Top 20 Worst Things Lois Griffin Has Ever Done

“Peter’s Two Dads”

Nowadays, hitting your child to discipline them is largely frowned upon. Yet in the episode “Peter’s Two Dads” in Season 5, Lois lets her temper get the better of her. With Stewie going through a “mine” phase, he wrecks his parents’ bedroom and destroys a pearl necklace in his tiny rampage. In response, his mother spanks him on the derrière, shocking the infant, at least for a time anyway. After having a nightmare about a muscled Lois beating him, Stewie goes through a kind of inappropriate awakening, which is disturbing. The spanking moment does eat away at Lois as she feels tremendous guilt, so that’s good. She isn’t a complete monster… yet.

“Jungle Love”

Hazing freshman students is an outdated and barbaric concept; everyone is one at some point. Beating them for reaching a certain age is silly. But when Chris is becoming one in Season 4’s “Jungle Love,” he begins to panic upon hearing about the ritual. As a mother, Lois steps up to assure her son that there’s nothing to worry about. Feeling calm, he exits the car to start his new year. Then, Lois honks the horn and outs her son as a freshman before driving off, leaving Chris in a mess. Cue the paddling. Even Mayor Adam West gets involved, and then some. With slo-mo, West really goes to town as he paddles Chris. It’s a little unsettling.

“Peter-assment”

No matter the gender of a person, harassment is never okay. If they turn down one’s advances, then that should be it. But Angela can’t drop it against Peter in Season 8’s “Peter-assment.” His boss at Pawtucket Brewery really, really wants to smoosh booties with Peter. After having a vivid daydream about him, Angela grabs Peter’s rump once he bends over. Stressed from the experience, Peter confides in Lois about the situation. Instead of supporting him, she tells him a woman can’t harass a man as it “doesn’t make any sense,” as they apparently like being touched by women under any circumstances. Yikeeeeeees. Then, Meg admits her own harrowing case, only for Lois to disregard that. Double yikeeeeees.

“A Lot Going On Upstairs”

It must be tough being married to Peter. He’s constantly doing all sorts of shenanigans, mostly ones that disrupt his family’s lives for the worse. But perhaps locking him in a room isn’t the best solution. In Season 14’s “A Lot Going On Upstairs,” Peter turns the attic into the “Pete Pad,” causing him to neglect his family and play reckless games with his chums. Eventually, Lois snaps. Using a drill, she seals the four in the attic, leaving them in their unventilated prison for many hours. It isn’t until Peter blackmails her by threatening to defile her wedding dress that Lois finally frees them. At least she admits that she and Peter went too far, so that’s something.

“The Son Also Draws”

Turns out that, just like another animated sitcom mom, Lois has something of a gambling problem. While at a Native American casino, Lois quickly becomes addicted. Although addiction is a serious disorder, and doesn’t make her a bad person, she first manages to lose the family car, then doesn’t really deal with the fallout. Instead of helping to figure something out, she watches her husband lie to the Native elders and then wander off into the woods alone with her teenage son in tow. She might be addicted to poker machines, but when it comes to responsibility, she’s clearly not working with a full deck.

“Lois Comes Out of Her Shell”

At some point, we all go through a quarter-life or mid-life crisis and do things we aren’t proud of. But not many of us have thrown ourselves at a young musician while married with kids. Then again, not everyone is Lois Griffin. In Season 11’s “Lois Comes Out of Her Shell,” the matriarch loses herself during a birthday celebration when Peter describes her as an “old plow horse.” So, she starts acting far younger. This leads her to sneak into the dressing room of Justin Bieber to try and seduce him. If Peter hadn’t burst in before anything happened, who knows how far it would’ve gone with the then-eighteen-year-old.

Various

Several times in Lois’s life, she’s dabbled in using substances, then becoming addicted. For example, in Season 4’s “Model Misbehavior,” after becoming a model, she gets hooked on diet pills. In Season 5’s “Prick Up Your Ears,” Peter questions a tattoo she got, only for Lois to not remember how she got it before adding a troubling explanation. Then, in Season 20, Brian gets injured and is prescribed painkillers for his recovery. Lois then takes them and gets addicted. After dropping one tablet in the toilet, she holds Stewie under the water to grab it, nearly drowning him until Brian saves the day.

“Farmer Guy”

After experiencing a crime wave in Quahog, the Griffins decide that the best choice for their family is to go live on a farm in Season 11’s “Farmer Guy.” And… it doesn’t go well. They immediately begin to lose a lot of money. As Brian heads to university to help the family, the Griffins’ luck is ever terrible as a tornado approaches. Seeking shelter in the storm cellar, they discover a drug lab. After some reservations, Lois goes all in on running it. Even when Brian returns and discovers their illegal activity, she immediately exclaims he can’t have any of the money. Only when Lois sees the destruction their product has done to Quahog does she snap out of it and give it all up.

“Bill & Peter’s Bogus Journey”

Peter and Bill Clinton start to hang out after the former president’s car breaks down in front of their house. They become good friends but also get up to trouble, and Lois does not approve. She goes to confront Clinton, and within minutes she’s slept with him. Unlike some of her other actions, Lois actually feels guilty about this one and is worried that she’s ruined her marriage by cheating. She tells Peter that he can sleep with someone else if he wants to fix things. Although he ultimately decides he doesn’t need to sleep with anyone else, he ends up doing so with Clinton too. Turns out Bill is just that persuasive.

“Go, Stewie, Go!”

Poor Meg has it rough. She’s constantly mocked about her weight, is the butt of many a joke, and serves in general as the family punching bag. So it does her confidence some good to bring home a cute new boyfriend. But when Lois is jealous of the attention her daughter is getting, she sends Meg off on an errand and moves quickly to take what she wants. Meg comes back to see her mother and Anthony making out on the couch. Not only is this incredibly sleazy, but Lois then goes on to blame her underage makeout session on Peter’s inattention. Keep it classy, Mrs. Griffin.

“Perfect Castaway”

With the family crushed after Peter goes missing in Season 4’s “Perfect Castaway,” Brian steps up by getting a job and becomes the patriarch by marrying Lois, even though it’s platonic. But this marital, sort-of bliss collapses when Peter returns months later. Instead of divorcing Brian or refusing to be with Peter, Lois decides to have her cake and eat it. After he comes on to her, she begins having an affair with Peter behind Brian’s back, even scarring Stewie in the process. Continuing the deception, Lois and Peter’s fling is eventually discovered by the dog. After listening to their heartfelt conversation, Brian does what Lois can’t and divorces her, restoring the family dynamic again.

“Breaking Out Is Hard to Do”

Lois is never short on bad behavior, so when she’s a little short on cash at the supermarket, she decides to just steal what she can’t pay for. In no time she’s hooked. Trying to recapture that high, she continues to steal until she’s finally caught. At court, she’s sentenced to three years in prison, but instead of paying the price, she lets her family break her out - although honestly, her escape is so obvious that maybe that one is on the prison guard. This forces them to assume new identities and start new lives. Although she eventually sees the light, the price she makes her family pay for her actions is criminally high.

“It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One”

Like many a politician, Lois sets out to become mayor of Quahog with her heart in the right place. But it doesn’t take long for her selfish impulses to kick in. Once elected, she vows to clean up the local lake and be a better mayor than the unstable Adam West. But before long she’s skimming off the top of the leftover taxpayer money from the lake cleanup project to buy herself expensive gifts. Soon, she’s being bought out by oil companies so that they can return to dumping waste into the lake. When you’re this easily corruptible, maybe public office isn’t for you.

“Brian Griffin’s House of Payne”

Chris and Meg knocking Stewie down the stairs and causing him a massive head wound in Season 8’s “Brian Griffin’s House of Payne” is bad enough. But then, the duo does their best to hide the injury from everyone, which obviously doesn’t work when it progressively gets worse. Once Peter is on board and realizes it’s serious, he tries to frame Lois by throwing Stewie under her car as she reverses. After freaking out, she then states that she and Peter need to cover up the accident, just like Chris and Meg did. For anyone else, this would be pretty concerning, and CPS would be called immediately. But for Peter, it reinforces why he loves her. They really do deserve each other.

“And I’m Joyce Kinney”

As it turns out, Lois’ bad behavior is nothing new. Back in high school, Lois was one of the pretty and popular girls. For no reason other than to torment her, she told a young Joyce Kinney that she’d made the cheer squad, and then humiliated her in front of the entire school. This is no joke, and a prank of this scale would seriously mess someone up. Poor Joyce probably isn’t the only one who might need professional help - Lois also apparently has some issues that could do with some tending to.

“Hot Shots”

If we’ve learned anything these past few years… anti-vaxxers are bad news. In Season 15’s “Hot Shots,” Lois joins their ranks and causes havoc across Quahog when she refuses to vaccinate Stewie against measles. After holding anti-vaccine rallies, many parents follow her lead and don’t protect their children. This leads to the disease spreading through the town as it goes into lockdown, and around 150 people perish in this viral outbreak. Stewie, frightened to be exposed, flees. He’s eventually saved by Sean Penn, whom Lois reacts to coldly because he played the title role in the 2008 film “Milk.” Wow(!) When he shows he has a load of vaccines to help the town, she again reacts poorly.

“Vestigial Peter”

For the most part, Peter is a pretty lousy father and husband. So, when he goes out of his way to run a quick errand for Lois, he thinks he’s doing a good thing. But when he and Chris come home with the groceries, she freaks out and physically attacks first Peter then Chris. This isn’t the first time she’s lost her cool in a big way. It’s clear that she bottles up her frustrations with Peter and then resorts to violence to solve her problems and vent. It’s an unhealthy way to live, and an unforgivable thing to do to your spouse.

Various

This one is an ongoing problem. As mentioned earlier, Meg is the black sheep of the family, always the one to take the brunt of criticism and tormenting. From making out with her boyfriend, to reading her private diary for laughs, to implying that Meg should take herself out of the picture, Lois is the worst mother imaginable. And it seems to have had a lasting effect, as over the years, Meg has gotten harder and more unhinged. Meg stands up for herself once, but Lois is so emotionally fragile that Meg has to take it back to keep the family together. Mother of the Year Lois is not.

“Boy (Dog) Meets Girl (Dog)”

After traumatizing their son by “killing off” the fictional Arthur Valentine - made up to make him feel better on Valentine’s Day - Chris becomes catatonic. While Lois is minding him, she confides a dark secret to him: she once killed a pedestrian. She whispers that at the time, the jaywalker seemed old to her – implying that her death somehow mattered less. Maybe that’s why Lois was the one behind the wheel when she and Peter dispatched “Arthur;” she’d already done something like this before. Lois has done a lot of things, but now we can add killing someone to the list.

“Prick Up Your Ears”

After taking the advice preached by the radical new sex-ed teacher at the high school, Peter swears himself to abstinence. The move is drastic - and extra unnecessary, as he and Lois are already married with three kids - and it frustrates Lois to no end. Fed up with his chastity, Lois takes things way too far and forces herself onto Peter. And it’s not even the first time she’s been possessive of him, or sexually aggressive. It’s a shocking scene even in a show filled with shocking moments.