The third season of the animated series Family Guy premiered on 11th July 2001. The season aired a total of twenty two episodes. In the first episode, Brian becomes a police dog who sniffs drugs but ends up getting addicted to cocaine and is sent to a rehab while Peter and the family prepare to go on a cruise. At the rehab, a therapist tells Brian that Peter has a bad effect on him which upsets Brian and he leaves the rehab and the Griffin family who have cancelled their vacation, to do some soul searching. The family after finding that Brian is in Los Angeles directing films pay him a visit to encourage him in his new career unaware that Brian is actually directing pornography while Stewie is offered an appearance on Kids Say the Darndest Things.
Peter’s toy company is taken over by the El Dorado Cigarette company that uses the toys to sell out the cigarettes to the children and when Peter protests, he is made the President which pleases Lois as well. But soon Lois finds Stewie smoking and she goes Washington to stop Peter from lobbying against a bill that would put the cigarette company out of business. Quahog is hit by a hurricane that destroys everything except The Drunken Clam which is turned into an English pub by owner Nigel Pinchley who moves in as the Griffins neighbors and Stewie tries to teach their 3-year-old daughter to speak proper English without the ascent. Peter becomes jealous of Chris as he has a longer penis and to feel more masculine Peter joins a gun club while Meg is abused by the cool kids at school after she becomes the flag girl and Lois plans to take revenge for her daughter.
Encouraged by Bonnie, Lois takes lessons of tae-jitsu to fight back against the New York tourists overtaking the town but soon her violent side makes its way into the Griffin family and she has to take the advice of a therapist. Meg applies to the local news station as an intern due to her crush on news anchor Tom Tucker and finds her news partner to be the school nerd Neil who stages various plans to grab Meg’s attention while a bully in the neighborhood learns in bad way that nobody messes with Stewie after he commits the mistake of stealing Stewie’s tricycle. Peter becomes unemployed when the owner of his toy factory dies at his house after having dinner and the factory is demolished. In search of a job he ends up fulfilling his lifelong dream of being a knight at a traveling Renaissance Fair but soon has fight a duel with the Black Knight after he is caught in a compromising position with his mistress. Still out of job, Peter decides to start a career as a fisherman and buys a boat which lands him in the debt of a loan shark and so he tries to catch a legendary fish and collect the bounty.
Meanwhile Lois plans a spring break to the beach to cheer up Meg but ends up gaining all the attention. After helping Lois’ sister with delivering her baby, Lois and Peter plan to have another child which upsets Stewie and to stop Peter and Lois he shrinks himself to microscopic size and seeks out his sperm-brother inside Peter's body but changes his plans when he meets a sperm just like himself. The family is forced to shift residence after Chris identifies a criminal who threatens him. There Chris befriends a boy named Sam who later turns out to be a girl. During the family’s visit to Lois’ parents, the Pewterschmidts, Brian releases all his sexual energy on their greyhound, Sea Breeze who becomes pregnant giving rise to custody issues. Peter comes to know about his having a black ancestor who was the Lois’ slave while teaching Chris about his heritage. To lessen their guilt, Lois’ parents give money to Peter who ultimately fights back while Stewie tries to learn to control his mind from the cheerleaders at school. Joe is disappointed after he loses not only a thief but also his self-confidence in a chase and Peter tries to cheer him up by training him for the decathlon at the Olympics for handicapped athletes while Stewie,
Meg, and Chris engage in a fight over $26. Lois goes through a lot on Christmas including finding Brian, the house and the Christmas turkey burned to a crisp which causes her to break down and go berserk but is saved by Stewie's motivational speech as the baby Jesus and a tranquilizer shot. When Brian is forced to do some community service for single, bitter old lady, he finds himself in love with her while Brian grows a beard in which a family of rare swallows nest themselves. Stewie joins acting classes where he finds himself paired with the school’s most promising but overly haughty student Olivia and to prevent themselves from being kicked out of the school, the two kids give a hit performance but soon find themselves at opposite ends as competition, pressure and fast-fame set in while Meg finds a boyfriend with the only hitch being that he belongs to a nudist family.
Heeding the advice from a marriage therapist who suggests a trial separation, Peter goes on a date with actress Jennifer Love Hewitt and Quagmire makes his move on Lois while Stewie and Brian warm up to each other while they are stuck together by a industrial-strength glue. Stewie, impressed by a British kids show runs off to be apart of the cast and Brian follows him to try and get him back while Peter feels humiliated when he takes Lois to a Kiss concert and she tells him that she is unaware of the band. A genie grants Peter three wishes which results in Peter ending as a lump of lard as he wishes to have no bones as his last wish. The Griffins end up terrorizing the town after they discover some nuclear waste that turns them into superpowers.
Little versions of Peter and Brian try to outmaneuver each other in a haunted house to impress Lois. In the final episode of the season which was aired on 9th November 2003, Peter enlists the help of his Jewish friend Max Weinstein to get over his money problems and is so impressed by his religion that he decides to convert Chris to Judaism while Lois tries to stop him.
Season’s Top Ranked Episode – To Love and Die in Dixie
This was the twelfth episode of the season and was aired on 15th November 2001. In this episode, Chris identifies a criminal and to protect the family the authorities send them down south under the witness protection program. Once there Chris befriends Sam whose father objects to their friendship when Peter questions the truth of a Civil War reenactment where the south is shown as winner of the war. However, Chris runs away with Sam. Sam kisses him to which Chris objects but then Sam reveals himself to be girl while back home the robbers come to know of the Griffins location and when they come to kill Chris he is saved by the local people.
