Meg persuades Brian to take her SATs for her, and he manages to score a 1000...out of the new base score of 2400, which isn't good. Crushed after realizing that he's not even close to being as intelligent as he always assumed he was, Peter teaches Brian how to be dumb.
Tropes seen in this episode include the following:
- Ambiguously Gay: Ruth."Your mom's so fucking hot."
- Bad Review Threat: Stewie takes Brian to a fancy restaurant in hopes of restoring his intelligent, sophisticated side. Instead, Brian immediately demands to be given free food, or else he'll give the restaurant a bad review on Yelp.Stewie: Oh, I forgot. Yelp is a weapon for dumb people.
- Bowdlerization: The following scenes were cut/altered between the TV and DVD versions:
- When Patty (one of Meg's nerdy friends) suggests that Meg recruit someone to pose as her to take the SATs for her, the DVD version has Patty add, "That's what the star athletes do," followed by Meg complaining that star athletes always get the best of everything in high school, followed by a cutaway showing students hiding in a library during a school shooting and Principal Shepherd giving Kevlar vests to a star athlete, and refusing one to a junior athlete who's going to make starter next year.
- Ruth's line to Meg "Your mom's so fucking hot!" has "fucking" bleeped out on TV.
- The end where Peter shows Lois that he got surgery to get two penises, only to have one fall off: On the TV version, the scene is cropped so the viewer doesn't see what's going on below the waist. On DVD, there is no cropping (though Peter's penises are blurred out with pixelation) and there's an additional scene of Peter trying to pick up his fallen penis.
- Brainless Beauty: As opposed to "Death Has A Shadow", where Lois tells Meg that she doesn't need to be pretty to be successful, Lois tells Meg here that being pretty is more important than being smart.
- Brick Joke: Stewie tricking Brian into going to the hospital with the promise of getting a "two-wiener operation". After Brian's surgery, Peter shows up announcing that he's had a "two-wiener operation" done on him which fails horribly.
- Call-Back:
- The opera that Stewie takes Brian to is Carmen by Georges Bizet. It was used previously in "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows" when sung by Pearl Burton.
- The newly-idiotic Brian comes with Peter to Orlando, Florida and does a guitar gesture with him when they see the "Welcome to Orlando" billboard. It brings to mind Peter and Quagmire's song that has the lyrics "Everyone from Florida is stupid. Everyone from Florida is dumb."
- Even the Girls Want Her: Ruth considers Lois as a "Hot mom".
- "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Inverted. Brain loses his intelligence, prefers to keep it that way, and is tricked into getting it restored.
- Foreshadowing: Brian allowing himself to be manipulated by Meg into taking her SAT test is somewhat of a clue that leads to Brian's "idiocy".
- Groin Attack: After getting the "two-wiener operation", one of Peter's two genitals fell off.Peter: Uh oh. That one was the original.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The episode goes from being about Meg's SAT scores to being about Brian's brain tumor. Lampshaded by the "townspeople.""Oh, thank God. I thought it was gonna be a Meg episode all throughout."
- It's All About Me: As Brian calls him out on after, Stewie seemed more driven to revert Brian back to normal so he could have his soulmate back rather than according to what would make Brian happiest:Brian: I mean, I was having fun, making friends, getting laid all the time, sleeping like a rock, but you made the call. You unilaterally decided I was better off a bitter, alcoholic failure who can only hang out with a baby.Stewie: *defiant* Hey! We have fun!
- Kick Chick: In a Cutaway Gag, Black Widow says this is what makes her special, because none of the other Avengers can kick.
- Manipulative Bitch: Meg gets Brian to take the SATs for her by stroking his ego and lying about how much she enjoyed his novel.
- Overly Long Gag: One cutaway involves a centipede being an impostor millipede and one of the actual millipedes counts EVERY SINGLE LEG quietly to himself.
- Planet of Hats: In a Cutaway Gag, Laika, the Russian dog that was shot into Space as test subjects found a planet of other dogs, where they dance all day.
- Reset Button: Brian is reset to his Liberal Douche Persona.
- Running Gag:
- Once again, Brian almost dies.
- "Hey this isn't the Kenny Chesney concert."
- Shout-Out: The title of the episode is a reference to Our Idiot Brother.
- The Adam Sandler DVD menu title that Brian and Peter watch is from That's My Boy.
- The episode makes a meta-joke about star Mila Kunis' involvement in Black Swan.
- Brian says Sheldon Cooper's catchphrase "Bazinga" from The Big Bang Theory. Peter calls Sheldon "the gay scientist". Sheldon's actor, Jim Parsons, is gay.
- The former Soviet Union used many dogs in its space program. The one closest to the 1958 date given in the cutaway is Laika, who became the first living Earth-born creature in orbit, aboard Sputnik 2 on 3 November 1957.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: "Cotton-Eye Joe" by Rednex plays during the dumb stunts montage.
- Take That!:
- "Cotton Eyed Joe" plays over the Montage of Idiot Brian. Said montage also includes a trip to Orlando.
- In an effort to make Brian smart again, Stewie takes him to cultured activities, luring him to each one with the promise of a Kenny Chesney concert.
- At the restaurant, Stewie refers to Yelp as a weapon for dumb people.
- As Brian voices his excitement for the "two-wiener operation", he boasts that when he's watching Black Swan, he can masturbate with one aimed at Natalie Portman and the other aimed at...Stewie interrupts him knowing who he's talking about.note
- People who bought Brian's book Faster Than the Speed of Love on Amazon also bought car batteries, a potato and a toilet.
- On the Amazon.com page for Faster Than the Speed of Love, the description reads:"This book is priced to sell at a very low price. There is no other book like it in the world. Please buy it. We don't know what else we are going to do with so many copies of this book that absolutely no one wants to buy or read. In fact, we can't even give it away. It's so bad. you will want to gouge your eyes out after having only read the first sentence. No really, it's just that bad. In fact, if you've taken the time to read this paragraph, we should pay you".
- Stacy's Mom: Ruth refers to Lois as Meg's "hot mom."
- Took a Level in Dumbass: Brian, who is later revealed to be suffering from a brain tumor. Also Peter, who had invited Brian to play in the garage filled with fumes from the car’s engine, despite recognizing this as suicidal when Angela did it in "Peter-Assment".
- Toxic Friend Influence: Hanging out with Peter leads to Brian embracing his newfound idiocy and getting dumber with time. Though once he has the operation Brian did state he was much happier when he wasn't an intellectual and stated his life before becoming an idiot was worse.
