It would be hilarious, after a fashion, if by the end of the season there was a completely different cast.
Spoiler: Spoilers for Tonight's Episode Okay, as a way of bringing Brian back, that was reasonable. Though I hope we haven't seen the last of Vinny in any case.
A friend of mine from high school died during the week after the Brian car episode. Now we weren't close and hadn't kept in touch or anything, but one of the last things he posted was a pic of Brian giving a toast because he was bummed Brian was gone. Went to his grave thinking Brian wasn't coming back. Ultimately a trivial thing what happens in a cartoon, but I couldn't watch this episode without thinking of an old buddy.
That was the most pedestrian way possible to bring him back... I was hoping for a bigger and more epic adventure. And do it two episodes after killing him?! Yeesh. They should have strung it out a bit more.
That's true. And if they were going to bring Brian back, why bother to change the opening theme showing Vinny as the family dog?
Brian was the more intelligent and liberal character on that show. Having him be replaced by the street mafioso type Vinny was really strange. Good to see Brian back.
I like how they took Brian out of the visual, took out his audio track but didn't put a new one in for Vinny. That was a clue too.
Considering each shot is a composite of the background and one drawing for each character, it was easy to switch out Vinnie for Brian.