Stuck Together, Torn Apart
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"Stuck Together, Torn Apart" is an episode of the American animated series Family Guy, guest starring Jennifer Love Hewitt as herself.
[edit] Plot Summary
While the Griffins go to a bulk store, Stewie finds super glue and tries to taste some, but is stopped by Brian, whose hand is instantly joined to Stewie’s. The two spend the rest of the episode trying to hide their predicament until the release solvent arrives.
Meanwhile, Lois runs into an old boyfriend, named Ross Fishman, and the two go out to dinner to catch up on old times. Peter, growing suspicious, borrows Joe's new police surveillance van to spy on them. He becomes extremely jealous of her old boyfriend, so he finds his old date book and looks up past romantic interests to quell his envy. Lois becomes frustrated with his jealous antics, and the two go to couples' therapy. The therapist first has their daily lives recorded on tape so he can determine the best method to resolve their problems. The following week, seeing how screwed up their lives are, the therapist suggests they go on trial separation. Although they are both reluctant, they decide to give it a try.
Peter moves out of the house and, after spending some time to straighten out his thoughts, ends up dating Jennifer Love Hewitt, who turns out to be a niece of Peter's friend Mort Goldman. Lois goes on a date with Quagmire, and both couples end up at the same restaurant. Despite her disgust towards Peter, and his unpleasant antics, Hewitt becomes extremely attracted to him. Lois then unexpectedly displays her own jealous rage, driving Hewitt away. Now that Lois understands how Peter can get so envious, the two decide to live with their mutually jealous nature. Quagmire and Hewitt hook up, with Quagmire ordering a roofie coloda.
Cutting back to Stewie and Brian, just as the two start to drive each other crazy, the solvent finally arrives. The instructions state it will take effect within an hour after applying it, the two decide to take a walk to pass the time. Minutes before the glue is to dissolve, Stewie and Brian discover a little girl stuck in a well. Brian and Stewie manage to rescue her with seconds to spare (a local man with enlongated arms could have done it but he was too busy tickling a midget in a tree). Despite the glue being gone, the two decide to hold hands on the way home. The girl they saved, however, is revealed to be a midget woman, and the wife of the aforementioned midget. She is promptly thrown back in the well as her husband jumps in after her, and they are both tickled by the long-armed man.
[edit] Notes
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- Peter's insane prom date has a disgusting dark hand that she never washed after Peter last touched. When she turns around as Peter leaves, then feeds fish food to his feces in the toilet from all those years ago, her gross hand switches from right to left.
- After Lois told Brian to watch Stewie, there is a flashback of Stewie with a different head shape jumping on a bed. Stewie hits the ceiling with his head and reshapes it to be football-like. This is a contradiction, as in a flashback sequence in the first season, as well as his recounting of his birth in Chitty Chitty Death Bang, it is shown that Stewie was born with his head shaped that way.
- Since it was implied that Jennifer Love Hewitt was once a boy Eskimo, it can be further implied that either Mort Goldman or his wife are Eskimos.
- In this episode it is revealed that at the restaurant Quagmire and Lois goes to, Quagmire goes there often and has his dates' drinks drugged to have sex with them.
[edit] Cultural references
- CostMart is a combination of the warehouse club store Costco, and the department store Walmart. The comedian Gallagher is seen at CostMart, stocking up on watermelons, leading Peter to say, "touché, CostMart." He was known for smashing watermelons in his act; when he smashes a watermelon a few minutes later, a bystander comments, "is it 1981?" upon seeing Gallagher.
- The song Quagmire hums after realizing that everyone can read his thoughts is the first three measures of the second strain of a march called “National Emblem” by E.E. Bagley.
- To find his little black book, Peter uses a device similar to the ark-finding amulet from Raiders of the Lost Ark.[1]
- One of Peter's old girlfriends was Peppermint Patty from the Peanuts comic strip, who ends up dating and living with Marcie, as a lesbian.
- The Goldman’s practice of watching movies to the Hotel California album is a reference to the Dark Side of Oz.
- A flashback shows Peter at a discothèque smashing a disco ball, which he apparently mistook for a piñata.
- Stewie makes the remark, "It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again," a quote taken from the psychotic killer "Buffalo Bill" in the film "The Silence of the Lambs"
- In Peter's jealousy montage, he is seen with Lois at a concert. When the performer says this next song is for all the ladies, Peter comes up on stage and punches him. The performer is clearly Tom Jones.
- The way Joe's police van can disguise itself as two tramps fighting is similar to the idea in Doctor Who, in which a Police box can disguise itself as ordinary objects. However, the Police box in Doctor Who was actually a spaceship, called a TARDIS owned by the show's protagonist, The Doctor. In one episode, Attack of the Cybermen, The Doctor disguises the TARDIS as a pipe organ and an elaborate gateway
- The marriage counselor has Howie Mandell blow up a surgical glove with his nose.
- When the marriage counselor suggests that he put cameras in the Griffins' home, Peter says that "it'll be just like Big Brother, except someone will be watching".
- Peter's insane prom date bears a resemblance in attitude to Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Havisham was jilted by her would-be husband and left at the altar, and for the next few decades, she kept wearing her wedding dress (like the prom dress) and kept the wedding feast exactly as it was (like the toilet).
[edit] Censorship
- The syndicated version cuts out the part where Peter meets his insane prom date.
- When Brian is finishing changing Stewie's diaper, Stewie's "Ha, don't forget the taint!" remark is cut.
[edit] References
- ^ Family Guy. TheRaider.net. Retrieved on 2008-01-17.
- S. Callaghan, “Stuck Together, Torn Apart” Family Guy: The Official Episode Guide Seasons 1–3. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 152–155.
- A. Delarte, “Nitpicking Family Guy: Season 3” in Bob’s Poetry Magazine, 2.August 2005: 54–56 http://bobspoetry.com/Bobs02Au.pdf
[edit] External links
| Preceded by “From Method to Madness” |
Family Guy Episodes | Followed by “Road to Europe” |
