'Family Guy' Season 11, Episode 3 - 'The Old Man and the Big C' Recap

"Family Guy" is gearing up for its 200th episode next Sunday, so it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that this one wasn't its best showing. It certainly wasn't the worst either, but it did suffer from a bit of a lack of focus.

Essentially we had two episodes here: one in which Quagmire is revealed to be bald, and another in which Carter is revealed to have cancer. Of course one lead ever so loosely into the other, as has been the style of late in these filler-type episodes.

On the Quagmire front, the incident occurs at Fenway when Quagmire's toupee comes loose in the scuffle over a home run ball. Humiliated, Quagmire takes the guys' advice and decides to own his baldness. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it in the cool Bruce Willis kind of way.

Instead, Quagmire starts using a ham radio, yelling at drivers speeding through the neighborhood, and being a creep at the library. The guys suggest a hair transplant, and Quagmire is magically back to normal. But at the hospital, Brian hears the news about Carter.

It would appear that Carter has serious cancer and is on death's door. Brian tells Lois about it, but by the time they get to Carter's house, he's all better and denying that he ever had cancer in the first place.

Brian is understandably stunned, and tries to prove that this healthy Carter is some kind of impostor with Stewie's help. Instead, they happen upon a serum in Carter's pharmaceutical lab that turns out to be the cure for cancer. Why not release it? Because treating cancer is more profitable than curing it, explains Carter.

When Lois gets wind of this, she tries to convince Carter to release the cure, but he goes back on his word, because he's Carter and also because that would be a pretty big change to the reality of the "Family Guy" universe if someone cured cancer.

If that plot seems thin, that's because it was. However, there was a healthy dose of cut-aways in place of story, if that's your thing.

Cut-Aways of the Week:

Peter at the stock car race: B-, "I got the guy" made the joke, which was fairly predictable otherwise.

Weekend bully: C-, whaaaat the heck was that?

Peter as barefoot guy: C+, only because they took the time to make Peter's feet all dirty and gross.

Women ordering dessert: C-, not particularly funny AND sexist? Sign me up!

Carter goes to the comedy club: B, solid interjections from Carter.

Shooting on the corner: B, that's pretty dark but for real those memorials are depressing.

Kleenex meeting: A-, nicely done without going too far with it. Sperm and nonsense.

Lois on the phone: B+, not the best out but anyone who's ever waited for their mom to get off the phone can identify.