Farmer Guy

Plot

Tom Tucker and Joyce Kinney do a news report on rising crime in Quahog. Glenn Quagmire is mugged by a criminal who doesn't know who Truman Capote was. At Quahog's Ocean World, a seal named Bojangles threatens his trainer for her bucket of fish and forces her to rub his belly. At the hospital, a woman gives birth to a baby who starts shooting everything. Some days later, the Griffins return home to find they have been robbed. After losing their peace of mind, Peter buys a farm and tells the family they are moving, selling their house on Craigslist. Despite some initial reservations, the family decides to go along although Brian is suspicious of their motives for taking him to a “farm” and briefly takes Stewie hostage. Arriving, they adjust to farm life. But Lois delivers news that they are hemorrhaging money and are in danger of losing the farm.

Brian offers to go to college to learn something of value in farming to help out and heads out. During a tornado, the Griffins take shelter in a storm cellar and discover a methamphetamine lab. Lois wants to call the police, but Peter decides to use it to get back on their feet. Despite her reservations, she agrees to make meth just long enough to get profitable. Peter becomes paranoid as he develops a carrier pigeon delivery system as Stewie buys decongestants. Brian returns to find that the farm and the family have gone to hell and are only wearing their underclothes (except for Meg who is unconscious for some reason). A news report reveals that the family is responsible for a flood of drugs into Quahog, causing more problems as Tricia Takanawa is also hooked on meth. Lois packs up to go home and convinces the family they need to return too as the house blows up. Luckily, they were able to buy their old house back after property values plummeted during the crime wave. Peter and the family have to hide out when Jodie Sweetin comes looking for a taste of their drugs.

Reception

The episode received a 2.4 rating in the 18-49 demographic and was watched by a total of 4.82 million viewers. This made it the most watched show on Fox's Animation Domination line-up that night, beating The Cleveland Show, The Simpsons, Bob's Burgers and American Dad!. The episode was met with mixed reviews from critics. Kevin McFarland of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B, saying "To be fair, it’s not emphasized enough just how volatile all those chemicals can be, and as an ending to one of the standard episode types for this show—Peter initiates family upheaval—it swiftly shows Lois’ reversal to be correct. It’s a quick way to end the episode, and it makes Brian’s small subplot a bit of a dead end, but when there are so many cutaways, an already thin plot gets thinner." Mark Trammell of TV Equals gave the episode a positive review, saying "Farmer Guy” was close enough for disco, and it was certainly one of the best, if not the best episode of the season, and it’s precisely because it went back to the style it’s most famously known-for, not in defeat, but rather because it actually had a solid plot and some good jokes to tell. Sometimes, it’s the simplest solutions that work best, like going back to the basics." Carter Dotson of TV Fanatic gave the episode two out of five stars, saying "Really, when the best humor is all but disconnected from the actual plot of the episode, that's a bad sign. I didn't see any real reason to care about this, and why should I? If any serious work was put into this episode, it was wasted."