Sibling Rivalry (Family Guy)

Sibling Rivalry is an episode from season 4b of FOX animated television series Family Guy that aired on March 26, 2006 and is directed by Dan Povenmire. Production code 4ACX23. Guest starring Wallace Shawn as Bertram.

Plot summary

After a pregnancy scare, Peter reluctantly agrees to get a vasectomy, but before the surgery, he donates his sperm. The recipients of his sperm are a lesbian couple who give birth to Stewie's half-brother, Bertram.

After the vasectomy, Peter's sex drive becomes nonexistent. Lois channels her sexual frustration into eating. After she becomes fat, Peter's interest is renewed and things heat back up in the bedroom until her unhealthy eating habits get the best of her. She suffers a heart attack, and during the surgery the doctor removes the fat and returns her to normal.

Meanwhile, Stewie's half-brother and archrival Bertram confronts him and they declare an all-out war for control over the playground. A confrontration between Stewie's stealth fighters and Bertram's helicopter gunships is inconclusive. Bertram resorts to biological warfare, infecting Stewie with chicken pox.

Stewie infiltrates Bertram's camp and engages him in a swordfight. Stewie finally prevails, disarming Bertram. Later that night while digging a hole with Christopher Moltisanti, Stewie comments that Bertram ran off.

Cultural references

• A cutaway shows Lee Harvey Oswald defending President John F. Kennedy from a gunman on the grassy knoll.

• For their sexual role-playing, Peter uses the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. While Lois claims to be a school girl who needs to be spanked, he claims he is a level 18 Paladin with 97 hitpoints.

• When naming his kids, Peter mentions the kids from various shows that are currently airing on Nick at Nite, including Family Matters and The Brady Bunch. When Brian mentions this, Peter begins naming fighters from Street Fighter, including Zangief, Chun Li, and Blanka.

• Sauron, the villain from The Lord of the Rings is shown as The Eye of Sauron in a scene where he is trying to find his lost contact lens.

• After recovering from the chicken pox, Stewie returns to the playground to confront Bertram. As Stewie approaches his tent, Bertram quotes Darth Vader from Star Wars: "I sense a presence, a presence I have not felt since..."

• There is a scene where Peter is in a jail surrounded by inmates who force him to strip, squeeze his boobs together, and sing the chorus from Kelis's "Milkshake".

• Stewie and Brian find a black version of Waldo in an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog.

• The helicopters flown by Bertram and his army resemble the G.I. Joe Dragonfly XH-1.

• Parodying George W. Bush and Iraq War, Stewie says "We've got to fight him over there at the swingset, so we don't have to fight him here at the sandbox." He also comments on his lack of an exit strategy.

• In one scene, Scrat from the films Ice Age and Ice Age: The Meltdown is shown trying to take a nut out of a side of a glacier, in which Peter shows up and tries to stop him. Apart from Peter, the scene was done in 3D, and Scrat was voiced by Chris Wedge who voices him in the films. The episode originally aired the week before Ice Age: The Meltdown opened. Fox aired promotions for the movie throughout the evening.

• Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos helps Stewie plant a tree.

Trivia

• Stewie's sperm brother, Bertram from the episode "Emission Impossible", returns in this episode.

• The barbershop quartet from "The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire" also returns.