With a newfound love for rocking out to Van Halen, Peter has a car accident and falls into a coma.
"Coma Guy" contains examples of:
- Accuser of the Brethren: Deconstructed. Peter's refusal to ever forgive the family or let them forgive themselves without completing what is an Impossible Task to them eventually causes them to give up trying to earn his forgiveness and abandon him entirely.
- Bus Crash: Brenda Quagmire returns from "Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q" as one of the spirits on the boat in Peter's coma. This leads to some
disturbing implications, given what happened in that episode. - Call-Back: The Overly Long Gag with the giant frog is the same as "Long John Peter" but with the roles reversed. Peter has no idea what he did to deserve this.
- The Cameo: Many of the characters that died on the show appear on the boat in Peter's coma.
- Conspiracy Theorist: A fly on the wall during a painting scene insists that NASA caused a shuttle explosion.
- Continuity Cavalcade: In Peter's coma dream he sees a cruise ship on the Panama canal that's filled with characters who have died on the show, with some major ones and minor one off ones, (including Mayor West, Angela, Horace, Diane Simmons, Loretta Brown, Jonathan Weed, Francis and Thelma Griffin, Johnny and Vern, Muriel Goldman, Michael Pulaski, Charles Yamamoto, Stephanie, Paddy Tanniger, Big Fat Paulie, Nancy the Postal Lady, Jess Schlotz, Fire Captain Beckman, Franz Gutentag, and Derek Wilcox.
- Ghostly Death Reveal: Brenda (Glenn Quagmire's sister) re-appears as a spirit on the boat in Peter's coma, indicating that she died off-screen.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Parodied. When you wrong someone, take responsibility for what you've done and try to make it right. If that person is increasingly unreasonable, then you have the right to walk away before they use that experience as leverage against you. Fixing a relationship is a two-person job; you can work to atone but it's the other person's responsibility as well to decide if the relationship is worth fixing in the first place. What parodies it is that Peter's offer of granting them forgiveness is to simply compliment actor Timothy Olyphant on his show Santa Clarita Diet, which is something the family really doesn't want to do.
- Honor Before Reason: Peter's offer of a chance of forgiveness is actually something that is plain and simple to do, compliment Timothy Olyphant on his Netflix show Santa Clarita Diet, regardless of whether they saw it or not. The family, however, sees this as torture.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Brian points out there's no way a non-ticketed person could get to the gates in a post-9/11 world. Before he can even finish the sentence, though, Peter crashes through the wall in his car. Chris immediately points out that Brian was wrong.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Lois pulling the plug on Peter was a terrible decision and he has the right to be angry at her for it, but it's not one she made lightly and she can and does justify it; for years, Lois has had to put up with a husband who constantly does whatever stupid thing pops into his head without a second thought or any regard for his safety. It's a miracle Peter hasn't died yet and she's so tired and stressed out over wondering if the next idiotic idea he has will be what kills him that when she thought it finally happened, she couldn't help but feel relief that she didn't have to worry anymore. It was a horrible thing to consider doing, but Peter's constant reckless actions prepared her for losing him a long time ago.
- No Sympathy for Grudgeholders: The family were willing to anything to atone for pulling Peter's life support but Lois eventually wised up to Peter's intentions. Peter was never going to forgive them for this and it wasn't going to be worth it. If someone makes it clear they'll never forgive you, then there's no point in trying to earn it.
- Overly Long Gag: The scene with that involves the frog gag from "Long John Peter", with the roles reversed, where the giant frog is trying to scoop Peter up and throw him out the window in a box.
- Parental Neglect: Played for Laughs. When Lois leaves Peter barely pretends to be upset that she's taking the kids with her.
- Rejected Apology: After seeing that Lois had pulled his life support, he makes them jump through hurdles for his forgiveness, even after Lois apologised. After giving them a task that was too difficult to do (compliment Timothy Olyphant), Lois decides to stop trying since Peter was never going to forgive them for trying to kill him.
- Series Continuity Error: In this episode, Peter says that he's never read a book. Numerous episodes show that he has read books, such as "Three Kings", "Grimm Job", and "High School English". One episode even centered on him writing books.
- Shout-Out: At the hospital, the TV is playing The Simpsons. In his coma, Peter hallucinates joining Homer appearing and disappearing from a hedge. They also reference how the original scene became a well-known meme.
- Skewed Priorities: Peter is about to board the ship to the afterlife, but upon being told there's no wi-fi, he wakes up from his coma.
- Spoof Aesop: This whole experience taught Chris that no one should ever read a book.
- Take That!: As one of the hoops he demands his family jump through to accept their apology and the straw that breaks the camels back for them, Peter brings in Timothy Olyphant and charges them to compliment him solely on Santa Clarita Diet. They treat it like a tall order, and when Peter compliments his hair, Lois gets upset because now she has nothing. The implication being that the show is so bad that saying nice things about it is harder than living with the notion of somebody you love holding a grudge against you for the rest of your life.
