Peter is jealous that all of his friends have accomplished things that make people remember them, whereas Peter has done nothing. In his desperation to do something amazing he ingests a bunch of coins, which poison and blind him. Because of his blindness he rescues a man from a burning building without knowing what’s going on - and thus has unwhittingly accomplished what he set out to do in the first place.
Thanks. 
But it was a rhetorical question, and you kinda proved my point. The first third of the show is taken up with Quagmire (and the chicken), which doesn’t merit a mention in your plot summary. In fact, I’m pretty sure that 99 percent of what you mention occurs in the third block of the show. It’s like that godawful Simpsons episode: hey, they’re on Spring Break! lotsa laffs! hey, now they killed an alligator! lotsa laffs! hey, now they’re on the lam! lotsa laffs! hey, now they’re working at a backwoods diner! lotsa laffs! hey, now they’re on a chain gang!
Pick an arc and stick with it.
Um, Gadarene, it’s called an “A Plot” and a “B Plot.” It is a common feature of shows, meant to show that in RL, sometime stuff happens at the same time.
I’m familiar, thanks. I like my A and B (and sometimes C!) plots to run concurrently, if it’s all the same to you. Otherwise it often just looks lazy.
(What would you say was the A plot of last night’s episode? The B plot?)
Umm, Cheese Monster already ate the A (More important plot), so I believe the first, but less important storywise plot(B) , was about Quagmire, and his inability not to be a total perv. 
That’s just it, though. The plots weren’t concurrent at all. Quagmire has his perv problem which leads to saving a woman from a heart attack, and that segues into the “A” plot of Peter wanting to make his mark on the world. It felt like two smaller episodes smushed together.
I still laughed, though.
And that’s the important part.
While I laughed so hard I cried at the ANH ending (I was in another room and thought for sure it was just an ad for Sith until I stick my head in to see if it was a new ad) I thought the Keebler thing was hilarious. Three totally off-the-wall Family Guy style gags…and they were all strung togehter into one of the funniest things I’d seen in a long, long time.
-Joe, wants Judd to build him a nuke so he can take out the accursed Welch’s kids
I thought this was a great episode. The funniest so far this season. The bits with God were priceless though not as good as those with high class british porn.
I love this show.
Last time I looked, I can be trying to hit on a girl, at the exact same moment that a fireman (for example) can be morning over his dead wife, in real life. The two need not have anything to do with each other, but should a person dramatize a day in Baltimore, the two things can be covered. The same things, as I see it, can happen in fiction. The generally agreed upon defintion of B-Plot, at wiki is:
P.S. If you remove the words “might or might not” from that wiki listing, :Channeling Stewie: I will kill you, Lois. No, wait, not kill, I’ll just change the listing back. :mad:
Family Guy Episodes
Part 1 of show: Something random happens to change the general situation for part or all of the family - most often (but certainly not always) Peter.
Part 2 of show: The family dealing with life in the new situation.
Part 3 of show: Something else random happens to make everything go back to the way it was in the beginning.
Sometimes the three parts have a lot of structure (To Live and Die in Dixie, which you mentioned, is a great example of this). At least as often… not so much - they link together, but the stuff in the middle isn’t necessarily going to have a lot to do with where you started or ended (say, Road to Europe). Mostly, though, something is happening (the plot is going somewhere, even if it doesn’t necessarily make the most sense in the world, which I will certainly grant you about last night), and lots of things are funny along the way.
Incidentally, when Bonnie came on last night, the first thing I said was “hasn’t she been pregnant forever?”… and then Peter said what I was thinking, and it made me happy
I was so hoping that at the end with the Star Wars ending that at the last scene they would cut to wide screen. They didn’t do it. I was sad. That woulda been frickin sweet.
Count me in with the people who thought the episode stunk and the plot was terrible. . .even when judged against other similar cartoon, all-over plots.
Still, when Peter got in bed with Chris, I thought that was excellent. I turned to the wife and said, “is he TRYING to get the show cancelled.”
And then, I said, “do you mind if I turn to survivor and see if they’re still sitting on the poles.”
Blast! I missed the ANH ending. Who got the awards? Which Star Wars characters were there?
Chewie, C3PO and R2D2. Peter got the award.
Most obscene use of the “shaking a bag of nickels” sound effect! 
The chicken thing went on way too long—just like Sideshow Bob & the rakes.
Anybody else think Stewie’s comments after pushing the footstool in front of blind Peter work as a pretty good comment on the series as a whole?
“Narrative arc” implies a definite, predictable shape to the story line. What I like about Family Guy in general (and this episode in particular) is how the storyline veers off at weird angles in unpredictable directions. If you want a traditional narrative arc, there are plenty of other shows that can give you that.
I was kinda rolling my eyes at the chicken fight until that perfect shot-by-shot parody of Raiders. The tailfin being splattered with feathers instead of blood was awesome.
On the whole though, I agree it was a pretty weak episode, though still funny enough to be worth watching. A lot of very “out there” moments: Peter and Chris in bed (and Stewie!), the whole Quagmire thing, that shot of armless & legless Meg on the couch … that was just crazy.
Not nearly as bad as the old perv from Chris’ paper route. “Do you like popsicles?”
Does nickel poisoning really cause blindness? Or did they just make that up? Not that it really matters; they’ve just got me wondering.
Plus, since American nickels are 75% copper, it seems that copper could also offer some poisoning opportunities. But it’s been years since I’ve swallowed a penny (I stopped swallowing them before the zinc penny was introduced) so I don’t know what the effects are. My brother swallowed a quarter when he was little, and he’s nearsighted—but then, so am I.
Decent episode, though. I’m withholding condemnation, despite my feelings that this season hasn’t been as good as the last one, so far. I’ve felt the same way about The Simpsons, which has slipped now and again. With some perspective, I can safely say that some Simpsons episodes really did suck, but my fears that they’d lost it entirely proved unfounded. I suspect the same thing with Family Guy.
One thing I hope to God is that Family Guy doesn’t get moronically self-referential, like The Simpsons often does. A little self-reference is good, but too much just cannibalizes everything that was good about the show in the first place. Once we see the fifteenth anniversary of Family Guy it’ll be fair to make that comparison.
Quagmire is heading for some drastic conclusion, which the Lois-molesting episode nearly avoided addressing. I’m not sure how much longer they can go on without dealing with that, unless he just keeps to the background as a character. If they keep using him, they’re going to have some awkward situations to cope with. Not that I don’t think they can deal with them, nor that I think they’re unwilling to deal with them, but going there will change the dynamic of the show, kind of like the death of Maude Flanders. Frankly, I hope they do go there. That’d make for an interesting development.
But if Bonnie can stay pregnant for six years, then maybe they won’t!
I can’t believe some of you are complaining about a weak plot in a Family Guy episode. You watch for the plot?
His own father, blinded, getting in bed with him and visibly reaching down to his privates is NOT NEARLY AS BAD as the old perv saying “do you like popsicles?”
Well, it’s not supposed to be a show of a stream of unrelated gags, either. I don’t think anyone minds a side-bar being placed into the middle of an episode (like meg on couch with no arms and legs) but I just think we’re just saying this particular episode didn’t even hold together within the typical framework.