Family Guy reached a major milestone on February 15, 2026, with the airing of its 450th episode on Fox. The episode, titled “The Edible Arrangement,” served as the Season 24 premiere and delivered something fans had waited 27 years to see: Lois Griffin finally understanding her baby son Stewie. For Alex Borstein, the voice of Lois, this wasn’t just another recording session. It was a deeply personal experience that she describes as “therapeutic” and now holds as her favorite episode in the series’ long history.
The landmark episode aired at 9:30 PM ET on Fox as part of the network’s Animation Domination block. For viewers outside the United States, the episode became available for streaming the next day on Hulu, with global audiences in the UK, India, Australia, Canada, and other regions accessing it through various platforms .
How Lois and Stewie Finally Connected
The premise of the 450th episode is classic Family Guy chaos with a surprisingly emotional core. The trouble starts when Brian Griffin visits a newly legal cannabis dispensary in Quahog and brings home marijuana gummies. Stewie, thinking they are regular candy, eats several of them. He then slips some into Lois’s wine glass, and soon both mother and son are thoroughly intoxicated .
For the first time in the series, the intoxicants allow Lois to understand Stewie’s sophisticated British accent and vocabulary clearly. What follows is a heart-to-heart conversation that covers decades of complicated family history. They discuss Stewie’s long-standing desire to kill his mother from the early seasons, his real opinions about her, her views on him, and even their surprising similarities .
Executive producer Richard Appel explained that the third act of the episode functions essentially as a two-character play. “They talk about the stuff that fans would want them to talk about — the history of their relationship, Stewie’s desire to kill her, his opinion of her, hers of him, their approach to life, and similarities they might have that we couldn’t touch on between two characters who don’t speak to each other,” Appel told TVLine .
Alex Borstein Opens Up About the Episode’s Personal Meaning
For Alex Borstein, voicing Lois in this particular episode went beyond her usual voice work. In interviews following the premiere, she shared how the experience resonated with her on a personal level, particularly as a mother.
Borstein called making the episode “extremely therapeutic” and admitted it is now her favorite out of 450 installments . She pointed to a specific moment in the conversation between Lois and Stewie where the baby explains his early desire to kill her. Stewie tells Lois it was because she was a part of him, and he was upset by how weak he perceived her to be.
“I have a 17-year-old son, and this gets to the core of some of that: what is going on in that relationship, and where the tension comes from,” Borstein revealed to TV Insider. “I love that we could do that after 27 years since we premiered; that we can explore these kinds of things. There’s always something new that we’re learning about these characters, which is, I think, amazing” .
The actress also noted how the experience of performing the scene felt different from regular episodes. The cast had done a live table read of the script at the PaleyFest celebration in Los Angeles during the summer of 2025, and the audience reaction was overwhelmingly positive .
“As soon as we started recording this one, it was like, ‘Oh, this would be really cool. Well, what if we take this and do this in the future?’” Borstein recalled, describing how the episode sparked new ideas among the writers .
Why This Storyline Almost Didn’t Happen
Interestingly, the emotional Lois and Stewie episode was not the original plan for the 450th milestone. Showrunners Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin revealed that the initial concept involved Peter Griffin getting high with Stewie instead.
“When this idea was first kicked around, for obvious comic reasons, it was, ‘Peter gets high with Stewie, and they go on kind of a buddy adventure,’ which has its fun,” Appel explained. “Then we realized, ‘Well, hold on, who’s got the interesting psycho-drama and emotional history with Stewie? It would be, obviously, the mother he’s wanted ‘to kill’ since the show premiered’” .
The producers recognized that a conversation between Lois and Stewie would carry more weight and meaning. Appel noted that shifting gears toward Lois made him realize, “This is going to be one that will stand out” . The decision proved correct when the live PaleyFest reading drew a roar of approval from the audience at the moment Lois first understood Stewie.
Despite the success of the episode, Sulkin joked about still being interested in that original Peter-Stewie concept, saying, “Now I’m kind of upset we didn’t! Stewie and Peter get high. I think we broke the story” for a possible future episode .
A New Side of Lois Griffin
The 450th episode allowed Borstein to explore a version of Lois that audiences rarely see. Freed from her usual stressed-out, responsible demeanor by the marijuana gummies, Lois became relaxed, introspective, and genuinely communicative with her youngest child.
“She’s not shrill, right? She’s chill. She’s kicked back. Her tone is different. Her speech pattern is different. So, yeah, it was really fun. It was getting to explore this different side of this character,” Borstein said .
The episode also addressed misconceptions about Lois that have persisted over the show’s long run. When asked if she wanted to clear up any misunderstandings about the character, Borstein offered a thoughtful defense of the Griffin family matriarch.
“So many of our fans have grown up with us that I think the perception of her has changed, just in people getting older and realizing, ‘Oh, when I was a teenager, and I started watching this, I thought she was just a wet blanket,’” she explained. “And as the viewers get older, they realize, ‘Oh, this b*tch has to hold everything together. She is the backbone. This is the one who has to remember everything. This is the one who carries the mental load and the physical load of the entire goddamn family, and it’s a miracle she’s even functioning’” .
Will Lois and Stewie Remember Their Conversation?
For fans wondering if this breakthrough moment will permanently change the dynamic between Lois and Stewie, the showrunners have a clear answer. At the end of “The Edible Arrangement,” both characters forget their bonding experience due to their intoxicated state. This allows the show to reset to its traditional format while leaving the door open for future explorations.
Borstein addressed this directly, acknowledging that the beauty of animation is the ability to reset while also revisiting meaningful moments. “I think that’s the beauty of animation, being able to reset. But that’s not to say we can’t revisit it. That’s what’s great. We could have the two of them drop some acid next time. It can become an annual thing for them” .
Executive producer Alec Sulkin explained that maintaining the status quo makes practical sense for a show with 450 episodes available for streaming. If Lois and Stewie suddenly understood each other permanently, it would confuse viewers watching older episodes out of order. “I think it would be odd for the fans if there were 42 episodes where Stewie and Lois could communicate and 400-and-whatever because it’s like, ‘Wait, why isn’t she just asking him this question?’” Sulkin noted .
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What’s Next in Family Guy Season 24
Following the 450th episode premiere, Family Guy settled into its regular Sunday time slot at 8:00 PM ET on Fox. Episodes become available for streaming the next day on Hulu .
The second episode of the season, which aired immediately after the premiere, features Lois and Meg in a mother-daughter adventure involving pumpkin spice lattes. According to Sulkin, when the seasonal drink disappears from Starbucks, Meg and Lois break in, steal supplies, and start an underground operation that goes haywire .
The third episode, titled “Man-Fest Destony,” brings in Broadway star Cole Escola as a guest voice. In that installment, Peter and his friends shipwreck on what they believe is a magical island without women, only to discover they have landed on Fire Island .
Family Guy has already been renewed through Season 27, guaranteeing that the Griffin family will remain on air into the 2028-2029 television season. This means fans have years of new episodes ahead, with the possibility of more character-focused stories like the 450th episode .
For Alex Borstein, the milestone episode represents everything she loves about voicing Lois after more than two decades. “This really is a favorite. Not just because I have a lot of lines, but it’s different. It’s such a unique departure to have her and Stewie have an adventure as a two-hander, and how real it gets,” she said. “I hope everyone else likes it as much as I do. And it’s premiering on my birthday, which just seems so perfect” .
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