Family Guy

Season 8 Episode 21

Partial Terms of Endearment

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7.5
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Episode Summary

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Partial Terms of Endearment
A friend asks Lois to be a surrogate mother for her, and she agrees. But when the friend unexpectedly dies, Lois isn't sure what to do. The family gets into one long debate over the issue.

Fan Episode Reviews (9)

SUBMIT REVIEW

  • uh...........

    4.0
    By jmbsonic555, Oct 10, 2011
    A friend asks Lois to be a surrogate mother for her, and she agrees. But when the friend unexpectedly dies, Lois isn't sure what to do. The family gets into one long debate over the issue.



    4.0 out of 10.0



    F

  • Not again!

    7.0
    By MartinBlank74, Nov 20, 2010
    SPOILERS AHEAD



    Lois meets an old friend from college and agrees to be a surrogate mother for her. But just after the successful embryo transfer, the friend and her husband die, leaving a pregnant Lois with a tough decision.



    The first three quarters are pretty good. I personally prefer episodes with two storylines, but that is just me. For a single-story show, I liked it a lot.



    But then failure strikes once again. Lois and Peter visit a clinic for abortions to find out about their options. Here, Peter runs into anti-choice activists who convince him that abortion is murder. They return home and immediately enter upon a discussion about this matter, with the standard roles – Peter the die-hard pro-lifer, Brian the liberal pro-choice advocate. and Lois defending women's rights.



    This last part fails for two reasons. Most importantly, nothing they do and say in this part of the episode is in any way fresh, original, outrageous, or interesting. It is just the usual discussion.



    The other problem is the situation. Rather than making is totally realistic (Lois and Peter get pregnant by accident) or completely unrealistic (a la South Park), the creators here chose some weird middle ground – unrealistic, but very similar to realistic scenarios. This is a backdoor that shows that the creators are actually very uncomfortable in dealing with this topic. Which means they should never have tried in the first place.



    FG looks to other shows and wants to be deep and serious, too – but to do so, they have to go against the concept of the first seven seasons which established FG as a show that does not take anything seriously. It does not work.moreless

  • I finally bought IT!

    9.0
    By TudorRose, Nov 08, 2010
    I enjoyed the episode a lot. What was the big deal? Abortion so what. I enjoyed Seeing Brian's reaction when he heard that Naomi was coming over. "Let me stay. Let me stay!" I enjoyed seeing Meg's flash back when she dated the Count. "One Nipple hahaha. Two nipple's hahaha. Three nipples haha I'm out of hear." Meg was treated real decent by every one and I liked that she was in-sink with everyone about Lois's abortion. I still cannot believe this episode was banned from T.V. I've seen worse things on South Park. It still was worth the wait.moreless

  • Easily one of the top 10 episodes.

    10
    By CellBlocknutter, Nov 07, 2010
    There was something about this episode which took me back to 1999 when the show began. This was by far the truest to form episodes since it's reprisal and that's a good thing.



    Fromt he start this episode bounced from joke to joke and to my shock they were all good! The storyline, to say it was deemed controversial due to the abortion theme (weird considering Maude) was not preechy or trying to be serious. Ironically many of the smaller joke were considerably more controversial.



    These other edgy jokes deserve credit. It's hard to think Family Guy could very find away of getting back to the level of controversy and edge it used to have but this episode managed to find a few untouched morsels. For me they were diabolically funny.



    I genuinly got a few dozen hearty laughs from this episode and forgot to even be cynical! It's as if this episode was written for the first/second season but got shelved as if it was lost in a vault somewhere and it's been rediscovered. It's a true classic and feels as if it doesn't belong with the newer episodes at all. Quite literally this episode is exactly what i expected to see when Family Guy returned and in a small and odd way watching this felt as if Family Guy was finally back.moreless

  • Don't Really Know How to Grade This...

    6.5
    By futuramarama, Nov 07, 2010
    On one hand, when I heard it was about abortion, I thought "Hey, it might be serious." It wasn't, and I guess that shouldn't surprise me, since Family Guy is a comedy. Though I do think in some cases, like maybe near the end of this episode, it should try to have some emotion. Lois and the family debate whether or not she should have an abortion (though it seemed Peter was the only one totally against it). It was fun to see this. The plot itself was pretty good, I just didn't really laugh a lot. I think banning this episode was somewhat dumb, to be honest. It wasn't that bad. Sure, the topic of abortion is kind of... grim for a show, no matter what, but still, it wasn't that bad. Overall, a good plot, but not much humor I didn't think. C+ or so, average I thoughtmoreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

Seth MacFarlane

Seth MacFarlane

Peter Griffin/Brian Griffin/Stewie Griffin/Glenn Quagmire/Tom Tucker/Dr. Hartman
Alex Borstein

Alex Borstein

Lois Griffin
Seth Green

Seth Green

Chris Griffin
Mila Kunis

Mila Kunis

Meg Griffin
Mike Henry (VI)

Mike Henry (VI)

Various
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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

Gary Beach

Gary Beach

Voice

Guest Star

Julia Sweeney

Julia Sweeney

Naomi Robinson

Guest Star

Wil Wheaton

Wil Wheaton

Voice

Guest Star

Patrick Warburton

Patrick Warburton

Joe

Recurring Role

John Viener

John Viener

Various

Recurring Role

Jackson Douglas

Jackson Douglas

 

Recurring Role

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

FILTER BY TYPE

  • TRIVIA (0)

  • QUOTES (4)

    • (Meg offers to host the baby)
      Meg: I can do it.
      Lois: Oh come on Meg, it was hard enough on your body when you gave birth to Stewie.
      Stewie: WHAT???
      Lois: I'm kidding
      Stewie: Oh, not cool

    • (Upon seeing Meg topless)
      The Count: One, one nipple hahah. Two, two nipples, hahahaha. Three, three nip– oh hell no, I'm out of here.

    • (Discussing scenarios where abortion is acceptable)
      Brian: What if it's rape?
      Peter: Well she shouldn't have asked me for directions.
      Brian: What?

    • Peter: I can't believe she went ahead and did it, after I specifically told her how I felt.
      Brian: Well clearly she believed it was within her right to- (begins sniffing the air) Lois just peed on something.
      (Quagmire pops through the window)
      Quagmire: Hey Brian, you picking up on that?
      Brian: Yep.

  • NOTES (3)

  • ALLUSIONS (3)

    • Looney Tunes

      Peter sets a trap for Lois much like Wile E Coyote does for the Roadrunner in Looney Tunes. He used a miscarriage kit made by the fictional company ACME, and many similar scenes and sound cues from the original cartoon are used as well.

    • Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo

      Peter hires Turbo and Ozone from Breakin' to breakdance on Lois's stomach. He claims they're doing it to save the rec center from being torn down. This is the plotline to the sequel film Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

    • Partial Terms of Endearment

      Taken from the title of the novel, and subsequent film, Terms of Endearment.

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