Animated Atrocities: Scammed Yankees

Show: Family Guy
Episode: S14 E12
Year: 2016

Writer(s): Ray James
Director(s): Jerry Langford

Yeah, I know I said I'd do an Animated Atrocities review on Full English next, but really, it's been a while since I did an Animated Atrocities review on a Family Guy episode, and doing the real things honestly keep my attention more than blatant knockoffs. I will do it, just not right now. Anyways, this episode is disgusting in two shades of shit brown! Both the A and B-plots barely hold any water at all alongside the dozen or so cutaway gags that don't work, so to keep things simple, I'm going to focus on the B-plot first, since it's the most prominent in my mind.

 

It's honestly one of Brian's absolute worst appearances next to "Brian's a Bad Father". I know that the girl he's dating, Meg's friend Patty, is stated to be 18-years old, and I would be fine with this… actually, that's a lie because I'm not ok with Brian dating most anybody. Excluding the fact that Patty's dating A DOG; the only thing Brian actually cares about is sex and women's bodies, and that's largely the problem whenever Brian has to hold the plot of any episode after Season 6. And technically, since Patty is still in high school with Meg, it counts as ephebophilia. Most people aren't legally considered adults at that age until they're out of high school or something, I don’t know.

 

I know Glenn Quagmire is the same way, and he's worse being an admitted rapist and all, but at the very least he has a genuine charm to him and there's more to the guy than wanting sex. Quagmire is specifically written to always be in the wrong when he does this (even though it can be confusing at times), but Brian is a guy we're supposed to like even when he does bad things, and Brian here and in many of those "Brian wants to quell his boner" episodes is just disgusting. And he has hit on teenagers before, so I know he's like Herbert in a way. All Meg has to do is call the police and get rid of the dog; it's easy! And now onto the A-plot which is mostly just blatant racism.

 

Carter and Peter ended up falling for the usual "Nigerian Prince" scam and end up prisoners in Africa; that's pretty much the gist of it, really. Yeah, episodes that feature Carter don't really go beyond the fact that he's evil and rich and willing to do disgusting things to keep his money; at first, he seems like he's going to become prisoner for trying to take back the money the Nigerian villagers are using to fix up their village because in their own words: "Nobody would willingly give money to Africa, so they have to be tricked", but he quickly turns on Peter and just somehow gains control with almost no buildup.

 

They also use the Africa plotline to tell so many racist and uncomfortable jokes as they can, none of which even try to be genuinely funny. I had to look up who Alonzo "Hamburger" Jones actually WAS in order to understand one of the jokes! He's as mediocre as he sounds compared to Jack Black easily. There's also this gem: "Give this to a French-Canadian airline attendant, and he'll spread it everybody" in reference to how HIV even came into existence. You got to do more than just reference a virus' creation, at least try to play with your material a little bit! I'm not so much angry as I am bored of this show. This show would have to do more stuff on the level of "Run, Chris, Run" or the aforementioned "Brian's a Bad Father" to really piss me off.

 

"Mean-spirited" isn't the right word to describe Carter, "evil" is. Only someone pure evil would bother turning on their own son-in-law just to gain power and not care if they get killed. Then again, I don't give a shit about Peter anymore either because of how stupid and reckless he really is. Is it any wonder Carter can't be trusted to be by himself? This plot was largely pointless because we all know Carter can't suffer any real consequences for being a rich asshole, and that's why it's very rare those types of characters get any real depth.

Cringe-Inducing Audio: 2
Cringe-Inducing Visuals: 2
Lackluster Writing: 10
Annoyance: 8
Disturbing Content: 6
Unnecessary Cruelty: 4
Rancid Morality: 4
Low Production Values: 4
Unfortunate Implications: 7
Character Derailment: 6

Final Score: 49/100


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