"Hell Comes to Quahog" is the third episode of the fifth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy, an episode produced for Season 4. It originally aired on Fox on September 24, 2006. The episode follows teenage daughter Meg after she requests that her parents buy her a car. At the showroom, however, her father, Peter, decides to buy a tank, instead of the car Meg was interested in. Deciding to pay for a new car herself, Meg is able to get a job at Superstore USA, which eventually destroys the local economy of Quahog, and upsets the local community, leading Brian Griffin and Stewie to save the day.
The episode was written by Kirker Butler and directed by Dan Povenmire. It received mostly positive reviews from critics for its storyline and entertaining cultural references. It was viewed by 9.66 million viewers in its original airing. The episode featured guest performances by Dave Boat, Carrie Fisher, Phil LaMarr, Rachael MacFarlane, and Fred Tatasciore, along with several recurring guest voice actors for the series. "Hell Comes to Quahog" was released on DVD along with twelve other episodes from the season on September 18, 2007.
Plot
Peter, Cleveland, Joe, and Quagmire are spending the evening at The Drunken Clam, when Peter is reminded to pick up Meg from the roller skating rink. They then go to the rink and continue to enjoy themselves, while skating. The guys forget to pick up Meg when they leave. After skating home in the rain, Meg asks the family for her own car. The next day, Peter takes his daughter to the local car dealership, where she shows an interest in a sedan. Distracted by a large tank at the dealership, however, Peter is tricked into buying it. At first, Peter uses the tank himself, despite it being intended for Meg, but then he teaches Meg to drive it. Later that day, however, the two accidentally run over Joe, and he impounds the tank. Frustrated, Meg decides to earn the money for her own car, and is able to get a job at the local Quahog megastore, Superstore USA, working under a man named Mr. Penisburg. The shops in Quahog soon go bankrupt because of the new superstore, and causes people to lose their jobs.
Meanwhile, Peter loses his job at the Pawtucket Brewery because Superstore USA has its own brewery and they can't compete with them. Back at the house, Brian, Chris, and Peter watch TV and on the news, Tom says that Quahog is suffering a heat wave across the city, with Superstore USA taking away the neighborhood power to power their cooling system. Disjointed, Peter joins an angry protest outside the store, but after entering the store to encourage customers to leave, Peter is impressed by its central cooling system, and decides to become an employee also working under Mr. Penisburg, with Meg as his superior. Later, Meg is promoted to assistant manager by Mr. Penisburg, who immediately instructs her to fire Peter. Despite her reservations about her father, she chooses her family over her job and quits. In the meantime, Brian and Stewie decide to destroy the superstore completely by retrieving Peter's tank, and driving it through the superstore, while Peter and Meg escape through an emergency exit. After bulldozing the store, Brian and Stewie drive outside and demolish it with the tank's cannon, killing Penisburg in the process. Immediately afterwards, the electricity supply to Quahog is restored, and life returns to normal.
Production
The episode was written by Kirker Butler and directed by Dan Povenmire. Several variations were made to the Iceman scene, who was originally meant to be fighting with his wife, but was changed for legal reasons.
Several scenes and gags had to be removed from the television broadcast of the episode, as they were deemed inappropriate. This includes a scene when Brian recalls being stroked too hard by a "Special Child," in which he retaliates by biting the child's hand. The final scene, also censored from television airing, involved Chris laughing excessively at one of his own jokes, concluding with "Oh, I peed and pooped." These scenes were removed from FOX, but not from Adult Swim or the Volume Five DVD. Another scene involves a man driving in a Hummer, while watching the 2005 film Madagascar in his car. The man then exclaims "Dude, those animals are so fucking funny," which was mistakenly broadcast uncensored in Canada, though this problem was corrected for future broadcasts. The censors remained intact in the United States.