'''Airdate:''' March 6, 2011

[[quoteright:273:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_hand_that_rocks_the_wheelchair_4946.jpg]]

When Bonnie asks Lois to check on Joe and Susie while she visits her father in the hospital, Lois passes the job off to Meg. This go well, but when Joe isn't ashamed to drop her off in front of her school, Meg starts becoming attracted to him. She pushes the boundaries by calling him by his first name and when he doesn't correct her takes it as a sign of being accepted and starts wearing Bonnie's dresses.

When Meg discovers Bonnie will be returning she steals Joe's gun and runs to Maine to plant it into Bonnie's luggage, causing her to be arrested at the airport. During an evening out for dinner, Meg starts talking about having children with Joe and becomes emotional, ending with breastfeeding Susie. Joe takes his concerns to Lois and Peter that Meg is becoming too attracted to him but is dismissed until Lois sees Meg's attraction for herself. When Lois points out that Meg and Joe have nothing in common, Meg agrees and throws herself in front of Joe's squad car in an attempt to become handicapped like Joe. At the hospital, Joe sets Meg straight and Meg apologizes to Bonnie who had been freed to keep getting her token voice work checks.

In the meantime, while at the park, Stewie fails to take revenge on an older boy who insults him when his gun misfires and believes he is losing his edge. He tries to boost his evil side by building an neural-enhancement device but the machine takes Stewie's evilness and concentrates it into a clone. The clone attacks Brian, attempting to choke him and cuts off his tail. When Stewie discovers the clone, he is also attacked and the clone escapes, killing a woman in the process. The clone goes on a rampage, luring the Kool-Aid Man to his death while gleefully drinking his contents. Stewie and Brian lure evil Stewie by tying up Brian. When evil Stewie arrives to shoot Brian with a ray gun, Stewie leaps onto evil Stewie and they fight, tearing off their clothes in the process. When Brian manages to get control of the gun, he is unsure of which Stewie to shoot until he instructs them to look at their feet. When one Stewie looks at his feet and starts giggling, he shoots the other one. As they walk off, the remaining Stewie looks back with yellow, monster eyes as maniacal laughter is heard.

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!!"The Hand That Rocks the Wheelchair" contains examples of ([[YMMV/FamilyGuyS9E12TheHandThatRocksTheWheelchair YMMV goes here]]):
* AmbiguousCloneEnding: At the end, it seems that Brian shot Evil Stewie, and Stewie thanks him for shooting the correct one. Then, as they walk home, Stewie turns around with yellow and black eyes as an EvilLaugh plays in the background.
* AppealToFlattery: Lois gets Meg to babysit for Bonnie by claiming that Bonnie had compared Meg's looks to Rachel Maddow. Meg asks who Rachel Maddow is and Lois tells her [[BlatantLies she's a model]].
* AxCrazy: Evil Stewie, the embodiment of Stewie's past cruelty.
* BaitAndSwitchComment: Meg plants a gun on Bonnie before she goes through airport security. However, when asked about the thing in her bag, Bonnie says she has no idea how the cocaine got in there.
* BatmanGambit: Holding a bat, Evil Stewie shouts "Oh, no!" a few times while standing next to a wall. The Kool-Aid Man bursts through and is immediately attacked.
* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: The reason Meg falls for Joe is because he's consistently polite to her. Also, when driving her to school, he drops her off right out front instead of a block away and says he doesn't mind being seen with her.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Susie looks at the audience, and we hear, "This is Creator/PatrickStewart. How are you liking the program so far?"
* CallBack:
** This is the second episode in which Stewie clones himself. The first time was in "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS8E6QuagmiresBaby Quagmire's Baby]]".
** Peter and Joe remember Meg's previous obsession with Brian in "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS5E8BarelyLegal Barely Legal]]". This is the only mentioned example of Meg's previous curious cases of love, however Joe does acknowledge this as a behavior that has been apparent more than once prior to this episode.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Stewie[[note]]who, despite seemingly entirely dropping his early personality, still maintains his goals of world domination and killing Lois[[/note]] was alarmed about the actions of his clone, including killing people and attacking Brian by cutting off his tail.
* EvilDoppelganger: Exaggerated with Evil Stewie. He lacks all of Stewie's standards and quirks, so he is an unstoppable and vicious killing machine. As a bonus, the coloring on his clothes is the reverse of Stewie's.
* TheFarmerAndTheViper: A woman nearly runs into Evil Stewie with her car, and she checks on him to see if he's alright. He then [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe cuts her in half]].
* FauxAffablyEvil: [[EvilDoppelganger Evil Stewie]], as a contrast to the [[TookALevelInKindness now]]-AffablyEvil Stewie. When he finally speaks with Brian ([[DefensiveFeintTrap who has his hands tied to a pole to lure the former into a trap]]) Evil Stewie thanks him for "making it so easy", obviously relishing his chance to kill Brian.
* FirstNameBasis: Serving breakfast, Meg refers to Joe by his first name as a test to see how he feels about her. He doesn't think it's a big deal, so he doesn't correct her, and she misinterprets that as proof.
* FlorenceNightingaleEffect: Lois explains to Meg that her crush on Joe only stems from the fact she was taking care of him all week, even referring to this trope by name.
* ForWantOfANail: If Lois hadn't passed on babysitting for Joe and Bonnie and giving it to Meg instead, Meg wouldn't have gotten infatuated with Joe.
* ForTheEvulz: Evil Stewie goes on a vicious rampage simply because he can, and he clearly enjoys himself.
* GoryDiscretionShot: After Evil Stewie kills the bully from the playground and his parents, their violent deaths aren't seen, only heard and we don't get to see what's happening to them until a human ear hits the window and Stewie and Brian are clearly horrified from looking.
* IdiotBall: ''[[ChildProdigy Stewie]]'' of all people somehow thought that approaching [[TheSociopath Evil Stewie]] to bring him for testing ''unarmed'' wouldn't get him hurt. This leads to Evil Stewie [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown viciously beating up Stewie]] and [[AttackTheTail cutting off Brian's tail]] before escaping the house to continue his rampage.
* {{Jerkass}}: Peter, who [[PrankCall prank-calls]] Joe and [[BullyingTheDisabled makes wheelchair-related insults at him]].
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Lois, for showing genuine concern for Meg's crush with Joe. Also Bonnie for [[EasilyForgiven forgiving Meg for causing her arrest at the airport]].
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: Bonnie's comment to Meg that she'll be around because "I need these voice-over checks for my gambling addiction".
* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Every murder committed by Evil Stewie.
* OhCrap: Joe upon seeing Meg's reaction to him not correcting her on using his first name.
* PetTheDog: Lois, an AbusiveParent who often treats [[ButtMonkey Meg]] like dirt, surprisingly shows great concern for Meg's infatuation with Joe.
* PsychoticSmirk: Near permanently plastered on Evil Stewie's face.
* TheSociopath: [[EvilDoppelganger Evil Stewie]], with all the worst aspects of Stewie from the first few seasons ramped up to eleven, and none of the [[TookALevelInKindness redeeming qualities he gained in the later seasons]].
* ShoutOut:
** Evil Stewie's initial appearance coming after a delay is a reference to the creation of [[Recap/StarTrekS1E5TheEnemyWithin evil Kirk]]. [[https://youtu.be/KnUqGTNezME See here]].
** When Brian leaves the park with the seemingly real Stewie, Stewie then turns to face the audience in freeze-frame with [[GlowingEyesOfDoom yellow eyes]] and an ominous evil laugh heard playing in the background; all of which pays homage to Music/MichaelJackson's "Thriller".
** Stewie's clone's reversal of colors is similar to [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Clark Kent and Bizarro]] in ''Series/{{Smallville}}''.
** The title references the film ''Film/TheHandThatRocksTheCradle''.
** When dropping Meg off at the school, Joe asks about Music/LadyGaga. Later, when still in the car he makes a reference to her song "Born This Way".
** Stewie mentions Brian "going all Michael Hutchence" when he finds him being strangled with his collar. This is a reference to Hutchence's death, in which he hung himself with his belt.
* SpotTheImposter: Brian has to choose which identical Stewie is the real one. He susses out the real one by getting them to look at their feet (earlier, Stewie mentioned that he laughs when he looks at his feet).
-->[[LampshadeHanging "Not this thing, really!?"]]
* StalkerWithACrush and {{Yandere}}: Meg, once again with Joe.
* VillainDecay: Brian lampshading Stewie's sets off the subplot.