After Peter becomes obsessed with an old tune titled "Surfin' Bird," he sings and dances to it at every opportunity, much to the annoyance of the entire household. Brian and Stewie decide that they've had enough and proceed to not only get rid of Peter's record, but hunt it down in every used record store and buy out every copy. It's during his search to find another copy of his favorite song that Peter runs into Jesus, who's working as a clerk. It's not the first time that Jesus Christ has appeared on Family Guy, but it is the first time that the messiah has appeared in the present and not as part of a flashback sequence.
While there are a few good laughs, Jesus' appearance is a bit of a missed opportunity. There's so much that could have been done with Jesus Christ interacting with the Griffins. Any fan could easily come up with a dozen funnier scenarios involving Jesus Christ than what was presented here. There was no interaction with the Spooner street residents. Watching Jesus converse with Quagmire alone would have made this episode watching. Heck, even a couple of more scenes with Chris and Meg would have been welcome, but instead it's filtered down to a brief moment at the dinner table and the only laugh was when Jesus thought that Meg was a boy, which is hardly a joke worthy of the messiah's appearance.
The story quickly moves to Jesus becoming a Hollywood celebrity and features a completely unfunny appearance on the Tonight Show, along with a terrible Jay Leno impression. His appearance at the MTV awards featuring the Pussycat Dolls and a flashback sequence of him appearing at a Presidential press conference were amongst the better moments of the episode, however. Also amusing was when Peter was trying to convince the world that Jesus has returned and decides to try and get the messiah to perform miracles - but chooses the non-obvious converting water into wine miracle instead of simply asking him to do something more dramatic.
Ultimately, Jesus' newfound fame gets to his head and he starts neglecting Peter in favor of bovine creatures. Predictably, Jesus gets drunk and arrested, and Peter has to bail him out, but not before an uninspired conversation about the world not being ready for him to return, and that Jesus himself needs to mature a little.
The episode's best moment was prior to Jesus' appearance and featured a heavily lyrically censored interpretation of the infamous "printer scene" from Office Space. More could have been done with the music, and it's a scene that's been parodied so many times, and this incarnation doesn't add anything new. Nevertheless, it was fun to watch Stewie angrily jump and destroy the "Surfin' Bird" record.
While there were a few entertaining moments, this episode doesn't reach as high as it could have. A bit like the straightforward and uninspired re-enactment of Star Wars in last season's Blue Harvest, this episode doesn't quite live up to the grandeur of the theme. Jesus on Family Guy should have been a big deal and featured far more laughs than it did. It's not bad by any means, but certainly not the greatest effort by the writing team.
