The core of what made this episode work is that they picked a very simple premise (Eli lends the services of his maid Edna to Warner for this weekend), found a humorous parallel that had multiple verbal and physical humor applications (Edna's position as Eli's maid quickly becomes an extended analogy for a promiscuous lover), and threw in top-notch punnage (sweeping around) for good measure.
That was the episode. Nobody solved world hunger, nobody tried to realign their life priorities, there was no baby drama. It was an episode about a maid. And I laughed my ass off the whole time.
This is kind of writing that is Seth Macfarlane's sweet spot. As a self-admitted mediocre fan of his body of work, I will never deny that the man can turn a phrase and spin it until it has a life and inner humor of it's own. Allow me to demonstrate:
Eli: You made her leave, you and your youishness!
David: I'm not youish!
Eli: Yes you are! You are the reason why people hate the yous!
David: That's anti-semantic!
Too. Too. Funny. If the show revolved around episode like this, I wouldn't grieve a lack of overall narrative, I would just be delighted that I have half an hour a week of pure glee waiting for me, packaged into the shape of the dreamiest ginger around.
The one swing-and-a-miss reference was when Edna and Warner had an odd E.T. sendoff--maybe a joke got cut that would have given that some context, but on it's own it was jut bizarre, in a non-funny way.
But they made up for it with the final shirt-smelling season, which Seth Green and Gio Ribisi delivered to perfection.
Random observance: when Warner and his wife lift their legs to let Edna vacuum under them, Warner's legs go up significantly higher than his wife's, and with much better form--pointed toes and all. It made me giggle.
So, until next time, Macfarlane. Let's see if you can please the Mary gods two weeks in a row.