"Stewie Kills Lois" and "Lois Kills Stewie" are a two-part episode of the sixth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy, which was originally produced for the end of the fifth season. Respectively, both parts are the fourth and fifth episode of their season, and they premiered in the United States on Fox on November 4 and 11, 2007. In the former, housewife Lois receives cruise tickets from anthropomorphic dog Brian, and invites her husband, Peter, on the cruise with her. This upsets Stewie, and he ultimately appears to murder Lois while she is on the cruise, only to find out that she had survived the attack as the year passes. In the latter, Lois is able to expose Stewie as the villain that he is, but he soon accomplishes his dream of world domination.
"Stewie Kills Lois" was written by David A. Goodman and directed by John Holmquist, while "Lois Kills Stewie" was written by Steve Callaghan and directed by Greg Colton. Both episodes received relatively positive reviews for their combined story arc and cultural references. "Lois Kills Stewie" featured appearances by Patrick Stewart, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Simon Cowell and both episodes featured cameos by various recurring voice actors for the series.
Plot
"Stewie Kills Lois" On Lois' birthday, Brian gives her a pair of cruise tickets with the intention of going with her. She invites Peter instead, disappointing Brian. Stewie is also upset at not being invited on the cruise simply for being the baby, and he concocts a plan to embarrass Lois upon her return. Brian points out that Stewie has never followed through with any of his plans to hurt Lois. Stewie, disappointed in himself for being "all talk", resolves to prove Brian wrong. Meanwhile, on the cruise, Peter proves to be a frequent source of humiliation for Lois, defecating on the poop deck and telling the story of how he and Lois almost aborted Meg to the ship's captain at dinner. Furious at Peter, Lois walks onto the deck to get away from him, but is confronted by Stewie, who has traveled to the ship via speedboat. Stewie opens fire on Lois with a submachine gun, sending her overboard and apparently killing her. Six days later, Joe informs Peter that he has called off the search for Lois since he and his police squad are unable to find her.
Throughout the next year, Peter begins dating women again (including a cancer patient, a stick figure, and even Bonnie) but talks Joe into posing as Lois occasionally so that her death does not emotionally scar Chris. When Stewie indirectly reveals to Brian that he killed Lois, a disturbed and enraged Brian vows to avenge Lois' death by exposing Stewie, who then disposes of his gun and drawings depicting Lois being killed to hide the evidence of his crime. After Peter nonchalantly reveals that Lois' life insurance policy, which was made on the cruise right after she and Peter had an argument stating they wanted to kill each other, has recently been cashed for a large amount of money, Joe, Quagmire, and Cleveland begin to suspect Peter as Lois' killer. They search the Griffins' garbage and find Stewie's discarded gun and drawings. Joe becomes convinced that Peter was the one who killed Lois, given that Stewie and Peter have similar handwriting.
Peter goes on trial for Lois' murder. Carter commits perjury under the authorities' noses by falsely testifying against Peter, and Peter is close to receiving life in prison. However, Lois suddenly appears in the courtroom and reveals that Stewie, not Peter, tried to kill her.
"Lois Kills Stewie" Everyone in the courtroom is in disbelief that Stewie would try to murder Lois, but she insists that he is evil, and explains what happened to her a year earlier: after falling overboard, she was rescued by a reverse merman. Having developed retrograde amnesia, she started working at a fat camp in North Carolina. While at a diner, she met a new boyfriend, who turned out to be a white supremacist. While at a rally, she spoke out against them and took a blow to the head, regaining her memory, at which point she returned to Quahog.