Family Guy season 19 episode 1 spoilers follow.
Family Guy returned for its season 19 (!) premiere last night (September 27), with an episode that dealt with something we've been wondering for ages – how many people can understand Stewie Griffin, and how?
Titled 'Stewie's First Word', the episode sees Lois react to something Stewie says for the first time. Specifically, he drops an F-bomb. In church.
Lois becomes obsessed with where he learned the word, unaware that Stewie has said a lot worse in his time. Brian is perplexed, because he's been able to understand the evil child the entire time, confusing us further.
Related: Family Guy recasts major character in response to whitewashing accusations
The long-running animated comedy's executive producers Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin addressed this query, specifically why Lois only understood him now.
"This episode showcases Stewie's first word in the traditional sense that parents always document: the first word they understand," the pair told TVLine. "Otherwise, yes, it's Stewie's 1,345,693th word.
"Like most of the big babies who write for Family Guy, Stewie is in denial about how much his mommy means to him. Please don't tell our mommies."
Related: Family Guy boss working on new show which is mix of Marriage Story with Rick and Morty
That doesn't hugely clear it up for us, so we're going to go with the adults being too wrapped up in their own lives to notice their kids talking, or Stewie just knows how to speak dog.
Family Guy fans don't have to worry about season 19 being the last one, as Fox has announced that the show has been renewed for a 20th run, as well as a renewal for Bob's Burgers.
Family Guy airs on Fox in the US, and ITV2 in the UK.
Digital Spy has launched its first-ever digital magazine with exclusive features, interviews, and videos. Access this edition with a 1-month free trial, only on Apple News+.
Interested in Digital Spy's weekly newsletter? Sign up to get it sent straight to your inbox.
Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer and resident Welsh person at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016.
In his time he's covered a host of live events, interviewed celebrities big and small and crowbarred a countless amount of great/awful (delete as appropriate) puns into articles.
A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe's main interest is in video gaming. Although particularly a PlayStation gamer, he plays across Xbox, Nintendo and PC/Steam Deck, and likes to keep tabs on many games he's not got the time to play.
Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish (which you really should do).
