It was Sunday, and you know what that means, Fox Animation Domination. I DVR every new episode! First to watch on my list was "Family Guy." When the show started up it ran with the Cleveland show intro music, not the usual "It seems today...." Well you know the rest... I thought that maybe the TV guide was wrong and that there wasn't a new episode on tonight. I clicked on the info button reading "Series Finale, The Griffins move to Stoolbend to try and make a new life for themselves after many horrific experiences." After the intro finished up it cut to the Griffins on the road, Peter is speaking, kind of shaken "It is alright Gang....Once we get to Cleveland's...it will be just like normal." As Peter said this a tear appeared in his eye, right then I knew he was talking about this "horrific event", but what happened? It couldn't have been about Brian...he was sitting next to Stewie in the back along with Chris and Meg.....the whole family was there...so what was going on? They finally passed the "Welcome to Stoolbend" sign we had seen before when Cleveland had made his journey. The show then cut to black. When the show faded back in they were sitting with Donna and Cleveland in the living room we could see Cleveland crying and a look of confusion on Donna's face. "What's wrong? What has happened?" asked Donna. Peter explained to her that friends of his and Cleveland's were dead. All I could think after hearing this is "No....it can't be...not Joe and Quagmire" Peter went on that before they made their way to Stoolbend that Quagmire had died from what was first thought as a suicide but later deemed an accidental death to an attempt of autoerotic asphyxiation. He continued with his explanation, stating that Joe had a heart attack while chasing down a suspect in the murder of his wife, Bonnie. My mind was racing, I never expected Seth to pull out something this dark and surreal from Family Guy, even if it was the series finale. My mind was being drowned with questions, the main one being "If the series was ending why it had to end on this note? Why not them all moving to Stoolbend, make a second Family Guy series out of the Cleveland Show? It could be like old times!" But then I remembered reading Seth was kind of getting tired of making Family Guy and would rather just have it be a movie series instead of an animated TV show, but then again I wasn't one hundred percent sure if this was a factual statement or not. I was praying hard for a commercial, anything, even something as idiotic as a Geico commercial, anything for comic relief hoping maybe that the show would come back and everything would be back to normal, like everything I was witnessing was all just a very bad dream. Sadly this was not the case. The show came back with more of a somber feel, everyone was in the living room, dressed in black; candles lit as they bowed their heads for a moment of silence. After the moment had passed Cleveland spoke "I shouldn't of left....if I had stayed, maybe they would still be alive today" Peter comforted his friend saying that there was nothing that could have been done, Quagmire still would have been Quagmire and Bonnie would still have been murdered whether or not Cleveland was there wasn't a factor. Cleveland sniffled as he wiped his eyes running out the door and to his vehicle. Donna tried to follow him but was soon stopped by Peter. "I'll handle this" Peter tried to say reassuringly to Donna. The show cut to another transition showing Cleveland at The Broken Stool literally crying in his beer, Gus walked over saying he had a call, Cleveland reluctantly took it. "Hello?" "Cleveland where are you? Donna is worried sick!" "I'll be home when I feel like it; tell her not to worry about me okay Peter?" "Just tell me where you are we need to talk" Peter showed up at the bar a few minutes later sitting down with Cleveland. "Two please barkeep!" Peter exclaimed. "Oh Peter you don't have to worry about me" "I insist Cleveland it will be my treat." My head was still spinning, my brain wasn't able to keep up with the plot, and somewhere in my subconscious I was trying to talk myself out of it. "You are just having a nightmare, a night terror at the worst, everything is fine." The camera zoomed out cutting back to the house showing Lois this time crying, Donna holding her and patting her on the back trying to comfort her. "I can't believe they are gone" Lois said with an almost hopelessness tone to her voice. "And to think...what if it was Stewie, Chris, Meg, I or Peter?" Donna not knowing what else to say used the old cliché of "Everything is going to be alright" The scene changed to Meg with Roberta, Roberta doing everything she can even mentioning that they could go to the store and get a makeover but nothing took. The scene then changed again to Brian crying to Stewie. Another flash and it was commercial. "Thank God" I thought "Finally a break." At this point I was an emotional wreck, the characters I have grown up with, have watched for many years and have felt as if they were my family were devastated, everything had changed; nothing was the same or would be again. The final minutes of the show were just of the Griffins sitting on the couch crying themselves to sleep in front of a static filled TV, not a word was spoken....just silence until the credits rolled. A dreary kind of music played as the Family Guy credits rolled. After the show was finished, I felt a mix of emotions, obviously sadness for one, but anger as well, I felt ripped off in a way, I felt cheated out of a good Family Guy series finale, why had Seth decided to end it like that knowing his creative genius. Would we see the Griffins in the Cleveland Show side of things? The Cleveland Show had to be the next thing to watch, I hit play as I highlighted it on the DVR menu. Strangely this played the Family Guy introduction. I was confused as to what was going on. Maybe it was a final tribute to what skyrocketed Seth to fame so I pressed on, through the intro anticipating what was going on after Family Guy had come to a close, this time it was Cleveland.....alone. There was no sign of the Griffins ever being there. "What the hell?" I thought to myself, since I just saw the Griffins not half an hour ago on the other show. Cleveland finally spoke "Why....Why God Why?!" There was a picture of the Quahog group, all smiling that Cleveland was looking at, tears pouring from his eyes. Rallo walked in to the scene asking what "the fat ass" was crying about this time. Cleveland yelled at him to shut up that his dearest friends were all dead! This is where I stopped and said to myself "We have already been through this, why are we going through it again" Cleveland stopped sobbing a second to explain a family of good people he once knew died in a car accident on their way down to Stoolbend looking for a home of their own after something terrible had happened. "This doesn't make sense, he can't be talking about the Griffins, like I said I just saw them a few minutes ago, they couldn't be the ones he was talking about." The scene jumped back to the Family Guy opening of the Griffins driving to Stoolbend only to hit the edge of the road the wrong way. The car flipped repeatedly, inside Stewie was thrown against Brian, Meg out the window, Peter into the steering wheel and into Lois; and Chris out the back windshield. As the car came to a halt we could see both Cleveland crying and the camera panning over the car's wreckage and the devastation it brought to its occupants. Peter had squashed Lois against the passenger side door; Stewie had flown out the back window, his eye popped out of his head as he lay on the road, his head cracked open with blood leaking from his cranium. Meg had her glasses impaled into her head, teeth cracked; half of her face was falling off. Peter was left in pieces both in and outside of the car, his glasses lying in the middle of the road. Lois was shown against the door her head filled with glass and a few cracked bones; Chris was farther from the car, leaving a trail of blood since he skidded so far against the road. Brian was shown with his neck broken, his jaw had come off, his tongue hanging out of the opening and his stomach cut open, his guts spilling out onto the road. Time stood still for me, and I kept repeating to myself "I just saw them not half an hour ago on the other show....alive I might add!" I couldn't watch another second; I hit the stop button and instantly removed it from the DVR along with Bob's Burgers and American Dad, scared to see if anything weird was up with them. A few weeks later I found an article on the internet with Seth explaining why he did this one plot then pulled out another one on the opposite show. He had said that when Family Guy was cancelled the first time it really got him thinking about how he would end the series; he came up with two plots. Obviously the two different plots were if the Griffins lived and if they had died; but he wasn't sure if he could show both sides until the Cleveland show had come around. He stated that he knew it was a weird way to end Family Guy, but he wanted to end it on such a twist that it even would leave him speechless. Speechless it left him indeed.......
