Hell Comes to Quahog

Plot

Peter, Cleveland, Joe, and Quagmire are spending the evening at The Drunken Clam, when Peter is reminded to pick up Meg from the roller skating rink. They then go to the rink and continue to enjoy themselves, but forget to pick up Meg when they leave. After skating home in the rain, Meg asks the family for her own car. The next day, Peter takes his daughter to the local car showroom, where she shows an interest in a sedan. Distracted by a large tank at the dealership, however, Peter is tricked into buying it. At first, Peter uses the tank himself, despite it being intended for Meg, but then he teaches Meg to drive it. Later that day, however, the two accidentally run over Joe, and he impounds the tank. Frustrated, Meg decides to earn the money for her own car, and is able to get a job at the local Quahog mega store, Superstore USA, working under a man named Mr. Penisburg. The shops in Quahog soon become bankrupt because of the new superstore, and citizens are informed that there will be widespread electricity blackouts because of Superstore USA's increasing power-demand. As the town is enduring a massive heat wave, the rest of the citizens become angered.

Meanwhile, Peter loses his job at the Pawtucket Brewery because Superstore USA has its own brewery and they cannot compete. Disjointed, Peter joins an angry protest outside the store, but after entering the store to encourage customers to leave, Peter is impressed by its central cooling system, and decides to become an employee also working under Mr. Penisburg with Meg as his superior. Later, his daughter is promoted to assistant manager by Mr. Penisburg, who immediately instructs her to fire Peter. Despite her reservations about her father, she chooses her family over her job and quits. In the meantime, Brian and Stewie decide to eliminate the superstore completely by retrieving Peter's tank, and driving it through the superstore, while Peter and Meg escape through an emergency exit. After bulldozing the store, Brian and Stewie drive outside and demolish it and Penisburg with the tank's cannon. Immediately afterwards, the electricity supply to Quahog is restored, and life returns to normal.

Production

The episode was written by Kirker Butler and directed by Dan Povenmire. Several variations were made to the Iceman scene, who was originally meant to be fighting with his wife, but was changed for legal reasons.

Several scenes and gags had to be removed from the television broadcast of the episode, as they were deemed inappropriate. This includes a scene when Brian recalls being stroked too hard by a "Special Child," which he retaliates against by biting the child's hand. The final scene, also censored from television airing, involved Chris laughing excessively at one of his own jokes, concluding with "Oh, I peed and pooped." These scenes were removed from FOX, but not from Adult Swim or the DVD. Another scene involves a man driving in a Hummer, while watching the 2005 film Madagascar in his car. The man then exclaims "Dude, those animals are so fucking funny," which was mistakenly broadcast uncensored in Canada, though this problem was corrected for future broadcasts. The censors remained intact in the United States.

"Hell Comes to Quahog", along with the twelve other episodes from Family Guy's fifth season, were released on a three-disc DVD set in the United States on September 18, 2007. The sets included brief audio commentaries by Seth MacFarlane and various crew and cast members for several episodes, a collection of deleted scenes and animatics, a special mini-feature which discusses the process behind drawing Peter Griffin, and mini-feature entitled "Toys, Toys Galore".

In addition to the regular cast, voice actor Dave Boat, actress Carrie Fisher, voice actor Phil LaMarr, voice actress Rachael MacFarlane and voice actor Fred Tatasciore guest starred in the episode. Recurring guest voice actors Lori Alan, actress Alex Breckenridge, actor Johnny Brennan, actor Ralph Garman, writer Danny Smith, writer Alec Sulkin and writer John Viener made minor appearances.

Reception

In a slight improvement over the previous week, the episode brought in 9.66 million viewers on its original airing, according to the Nielsen ratings. The episode acquired a 3.4 rating in the 18–49 demographic, tying with The Simpsons, and edging out series creator Seth MacFarlane's second show American Dad!, in both ratings and total viewership.

Reviews of the episode by television critics were mostly positive, noting its "hilarious beginning and the nice ending." Dan Iverson of IGN praised the episode, stating that the episode "looks to show that this fifth season is going to bring the series back to the irreverent basics that made it so appealing." Iverson went on to comment that some of the jokes were "extremely funny" and that "the episode had it all, from the Electric Company bit to making fun of people who drive Hummers and watch movies like Madagascar." In the conclusion of his review, Iverson gave the episode an eight out of ten. Brett Love of TV Squad also gave the episode a positive review, calling the installment much better than the previous two episode's from the season, "Stewie Loves Lois" and "Mother Tucker", but criticized the storyline's similarity to the South Park episode "Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes". Love commented negatively on the portrayal of Peter working at the superstore, however, stating, "it's a fine line when they go retarded with Peter. Sometimes it plays really funny, and sometimes it just gets annoying."