This week, Family Guy takes on a political third rail and addresses the National Anthem kneeling controversy. And they actually did a pretty good job at it.
After Carter buys a Minor League baseball team and the coach goes into cardiac arrest, he recruits Peter to take his place (unfortunately his first choice, Homer Simpson, is on vacation). Naturally, he takes the position and it goes to his head and he treats every day situations like a coach would (including trading Meg to American Dad).
When a bucket of bad shrimp irritates Peter's stomach causing him to kneel during the National Anthem, he becomes an unlikely pariah to the fans and hero to the public. After receiving the unexpected praise for standing up to police brutality, Peter agrees that it was his intention all along. Lois thinks he may be exploiting the news coverage of his act but he insists he's an activist now.
Peter fully embraces his new activist lifestyle by harrassing shoppers at the grocery store and absolving himself of wrongdoing because he's a "voter." Lois thinks it's getting out of hand but Peter just escalates with an endorsement and advertising deal from Nike. But the commercial gets Peter in trouble with Carter, who tells him that his team's ticket sales have dropped because fans think the team is racist. Carter then inadvertently knocks Peter down an escalator, rendering him unconscious.
When Peter awakens, Cleveland has taken him to a secret advanced society called "Wa-Quahog" (inspired by Wakanda in the Black Panther) to help him after he was attacked for his activism. The elders from Wa-Quahog thank Peter for speaking out and ask him to kneel at the next game. That leaves him very conflicted after Carter told him to stop.
Peter's guilt gets to him and he decides to admit that he didn't intentionally kneel during the National Anthem but instead had severe diarrhea. Peter concedes that after learning about the reasons for kneeling, he would still have knelt but now for the right reasons. He even goes on to ask why the National Anthem is played at all during a sporting event, as it's not a solemn occasion. He even suggests changing the National Anthem to the Hamster Dance song (shout out Millennials of the late 90's).
While the episode didn't bring any new information and certainly didn't change any minds, it's nice to see Family Guy still embracing current events and placing its character directly in the crossfire. I can't wait for them to take on the Coronavirus next!
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