The Story on Page One

Plot

At a visit to Brown University (Brian's alma mater), Meg is deemed not to be Brown material due to her lack of extracurricular activities, prompting her to start writing for her high school's paper. Meg tries to arrange an interview with the reluctant Mayor West, and eventually coerces him to accept. During the interview, the rambling Mayor West expresses frustration over how water keeps disappearing from his potted plants and through the drain of his sink. He then reveals to Meg he has spent $150,000 of the tax payers' money investigating the disappearing water, and how he will keep on even if it will cost the tax payers a million. An excited Meg thinks she has found her scoop, but Peter does not think the story will capture young people's attention. He sneaks into Meg's school at night, burns his daughter's article and replaces it with a story claiming Luke Perry is gay. The next day at school, Meg's friends are impressed by her story, but the story is also read by an outraged Luke Perry (who reads every high school newspaper in America, to see if he is mentioned) and files a lawsuit against Meg for libel.

Meg is deeply upset, but Peter, uncharacteristically feeling responsible, promises to make it up to her. In order to get Meg out of her legal problems, Peter tries to stage a photo of Perry acting gay through seducing him himself, thus making the article seem valid, but Perry does not respond to Peter's sexual antics (other than throwing up at the sight of Peter in a thong). After several failed attempts, Peter eventually confesses to Perry that he wrote the article, not Meg, and pleads him to drop the lawsuit. Perry accepts, on the condition that Meg does a real interview with him so he can set the record straight. Later, with the next number of the school paper in print, Peter visits Perry and gives him a copy so he can read the revised article for himself (which is revealed not to have helped Meg at all towards getting into Brown). Perry grabs the paper, abruptly excuses himself and slams the door shut in Peter's face. He then rushes back to his bed where Adam West is waiting for him. The mayor concedes to have sex with Perry, but only if he stops stealing his water. Perry obviously has no clue what West is talking about, but gladly accepts the terms anyway.

Meanwhile, Stewie realizes how short he is after Brian shows him the chemistry lab (the professor says he is too young to attend college). Frustrated with his short stature, Stewie puts a mind control device on Chris in order to make his brother do his evil bidding (as usual, killing Lois is on top of his list). The plan backfires when the device is shorted out by the microwave oven, causing Chris to turn on Stewie instead. Stewie eventually manages to evade his rampaging brother by disguising himself as a helpful passer-by, pointing Chris in the wrong direction.

Reception

Ahsan Haque of IGN, rating the episode a 9.1/10, praised the episode, stating that it had "the right combination of a great storyline" and "some extremely memorable and clever random jokes".