he casts the drawing out of the car window without realizing that his idea is already behind him, having been sent from the future to kill… him?
This is a proper Terminator piss-take, with Peter arriving nude and the opening credits having been redone to include the signature music and burning family photos. One of the first things PeTerminator does is shotgun the chicken’s head clean off. It’s deliberately, defiantly not a typical episode.
And it’s better for that, especially when it does sneak in some classic Family Guy banter, including Stewie and Brian doing an Uber/Yuber version of the cool whip bit to save the animators some work. This comes after a send-up of the iconic highway chase from T2 which sees Brian and Stewie fleeing while PeTerminator pursues them on Joe’s new electric wheelchair after discovering that PeTerminator is trying to kill Stewie, presumably on the orders of some future rival who turns out to be Brian.
At the motel where they take shelter, Stewie tries to get Brian into bed, which tips the hand of Family Guy season 18, episode 13. After travelling to 2060 using a teleportation device — “I borrowed it from Rick and Morty. They’ve borrowed plenty from us.” — the falling-out between the pair is confirmed by a grizzled war veteran Stewie to have been the result of a sarcastic comment on an Instagram post. Present and future Stewie take a selfie before Present Stewie and Brian are forced to flee, and while assuring one another that they can avert this future by ensuring their friendship remains watertight, Stewie sees that Brian has commented, “When Sally met Sally” on the selfie. The future is inevitable!
Except it isn’t, since Stewie hits on the idea of proving to the army of Terminators pursuing them that their bond is unbreakable by… passionately kissing. Of course. At least he takes another selfie to preserve the moment.
