Herpe the Love Sore (Family Guy)

Herpe the Love Sore is the sixteenth episode of the twelfth season of Family Guy and the 226th episode altogether. It originally aired on Fox on April 6, 2014, and was written by Andrew Goldberg and directed by Greg Colton.

Plot
Stewie and Brian become blood brothers, which leads to Stewie contracting herpes from Brian, while Peter, Cleveland, Quagmire, and Joe try to get their favorite Drunken Clam booth back after a different group of men take it from them.

Why It's Not a Love Sore

 * 1) Brian is very unlikable in this episode, as he gives Stewie, a 2-year old infant, herpes. Even worse, he attempts to pass it off like it's no big deal. Usually everyone has neutral herpes, but the type of herpes Stewie gets is a virus.
 * 2) * Brian attempts to downplay giving Stewie herpes by trying to give it a sillier name, such as "Boppo".
 * 3) * Brian knew he had herpes, but he doesn't care that he gave it to Stewie (his best friend) and Chris (and, possibly, many women he dated).
 * 4) Peter is also very unlikable at the beginning of the episode, as he attacks his own children and Cleveland with a whip for no apparent reason.
 * 5) The subplot is extremely mean-spirited because it is just about Peter and his friends getting bullied by soldiers at the bar and everyone else calling them cowards for not standing up to them when it was actually the smart thing to do. Or is it smart to fight guys who are bigger and stronger than you?
 * 6) There is an incredibly disturbing close-up of Brian's herpes, and several other disgusting scenes involving close-ups of the sores on Stewie and Chris.
 * 7) * In fact, towards the end of the episode, an actual picture of herpes is shown on Brian’s profile picture, which is horribly disgusting!
 * 8) The whole townspeople of Quahog are hypocrites for ridiculing Peter, Joe, and Quagmire for refusing to fight the guys at the bar that took over their favorite booth, only to ridicule them again for trying to fight them because they are soldiers about to be deployed to Afghanistan.
 * 9) * During the fight with them, Peter opens a can of spinach as slowly as possible while trying to imitate Popeye the Sailor, which lasts for 30 seconds.
 * 10) Plot Hole: Joe, as a cop, could've just arrested the soliders after they threatened him, Peter and Quagmire.
 * 11) Bad Ending: Brian tells Stewie why he didn't tell him about the herpes was that he was embarrased, and if that was an acceptable excuse, Stewie forgives him and accepts the fact that he has herpes for the rest of his life now.
 * 12) * And instead of apologizing for giving Stewie herpes, Brian simply promises he will never lie to him again.
 * 13) Bad moral: It is alright to pass an STD on to someone if you be honest about it immediately and try not to deny where the new sores came from.
 * 14) The way Stewie gets herpes in this episode is not only unrealistic but scientifically impossible as herpes cannot be spread through blood.
 * 15) The episode title sounds very tone deaf and insensitive as it basically calls Herpes a “love sore”. However, this is supposed to be a reference to Herbie the Love Bug.
 * 16) The episode teaches a very bad and illegal moral: Hacking into other people’s online accounts is good if the victim did something wrong to you. This is shown when Chris and Stewie hack into Brian’s Facebook account to change his profile pic to a more disgusting one and are shown to be in the right for it. Realistically, hacking into someone’s account to mess with their profile’s is illegal and can count as cyberterrorism depending on how it is carried out.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Brian did hesitate to become blood brothers with Stewie at first. This might be some evidence that Brian might have been concerned about giving Stewie herpes.
 * 2) Stewie does call out Brian for giving him herpes.
 * 3) Stewie and Chris give Brian a fair comeuppance by telling his date about Brian's herpes, making her leave.
 * 4) * They also hack into Brian's Facebook page by changing his profile picture to a picture of herpes (despite it being disgusting).
 * 5) Peter technically gets his comeuppance for whipping his children in the beginning after he gets beat up by soldiers at the bar.
 * 6) Some jokes are really funny:
 * 7) *The coked-up giraffe cut-away, despite being random, can be funny.
 * 8) *The cutaway involving Stewie calling up Handy Manny is funny.
 * 9) *The Bryan Cranston sneezing joke was hilarious.
 * 10) Stewie, Chris, Lois, Quagmire and Joe are likable in this episode. Lois and Quagmire also aren’t flanderized like they usually are.
 * 11) Lucky for Stewie, in the next episode and all episodes after that, he no longer has herpes.

Reception
While "Herpe the Love Sore" is rated 5.5/10 on IMDB, it has received mostly negative reviews. It was second on PhantomStrider's 2015 worst Family Guy episode list.

Videos
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