Stewie Kills Lois and Lois Kills Stewie - Reception

Reception

" "Blue Harvest" was a missed opportunity that succeeded only because of the source material it drew from.

Thankfully, the majority of the episodes that followed managed to thoroughly entertain, including the history-making two-part Stewie and Lois murder episodes aptly titled "Stewie Kills Lois" and "Lois Kills Stewie." Stewie fulfills his series-long fantasy of killing his mother, and does so with the type of callous violence that you'd expect for this implausible scenario. Despite the cop-out ending in the second part, the journey was worthwhile and the barrage of jokes was relentless.

Ramsey Isler, IGN

Ahsan Haque of IGN rated "Stewie Kills Lois" a 9/10, while rating "Lois Kills Stewie" a 9.4/10, saying "For the hundredth episode of Family Guy, Seth McFarlane and friends tackle the subject of one of Stewie Griffin's greatest ambitions — his not-so-secret desire to kill his mother. For the disturbed fans waiting for some form of a matricidal manifestation, you can feel comfort knowing, without spoiling too much, that the youngest Griffin absolutely means business and ensures that he doesn't fail this time around. There are some tense courtroom moments, a birthday celebration with the gift of Lionel Richie, a cruise ship, machine guns, and the reappearance of the Kool Aid Man that help round out this carefully crafted and well-told cohesive storyline. With the amount of cheap manatee jokes kept to a reasonable level, this episode also manages to find an excellent balance between comedy and storytelling. It's a fantastic way to celebrate the Family Guy one-hundredth episode milestone. With the writers' strike in full effect, it seems that this might be the last new episode of Family Guy we'll be seeing for a while. It's a bittersweet way to end the abruptly short season as the quality is reminiscent of the series' brilliance from the early years and it seems like the show was really starting to hit its stride for the season. Hopefully the series will be able to live up to the high bar set by this two-part classic upon its eventual return."

Richard Keller of TV Squad gave "Stewie Kills Lois" a much more negative review. He pointed out that the episode was hyped because before the episode aired a retrospective premiered featuring clips from the last 99 episodes, he stated that the episode was a huge disappointment. He stated that he did not find the episode funny, but rather disjointed, with little story and too many cutaway gags and flashbacks. In his review of "Lois Kills Stewie", Keller gave a much more positive review. He did mention that the end of the episode was somewhat predictable, as they had killed Cleveland and Stewie. He commented positively to some of the jokes of the episode, and in the overall he mentioned he liked the two episodes, but he was not so keen of the ending of the episode.

On her review of "Stewie Kills Lois", Genevieve Koski of the The A.V. Club rated the episode a B+. She commented that it was "a bit weird" that the show was focusing on Stewie's desire to kill Lois, since in the last couple of seasons the Stewie and Brian dynamic had taken precedence, while Lois was being more foil to Peter than Stewie. She felt that most of the cutaway humor felt familiar and that there was no real moment that would deserve any callback status in future episodes. She did praise the cliffhanger, stating that she was intrigued about how the storyline would turn out. She also praised the storyline and liked how it was able to create drama. In her review of "Lois Kills Stewie", Koski rated the episode a B, calling the end of the story a bit predictable as she thought that the deaths of Lois, Cleveland and Stewie were a one time joke. She praised and disliked some jokes and gags in the episode, including Stewie demanding praise for his macaroni picture of an owl and Lois' salvation via merman, respectively. She commented that the fight sequence was extended and highly choreographed.

"Lois Kills Stewie" was voted #9, and "Stewie Kills Lois" was voted #8 on BBC Three's list of Top Ten Family Guy Episodes.

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