Vestigial Peter

"Vestigial Peter" is the second episode of the twelfth season and the 212th overall episode of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It aired on Fox in the United States and Canada on October 6, 2013, and is written by Brian Scully and directed by Julius Wu.^[1] In the episode, Peter finds a strange lump on his neck that turns out to be a vestigial twin, who ends up winning over Peter's family and friends with his optimism and sense of wonder.

Plot

When Lois tries getting Peter ready for church, she complains he keeps wearing the same old shirt, and insists that he go to the mall afterward to get new clothes. Trying on a new shirt, the salesman points out a lump on Peter's neck and Lois insists on seeing Dr. Hartman. Dr. Hartman identifies it as a twin and extracts it from just beneath Peter's skin so that it can talk and react to people, as Peter names him Chip.

Taking it home, he frightens the kids at first but soon gets everyone to warm up to him. But when Chip wants to live an active life, Peter tries to get him to slow down and Lois objects to him trying to stifle Chip. Chip also gets lucky with Peter's boss Angela and eventually gets on Peter's nerves. Peter goes back to Dr. Hartman and requests to have Chip removed despite possible risks to his own life. The operation is a success and they become separate entities.

Despite Peter's attempt to encourage Chip to go his own way, the family insists Chip stay with them. Chip endears him to the family further when he rearranges the home and spends time with the family. Lois points out that Peter was once as full of life as Chip. After talking at the bar about his situation (Quagmire mistakenly thinking Chip was an African child the Griffins adopted) Peter decides to get rid of him and tries to have him eaten by a dingo. While the attempt fails, Chip realizes he is not wanted and leaves. Peter breaks the news to the family and they go search for Chip, leaving Peter alone.

Going to the basement, Peter falls down the stairs and breaks his leg due to him wearing high heels at the time. Chip returns and finds Peter, makes a splint for his leg and drags him back upstairs. Peter is grateful for what Chip did and makes up with him. Chip decides to go out in the world and experience it for himself, sailing himself aloft on a balloon. A narration (spoken by Patrick Stewart) states that Chip has not returned to the Griffin family as he became the latest kid on ABC's The Middle.

Reception

Eric Thurm of the The A.V. Club gave the episode a C+, saying "The volume of those jokes makes it hard to watch the rest of 'Vestigial Peter,' which is too bad, because there’s a lot of decently funny and almost interesting stuff in this episode. The opening segment at the mall keeps cutting back to an establishing shot of the mall itself (has the show ever done something like this?), which gives off the impression that the mall is some sort of weird, nightmarish, repetitive hellscape, which, well… Some of the humor in “Vestigial Peter” is even in the main plot. Chip wins over Brian by appealing to his smug Prius ownership in a joke that seems like it slipped in from a better episode, and the jokes about Peter and Chip’s shared biological functions are crass, but not directly offensive and raunchy in just the right way for Family Guy. With less transphobic crap and more Quantum Creep (where the joke is the bad/awesome pun and is not that flashing is awesome), “Vestigial Peter” would have been a really solid episode of Family Guy for this season instead of something that appeals to the worst parts of the show’s fan base."^[2]

The episode received a 2.5 rating and was watched by a total of 5.20 million people, this made it the second most watched show on Animation Domination that night beating American Dad! and Bob's Burgers but losing to The Simpsons with 6.42 million.^[3]

References