It's been a rough two weeks as fans of the long-running Fox cartoon "Family Guy" waited for this week's episode to confirm what the blogs were blogging about all weekend: will Brian Griffin, the beloved alcoholic Griffin family canine, come back from the dead?

And -- spoiler alert -- the answer was a resounding "yes," which proved to be a great relief to the hundreds of thousands of "Family Guy" fans the world over, who expressed outrage at the death of the dog last month (he was hit by an out-of-control car coming down Spooner Street).

In last night's episode, titled "Christmas Guy," we learned how Stewie Griffin -- the youngest member of the Griffin family -- saved his beloved pal's life: Stewie goes to the mall with his new canine friend, Vinnie (voiced by Tony Sirico, best known as Paulie Walnuts of "The Sopranos"). When he sits on Santa's lap, he wishes for only one thing.

"I want my friend back," he cries. "My best friend, my dog, Brian, he's dead. It's our first Christmas without him and no one has even mentioned his name. I don't care about this stupid carnival or Christmas; I don't care about anything but Brian."

When Santa tells Stewie that he can't make his wish come true, Stewie is left to come up with a way to fulfill his wish on his own. Naturally, he does: after spotting a "past" version of himself with a time machine in his backpack, he has Vinnie distract the "past Stewie" as he steals the time machine. Then, he travels back in time to save Brian from a bad fate, pushing Brian out of the way as the out-of-control car careens down Spooner Street.

"You're alive my friend! I couldn't live without you so I came back from the future to save your life," Stewie tells his pet.

Brian then replies, "Thank you for saving my life. A lot of other families would have just gotten another dog and moved on."

After the show aired on the East Coast, Seth MacFarlane -- the show's creator as well as the voice of Brian & Stewie -- tweeted his reaction to the show. "And thus endeth our warm, fuzzy holiday lesson: Never take those you love for granted, for they can be gone in a flash."

Of course, in his typical smartass fashion, he then tweeted, "I mean, you didn't really think we'd kill off Brian, did you? Jesus, we'd have to be fucking high."

Check out the video clip of Stewie saving Brian below.