No, the Vinnie timeline fades away, since Stewie altered the past. It will be interesting to see if there is a flurry of "I'm in!" posts after the recent melodramatics. --Geoff
Killing off Brian then bringing him back could be seen as a dickish move. Not surprising if some fans bail, especially given recent complaints about quality. Personally I still enjoy the show as much as ever. --Geoff
I wasn't surprised. I knew that was going to happen. A lot of people think MacFarlane is a dick. Steve, I'm shocked. You live in Hollywood and were surprised? Evan
I thought the whole episode was inspired. The "Home Alone with competent criminals" bit was funny, the "Christmas Story is racist" bit was funny and the ending was rather touching. "Family Guy" may not hit the mark every week but an episode like that makes sitting through the others worth it.
I remember seeing something about Tony Sirico doing eight episodes as Vinnie so possible he comes back too.
I thought that was the funniest thing in the whole episode, and I've been saying this for 20 years. Just shoot the kid in the head and be done with it!
I haven't seen the new episodes dealing with Brian's death/resurrection yet, but as far as I'm concerned the show is just as fantastic as ever. It's probably the only show since The Simpsons that consistently makes me laugh (which is a huge feat in itself!), and which has so many great jokes and lines of dialogue in every episode that I could carry on an entire conversation using nothing but quotes from the series. Volume 12 of the show is actually out on DVD today, so I will definitely be picking it up!
Family guy needs to go out with a bang. I thought killing Brian was their way of leading into the end of running this show. I wanted to see characters replaced with odd look a likes, or "killed off", and the "never heard of cousin" joining the cast... I wanted to see Family guy go through all the classic "jumping the shark" scenarios that other shows have gone through, and the only two that didn't know what the hell was going on would be Peter and Stewie. They'd end up getting all paranoid and thinking the world was coming to an end, or the government was conspiring against them. And we'd have a full solid season of that stuff. Peter and Stewie building a bunker. LIKING megs weird looking odd replacement cast member (although the replacement would be hotter than the original Meg and Stewie and Peter wouldn't know why, but somehow they now like Meg) Give quagmire a new voice, lol, have Peter just uncomfortably stare at him in that classic Peter Griffin style, when he tries to confide in Quagmire about weird recent events and strange happening,. but although Quagmire looks exactly the same, he clearly has the voice of James Earl Jones, lol. Eventually having Stewie and Peter possibly starting WW3, and in the end, going out like Hitler and Ava, with Stewie of course, quite fashionably, playing the role of Ava, lol. Obviously. (picture the old videos of them in the mountains playing with their German shepherd, lol) There's so much bizarre, insane things they could do, and places they could take that show, if they committed to one final season. The entire set could melt, and it'd be okay. And with all the buzz about Brian dying, I think it would bring all the original fans who have lost interest with the shows predictable format over the years, back for one last hurrah! (however that's spelt) Somebody hire me as an idea guy please! lol
Well, the bigger question is: why do they understand what Brian the Dog says? And yet only Brian can talk to Stewie! It's an interesting mythos, but I buy into it. But it's a world you can't poke too sharply or else you'll puncture a hole in it. How did Brian manage to buy a Prius? How does a dog drive a car at all? And don't even get into the doggie condoms he used in one episode, where he took a (human) girl out on a date... At some point, you just have to believe it and push forward. As long as it makes me laugh and doesn't annoy me too much, I'm good with it.
Seth McFarlane has said himself the writers could never resolve whether the family could understand Stewie or not so it is yes or no depending on the episode.
The original concept was to make Brian the only character who actually understood what Stewie said. But after a few seasons the producers realized that they were limiting Stewie's potential, so his "language abilities" have expanded a bit. It's still pretty rare for Stewie to have "one on one" conversations with other characters, though.
If the plan was to bring Brian back to life all along, I think it would have been more effective if they'd "killed" him at the very start of the season, and given us enough time to be used to him being dead (and having Vinnie around) that his return would have been even more of a nice Christmas surprise.
