7 Family Guy Episodes You Should Watch Before New Stewie Spinoff

Family Guy is now in the works on a new spinoff series all about Stewie Griffin, and thankfully there are plenty of fun Stewie episodes you can check out in the meantime. The animated series is expanding with Fox as creator Seth MacFarlane is launching a new Stewie starring spinoff that will see him forced to go to a new preschool after being kicked out of his old one. This new show is likely going to highlight his gadgets and personality even more than we see in the main series.

This new spinoff series, titled Stewie, will see Stewie meeting a new cast of characters and taking on all new kinds of adventures, and it seems like Family Guy really only scratched the surface of what Stewie might get into next. With this new spinoff in the works for a release sometime between 2027 and 2028, it’s now a perfect time to go back and check out these standout Stewie episodes to get ready for it.

7). Send In Stewie, Please

Season 16’s “Send In Stewie, Please” is one of the more notable examples of the later seasons experimenting with deeper takes on each of the characters. These involved episodes that broke the mold of the series by focusing on one character above all else, and often broke away from the traditional format by not including many non-sequitur jokes. This one sees Stewie interacting with a therapist (voiced by Ian McKellan) and give detailed insight into how he really feels.

It’s also the episode where Stewie famously drops his English accent for the first and only time in the entire series, and he sounds like his father Peter. It’s the clip that goes viral even after all these years later as more fans see it, but the rest of the episode around it is just as great.

6). The Stewaway

Season 21 gives us a unique pairing as Stewie and Quagmire hang out for the first time during “The Stewaway.” Although the two have crossed paths before and have even had a story together with Brian as a buffer, this episode was great at revealing more about the two of them. It ends up being a little more about how Quagmire is forced to babysit, but this is also one of the few episodes that really leans on the fact that Stewie is a baby that is out of his depth many times.

Brian set Stewie out on his path thanks to the fact he’s the one that got him hooked on playing hide and seek (and it’s how Stewie accidentally gets to Paris with Quagmire), and the story resolves with a rather cute and childlike moment for Stewie that gives him a win at the end of the day. It’s very sweet.

5). Sibling Rivalry

Season 4’s “Sibling Rivalry” is the first time that Stewie is challenged with a rival that can stack up to his own intelligence. Although Bertram’s first appearance in “Emission Impossible” is the wilder of the adventures, “Sibling Rivalry” allows the rival to be fully born and challenge Stewie in a pretty fun way. The two of them are pretty evenly matched, and make for a fun dynamic that had Stewie on the backfoot. Though the resolution of this confrontation feels a little lacking, there’s a fun joke to go out on. It really was a fun little Stewie adventure that was the first of many rival bouts.

4). A Lot Going on Upstairs

Season 14’s “A Lot Going on Upstairs” is just one of many, many episodes where Brian and Stewie share a deeper connection brought out by a fun science fiction adventure. When Stewie has a nightmare for the first time, Brian jumps into his dreams and sees deep within Stewie’s subconscious. It’s an eye-opening episode where fans see what Stewie deeply fears, and it reveals that as a baby he’s seen much more than should have.

But the biggest deal about this episode was that it reveals just how much Brian actually means to Stewie. It’s gotten to such a point where he secretly worries about disappointing Brian so much that Brian had become a monster of anxiety in his subconscious. While Stewie would never outright admit it, Brian really means the world to him.

3). Mr. and Mrs. Stewie

Season 10’s “Mr. and Mrs. Stewie” isn’t as emotionally rich of a Stewie story as the others on the list, but it’s a fun example of how much he had changed from the earliest days of the series. Not only does the animated series give him yet another rival who is on his same level, but takes it even further by making Penelope (Cate Blanchett) much more evil than Stewie had ever been. She immediately pushes him towards that darkness and the two cause a lot of destruction together.

Stewie then needs to save Brian from Penelope when things go South, and eventually has to take her on as well. It leaves on an open ending teasing that Penelope is still out there somewhere if the show ever wanted to revisit the idea, but that’s probably not going to happen. Stewie doesn’t get a lot of episodes like this anymore.

2). Dog Bites Bear

Season 16’s “Dog Bites Bear” is probably the most notable of the Brian and Stewie episodes. While the two of them have had much grander adventures, it reaches an emotional new level when Brian eats Stewie’s bear Rupert in a fit of jealousy. As the two journey to dump out Rupert’s ashes, Stewie learns that Brian was jealous of the bear, and Brian leans that Stewie is still worried that Brian is going to leave him one day.

But then it ends on one of the most emotionally stirring scenes in the show’s history. It’s very comedic, and the content of that scene is paying off a joke from earlier in the episode, but it all comes around towards being quite heartbreaking. It’s bittersweet, but it’s just a great Stewie moment in the show’s history.

1). Stewie Kills Lois & Lois Kills Stewie

Season 6 of Family Guy did a full send off for Stewie’s early characterization, and it’s why he stopped being so obsessed with world domination and killing his mother. The double episode event of “Stewie Kills Lois” and “Lois Kills Stewie” is technically a cheat by including it here, but it revealed what would happen if Stewie actually went through with his threats to kill Lois and use a grand plan to take over the world.

It goes to great lengths to reveal that Stewie would end up succeeding in his quest in doing so, but failed to kill Lois. So she would end up coming back to take him on and save the world instead. It was all revealed to be a simulation that Stewie hoped fans would get a kick out of, and because of it has become one of the quintessential Stewie episodes you need to check out ahead of this new spinoff.

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