Mayor West is put on trial for murder and only Brian can save him from jail in this parody of 12 Angry Men.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: From what we can see of her, Tricia's mother is verbally abusive and highly critical towards her.
- Artistic License – Law: At the end of the episode, Brian commends himself for a job well done by not convicting an innocent man, and Stewie gets all pissy with him because the real murderer is still out there as if it was Brian's job to find and catch him.
- First of all, if the murders were still taking place during the trial, then West should have been found innocent right then and there because he clearly couldn't be the one responsible.
- Second, it was never the place of Brian or anyone else on the jury to actually solve the case because that's not what a jury does—their one and only purpose in any given trial, in this case for West being accused of and tried for a murder, is to determine to the best of their ability if the defendant is guilty or not and that's all.
- Third, due to the fact that Carter and Peter (and arguably Brian, given the nature of the show) have familial ties to Mayor West's wife Carol, they should not have legally been allowed to serve on his jury. Anyone related either by blood or marriage to the defendant is not allowed to serve on this jury due to the potential of bias.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: In response to Brian presenting a letter written to him by Quagmire’s dad after they had sex, Carter mentions that he once had sex with a dog in the Philippines but that he didn’t write him a letter.
- Blackmail: One piece of evidence in the case is a note from the victim that was found at Mayor West's residence, threatening to expose him in a corruption scandal unless they're paid off. Brian doubts the legitimacy of it being written by the victim due to be written on decorative paper from the Mariot Hotel when they had access to all the office of the mayor's stationary.
- Body Horror: Played for Laughs; during Quagmire's demonstration of an orgy, he melts like butter all over the other jury members.
- Call-Back:
- During the trial, Brian shows the other jurors a note from the Mariot Hotel that states his relations with Ida Quagmire, in reference to "Quagmire’s Dad".
- Later, Carter mentions how he let Mayor West marry his daughter, Carol, during his Villainous Breakdown.
- Continuity Nod: Meg becomes saddened at Mayor West getting arrested, calling him “Uncle Adam”, a reference to the episode "Brothers & Sisters" where West marries Meg’s aunt Carol.
- Courtroom Episode: Most of the episode is set during the jury’s deliberation over whether Mayor West committed a murder.
- Domestic Abuse: Played for Black Comedy. Meg mentions her home economics teacher has a realistic class. The teacher is shown to burn dinner. Afterwards, her abusive husband comes home furious over this and work. She instructs the kids not to get between them during the violence.
- Esoteric Happy Ending: Stated In-Universe by Stewie. When Brian reflects on proving Mayor West innocent of being a serial killer, Stewie points out he never found out who was the murderer, allowing him to roam the streets slaughtering more people by way of causing power outages in peoples homes and breaking into them. Then the Griffins' power goes out.
- Expy: The characters in the episode parody the characters in 12 Angry Man
- Bruce parodies Juror #1, both are the Foreman of their fellow jurors and try to keep the peace when they get at each others throats. They also sit in the same spot at the jury table.
- Mort parodies Juror #2, both are the most insecure of the Jurors and like the 1957 version, Mort is bald and wears glasses.
- Carter parodies Juror #3, both are very adamant on delivering a guilty verdict for secret personal reasons and are the last to vote not guilty. Also, they are both businessmen.
- Quagmire parodies Juror #4, both look at the case through the facts and change their vote when an eyewitness to the crime that they've been advocating suddenly has their testimony proven to be dubious. Unlike Juror #4 though, he isn't the second-to-last to change his vote.
- Dr. Hartman parodies Juror #5, both work at a hospital and work to shoot down the most biased of jurors (for Juror #5-Juror #10 and for Dr. Hartman-Tom Tucker).
- Seamus parodies Juror #6, both are The Generic Guy within their groups as they don't have too much of a fleshed-out personality.
- Peter parodies Juror #7, both goof off during the proceedings and are generally indifferent to the case. Though unlike Juror #7, Peter does show a little bit more concern and also, they both sit in the same spot at the jury table.
- Brian parodies Juror #8, both generally try to be the most reasonable of the jurors and are the first to vote 'not guilty', believing that there's reasonable doubt for their respective defendants' guilt. Similar to Bruce and Peter, he sits in the same spot at the jury table as Juror #8 did.
- Herbert parodies Juror #9, both are elderly men who are the second to give a vote of innocence to the accused out of respect for the 8th juror's courage to stand alone.
- Tom parodies Juror #10, both vote 'guilty', not out of the case facts, but out of personal bias against the type of person the accused is (for Juror #10, slum-borns and for Tom, non-mustached people) and are shot down for it. In contrast to Juror #10 though, Tom's bias is more reserved and he at least has a Freudian Excuse for it (his father hated non-mustached people).
- Consuela parodies Juror #11, both are foreign immigrants in the trial. Though the biggest difference between them is that Consuela is a woman and Juror #11 is a man.
- Carl parodies Juror #12, both are involved in some kind of writing seen in both media, Juror #12 doodles and Carl cannot write because he's illiterate.
- Mayor West obviously references the accused.
- The Judge represents, well, the Judge from the film.
- Joe represents the bailiff as both have minor roles in the episode and film respectively.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Tom Tucker doesn't like plain-lippies (people who can't grow a mustache). His father felt the same way.
- Some of the characters believe that every politician is deceptive, but Brian and Bruce shoot them down.
- Lights Off, Somebody Dies: It's mentioned at the end that the killer is still on the loose, cutting off people's electricity, breaking into their houses and killing them. Cue the power going out at the Griffin's house...
- The Load: Downplayed. Whilst Peter doesn't really derail the investigation, he offers nothing but non-sequiturs and time-wasting actions.Quagmire: I'm starting to think all you do is dick around.
- Mailman vs. Dog: Quagmire calls Brian for being a Know-Nothing Know-It-All, despite him not understanding his own feelings for the mailman. The following cutaway has Brian angrily chasing away the mailman, then telling him to come back the next day so Brian doesn't miss him.
- Never Learned to Read: Carl.Bruce: This (Carl's verdict) is just a squiggly line.Carl: Uh, that's Latin for "guilty".
- Only Sane Man: Brian and Bruce are pretty much the only ones who are taking their jury duty seriously while everyone else is desperate to go home.
- Riddle for the Ages: Who did kill the guy West was accused of murdering?
- Rogue Juror: Brian.
- Shout-Out:
- The entire episode basically pays homage to 12 Angry Men.
- The title of the episode is a mix between the aforementioned movie and the sitcom Two and a Half Men.
- Peter mentions an obscure film called Enough starring Jennifer Lopez.
- Carter helped Adam West become mayor so that he could fire a missile into a fault line to sink half of Quahog into the ocean and make his real estate waterfront.
Carl: You got that from Superman. - Shut Up, Hannibal!:
- Brian manages to get the best of nearly everybody who insist on giving Mayor West a guilty vote.
- Dr. Hartman gets a special mention when he shoots down Tom Tucker’s Fantastic Racism against plain-lippy people by pulling off his seemingly fake mustache, but he reveals to Mort that his mustache was indeed real and it hurt like heck when he pulled it off.
- The Smurfette Principle: Counsuela is the only female on the jury for Mayor West’s trial.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Carl tries his darndest to hide the fact that he is incapable of reading.
- Toilet Humour: While on a bathroom break, Peter thinks he dropped his cell phone in the toilet, and dumps his hand through his own excrement to look for it, but is utterly uncomfortable while doing so. Things escalate when a spider crawls on his face and he hits it with the hand he put in the toilet and bemoans about his blunder. The gag ends when Peter locates his phone behind the toilet.
- Too Dumb to Live: Joe becomes a bailiff, not just for the trial, but he’s also undercover to look for a person who sexually assaults bailiffs. When he hears a manly voice calling to him from the broom closet, which is obviously from the rapist, he immediately goes to him without any suspicion.
- The Un-Reveal: It is never shown how Consuela, Mort, Dr. Hartman, Carl, Bruce, and Seamus changed their minds on their guilty votes. It's also not revealed who was it that actually did the crime and why he framed Adam West.
