"Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q" is the third episode of the tenth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on October 30, 2011. The episode follows Brenda, Griffin family neighbor Glenn Quagmire's sister, as she struggles with physical and mental abuse at the hands of her boyfriend, and eventual fiancé, Jeff. Quagmire, along with his neighbors, Peter and Joe, seek to relieve Brenda from her torment, and soon decide to murder Jeff in order to prevent her from being harmed any further.

The episode was written by Alec Sulkin and directed by Dominic Bianchi. This episode infamously generated significant controversy from various media organizations and critics for its portrayal of domestic violence, which, unusually for Family Guy, is portrayed in a serious manner. An estimated 5.97 million homes viewed the episode in its original airing according to Nielsen ratings. The episode featured a guest performance by Kaitlin Olson along with several recurring guest voice actors for the series.

Peter decides to go fishing with Quagmire and Joe, but when Quagmire does not show up, they go to his house, where they find him unconscious as a result of hanging himself in an autoerotic asphyxiation. Attempting to save his life, they take him to the hospital,^[1] where his sister, Brenda, comes to visit and manages to wake her brother up from his coma. Brenda also brings along Jeff, her obnoxious, aggressive and abusive boyfriend, who harasses her throughout the night, to the concern of Quagmire and his neighbors.

After a horrible night, Quagmire asks Lois to talk to Brenda about Jeff. When Lois and Brenda talk over lunch, Lois requests that Brenda remove her sunglasses, revealing a bruise over her eye. Upon seeing this, Lois tries to convince Brenda to leave Jeff, but Brenda only makes excuses for Jeff's treatment of her, to Lois' disgust. Later, at the bar, Peter, Quagmire and Joe discuss the matter, and Joe says that the police are unable to intervene unless Brenda files a formal complaint, but suggests that the group have an intervention with Brenda. There, Quagmire confesses that the sister he knew growing up no longer exists, and he wants her back. The two then embrace each other until Jeff enters the intervention, causing an enraged Quagmire to tell him that Brenda has agreed to leave him. Pressured by Jeff, Brenda reveals that the two are engaged and that she is pregnant.

Later that evening, Peter, Quagmire and Joe discuss killing Jeff, with Joe, being a police officer, opposing it on the grounds that Quagmire could be arrested for murder regardless, while Quagmire says that men like Jeff never change. When the trio witness an infuriated Jeff severely attack Brenda for simply changing the channel on Quagmire's TV, Joe agrees to help the group kill Jeff. The three decide to talk Jeff into a hunting trip in an attempt to kill him, and make it look like an accident. Jeff, having anticipated this, reveals his own gun, and knocks out Peter and Joe so that he can kill Quagmire in a deeper part of the woods. Once there, Quagmire talks Jeff into fighting him instead, during which Quagmire is seemingly strangled to death. Jeff then begins digging a grave, but then the headlights of Peter's car come on and he sees an angry Quagmire, alive and well, behind the wheel. Quagmire reveals that he chokes himself every day, and kills Jeff by ramming him with the car and smashing him into a tree.

Peter, Joe and Quagmire return home the next day, and present a heartbroken Brenda with a forged note from Jeff stating that he has decided to leave her, without telling her that he is dead.^[2]

The episode was written by series regular, and executive producer, Alec Sulkin,^[3] who previously wrote the Family Guy, Star Wars parody "Blue Harvest",^[4] as well as "Stew-Roids",^[2] and the final installment of the Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story series. The episode was directed by series regular Dominic Bianchi,^[3] who previously directed the series's landmark 150th episode "Brian & Stewie".^[5] Series regulars Peter Shin and James Purdum served as supervising director, with Andrew Goldberg, Alex Carter, Spencer Porter, and Elaine Ko serving as staff writers for the episode.^[3] Composer Walter Murphy, who has worked on the series since its inception, returned to compose the music for "Screams of Silence: The Story of Brenda Q".^[3]

In addition to the regular cast, actress Kaitlin Olson guest starred in the episode as Brenda Quagmire, making her the second cast member from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to appear on a Seth MacFarlane show, after Glenn Howerton on The Cleveland Show, a spinoff of Family Guy. Recurring guest voice actress Alexandra Breckenridge, writers Gary Janetti and Alec Sulkin, actress Jennifer Tilly, actor Patrick Warburton, and writer John Viener made minor appearances throughout the episode. Recurring guest voice actor Ralph Garman provided the voice of Jeff.^[3][6]