The Cleveland–Loretta Quagmire

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"The Cleveland–Loretta Quagmire"
Family Guy episode
Peter and Brian discover that Quagmire and Loretta are having sex. The promotional card depicts a scene which never made it into the episode itself.
Episode no.	Season 4 Episode 5
Written by	Patrick Henry and Mike Henry
Directed by	James Purdum
Production no.	4ACX08
Original airdate	June 12, 2005
Guest stars
Emeril Lagasse as Himself Randy Savage
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Don’t Make Me Over" "Petarded"
Family Guy (season 4) List of Family Guy episodes

"The Cleveland–Loretta Quagmire" is a season four episode of the animated series Family Guy. This episode marks the final appearance of Loretta, until the season 7 episode, Love Blactually. The storyline of this episode lampoons Desperate Housewives and is about Loretta cheating on Cleveland due to his "lack of passion" and "not being a real man". This episode is rated TV-14 SLD.

Plot summary

Peter invites his friends on board his fishing boat for a party at sea. An intoxicated Brian makes an awkward pass at Meg, who is horrified. While Quagmire is fishing, he catches a fish that lands in Loretta Brown's shirt. She invites him to reach in and grab it, which he does after a moment of hesitation. While Quagmire’s hand is between her breasts, Cleveland approaches and mentions the snacks Peter has supplied, serenely saying hello to Glenn before walking away. After the fish is finally extracted, Loretta propositions Quagmire (to his amazed confusion). During a game of charades, Joe falls overboard and nearly drowns while attempting to portray "Natalie Wood" in her last moments. His life is saved by Peter’s two Portuguese employees, who rescue Joe in a fishing net, pull him aboard, and perform CPR. Because no one in the family knew what to do in an emergency, Lois insists that they take CPR classes. Peter almost instantly has his CPR card revoked for inappropriate behavior (i.e. taking off peoples’ pants to see if they soiled themselves).

While Peter ponders taking the CPR course again, he and Brian hear screams coming from Cleveland’s house. They rush in to find Loretta having sex on the couch. At first Peter believes Cleveland is piebald, but Brian says Loretta was committing adultery with a white man who has a tattoo on his left buttcheek. Embarrassed, they leave without seeing the man’s face, although Quagmire raises his head from the sofa immediately afterwards. They decide that the last thing in the world they should do is tell anyone about it. So after doing everything in the world (Peter and Brian toured Italy, France, United Kingdom, Hawaii, Disneyland etc.), they tell Lois, the Swansons and Quagmire that Loretta is having an affair. Peter volunteers to tell Cleveland, since he had experience with delivering bad news (he was in a barbershop quartet performing musical diagnoses for terminally ill patients). Meeting Cleveland at The Drunken Clam with Brian, Peter delivers the news in a typically overly-detailed fashion.

When Cleveland calmly questions Loretta over the affair, she angrily responds that she needs a real man. Cleveland responds in his usual mild-mannered way, even apologizing, and he ends up leaving the house without an angry word. Feeling responsible, Peter invites him to stay in their house. Lois is worried that Cleveland does not seem upset by the fact that his wife cheated on him at all. Peter suggests that what Cleveland needs is a "revenge lay" and decides to ask Quagmire for advice. Quagmire is "working out" in revealing leopard-skin briefs when Peter and Brian arrive. They instantly recognize a tattoo of his phone number on his butt and realize that Quagmire was Loretta's partner. Despite Quagmire's pleas, Peter and Brian immediately tell Cleveland but are surprised when he shows almost no reaction.

Lois tells Cleveland that Loretta wants him to express his feelings: that women sometimes want men to be strong and stand up for them. Peter then tries to get his friend to feel some passion by taking him to a wrestling match featuring Randy Savage, but it affects Peter much more than Cleveland. He then puts on a Quagmire mask and grabs Brian (who is unwillingly wearing a Loretta mask). This method finally yields results; Cleveland becomes enraged and vows to kill Quagmire.

Peter tells Cleveland that he should remember "the good old days". It then cuts to a parody of a Saturday Night Live sketch where Cleveland and Quagmire play "two wild and crazy guys" at a laundromat. Peter then walks in dressed as a conehead claiming "You guys look stupid." Peter realizes that he has gone too far and tries to protect Quagmire by hiding him at Mayor West's mansion. West's lunacy soon proves too much even for Quagmire when the former dresses up as a Buckingham Palace Guard: "Don't worry, I'll be here all night. Just don't try to make me smile. I'm forbidden to smile. Oh, no. That episode of Growing Pains when Mike's friend Boner ran for student council. Boner. His name was... Boner. Bone... I've failed you." Quagmire returns home and calls Cleveland to apologize. Cleveland appears and chases Quagmire around his house wielding a baseball bat. Despite finally having Quagmire cowering and at his mercy, and the encouragement of Emperor Palpatine, Cleveland realizes that he is unable to hurt another living person, no matter how badly he has hurt him. Peter tricks Loretta into seeing Cleveland by saying that Lois needs an intervention, but instead of reconciling, the couple angrily agree to get a divorce, with Cleveland saying that he may not be perfect, but he deserves better than Loretta.

Cleveland and Quagmire apologize to each other and, at Quagmire's insistence, take out their remaining aggressions on each other in a boxing ring (in a parody of the ending to Rocky III).

A reference to Mike Henry and Patrick Henry's Channel 101 film Kicked in the Nuts is featured in the episode. Peter Griffin gets unexpectedly kicked in the nuts by the Kicked in the Nuts prankster and tells his audience that he found a victim so they can applaud for him. One of the later episodes of KITN featured Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane receiving the titular "honor".

Cultural references

Peter sings the song "Rock Lobster" to Cleveland in this episode.^[1]

Reception

With Fox in second place among adults 18 to 49 years old, this episode gained a total of 8.35 million viewers.^[2] Kim Voynar of TV Squad wrote a favorable review, saying "This episode of Family Guy was just chock-full of the tasteless and tacky moments that make the show so popular. Peter and the gang are out on Peter's boat on a Saturday."^[1]

The "You Have AIDS" sequence, in which Peter and a barbershop quartet dance, in musical revue fashion, around the bed of a man with end-stage AIDS, delivering the patient's diagnosis in song, drew protests from several AIDS service organizations.^[3][4] According to the DVD commentary, the song was meant to show how Peter would deliver bad news in the "best way possible". Also according to the DVD commentary, the commentators say that the song is meant to be tasteless, because that's the joke.

References