Brian protests against Quagmire's cat café, while Lois sends Chris and Meg to a Christian camp.
Tropes in this episode:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Brian successfully lobbies Quagmire's cat café to be shut down due to supposed health hazards, but is horrified to find out that as a result, no animals of any kind (including cats and dogs) are allowed into any public establishment whatsoever. As such, Brian is not allowed to enter his favorite bar anymore, much to his anger.
- Bittersweet Ending: Brian and Quagmire reconcile with each other and Brian is able to go back to public spaces. However, Quagmire's cat café is gone forever and all of his cats have died. It's also left ambiguous whether or not Brian and Quagmire's rivalry has truly come to an end, or whether Status Quo Is God. A subtle reference in "Christmas is Coming" has Brian and Quagmire sitting next to each other during the Christmas performance, implying strongly that Status Quo Is God was averted and the rivalry is at an end, or that at least things have warmed up between them quite a lot.
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: This episode has a lot of cats dying thanks to Quagmire's ineptitude.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Both Brian and Quagmire’s conflict end up giving good points on both sides.
- For Quagmire, he’s right to point out that Brian can't tell him to shut down his cafe just because the latter hates cats and it's near a bar he likes, since Quagmire bought the place legally and Brian doesn't own the block.
- For Brian, while he was being a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk as he just wants to close the place down out of spite, he does make a valid point of how many cats being in Quagmire’s cafe is a health hazard.
- Christianity is Catholic: Inverted; despite the Griffins normally being Catholic, the Christian camp is clearly Protestant, with adult baptisms and alcohol bans. Could be a mistake on the part of both the writers and Lois. Then again, Lois is from a Protestant family.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Brain states that the reason he wants to shut down Glen's Cat Café is because it's right next to his favorite bar...that and he just hates cats and Quagmire.
- The Dog Bites Back:
- It's all but said that the only reason why Brian shut down the cat cafe was out of spite to Quagmire.
- During their fight, Brian literally bites Quagmire's arm similarly to how he did it to Peter in "Once Bitten".
- Double-Meaning Title: "Cat Fight" either refers to Quagmire's cat café, his tons of cats, or the eventual fight between him and Brian.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Brian gets the cat café shut down by raising sanitary concerns about letting cats around food... which then expands to all animals and gets him banned from the bar.
- It's All About Me: Brian. He tries to get Quagmire's cat café shut down out of spite, due to disliking cats (being a dog) and Quagmire (due to their ongoing rivalry). It's also revealed that listening to other people's nightmares is his worst nightmare.
- Just Following Orders: After Quagmire's cat cafe is shut down, a security guard forbids to let Brian inside his favorite bar. Even when Brian points that he comes to the bar all the time to do his writing, the security guard politely assures that he's aware of it, but reveals that the city will not allow any animal of any kind (especially cats and dogs) to enter any public establishment thanks to Brian's actions against the cat cafe.
- Pet the Dog: Quagmire realizes that he and Brian have gone too far with their rivalry and decides to help heal Brian when he's run over by trucks. Brian returns the favor by being his emotional support animal for the night.
- Shout-Out: Quagmire tells Brian that one of his worst nightmares involved being the host and musical guest for an episode of Saturday Night Live.
- Status Quo Is God: According to this episode, Lois is so petty that just one bad experience in an overbearing Christian camp causes her to convert to atheism like Brian. Of course, this doesn’t stick, as future episodes still depict her as devoutly religious.
- Wham Episode: After the events of this episode, Quagmire starts to treat Brian better and doesn't give him as many verbal or physical beatdowns as he used to.
