This was apparently the unaired episode from season six that either the producers of the show or the network decided to air as a part of season seven. Although, I’m wondering if it’s a slightly different version of that episode considering the fact that this episode dealt with explaining how and why Mac got fat, and I’m not sure at what point in time the writers decided to have Mac get fat for season seven. Regardless, I thought that this was a really good episode either way. I’m really glad that they addressed the issue of how/why Mac gained a lot of weight and got fat. However, I don’t think that this was the best episode ever, but it definitely wasn’t the worst episode either. That title still belongs to “Frank’s Brother”.
One of the things that I loved the most about this episode is the fact that it addressed something that I’ve been thinking about a lot this season, which is how much business does Paddy’s Pub usually get, because throughout the course of the series they’ve made it clear that Paddy’s Pub is supposed to be a relatively unsuccessful bar. I’ve noticed customers sitting in the bar in the background from time to time, but most of the time it seems like it’s typically just The Gang hanging out together at Paddy’s with no one else there with them. I’ve always wondered how they’ve managed to pay all of the bills for the bar and their salaries given the fact that the bar doesn’t get very much business. If I had to guess, I would assume that Frank uses a lot of his own money that he’s made from his numerous other business ventures to cover all of the bar’s finances.
However, in this episode The Gang was surprised when Paddy’s inexplicably started getting a lot of business all of the sudden, and they spent the whole episode trying to come up with ways to maintain the same level of business that they were currently getting. One of the crazy plans that they came up with was to hire “avatars” or lookalikes of themselves so they wouldn’t have to do as much work as they usually have to. This is where Mac getting fat comes into play. Apparently, Mac felt like he needed to gain weight or “mass” as he’s been putting it, so that he and his “avatar” would look more a like.
The whole structure of this episode was basically Mac telling a priest everything that we were seeing, because he felt like it led to him getting fat and that The Gang was to blame for the whole thing. I have to say that I thought that Mac’s interactions with the priest were hilarious, and the priest’s reaction to the whole story was absolutely priceless.
The biggest highlight of this episode for me was definitely all of the interactions between Charlie and Frank, especially the scene where they were lying in bed together one night, and Charlie got mad at Frank for bothering him about the bar while he was trying to sleep, so he crawled into the crevice of the pullout couch that they sleep on to sleep there. I’m not exactly sure what the big deal was with Charlie deciding to sleep in the crevice of the couch was, but it sounds like he’s done this before and that The Gang is aware of the fact that he crawls into the crevice of the couch to sleep there from time to time. I thought that scene was beyond hilarious. My other favorite scene between Charlie and Frank was the scene where Frank kept chasing Charlie down the street outside the bar and was repeatedly hitting him with a with a broken tree branch. That was very funny. The whole thing with Frank adding extra stop signs on the street, creating a four-way intersection outside the bar and showing it to Charlie was also pretty amusing.
Both Charlie Kelly, the character, and Charlie Day, the actor, absolutely stole the episode for me personally. I loved how Charlie (The character) had more and more of a meltdown over trying to maintain the same level of success they were suddenly having at Paddy’s as the episode progressed, and the way that Charlie Day played it was absolutely perfect. I love that Charlie thought it was a good idea to clean all of the glasses in the bar by soaking them in bleach, which caused everybody’s drinks to taste like bleach. That was a classic Charlie thing to do.
Another one of my favorite scenes from this episode was definitely the scene where Charlie is getting high by inhaling fumes from various chemicals in the backroom and is doing a very weird dance as Dennis watches him with a very blank stare on his face. Charlie’s dance was absolutely hilarious, and the look on Dennis’ face as he was watching Charlie made the whole thing even better. The scene got even better once Dee and Frank came into the backroom and started getting high and dancing with them.
While Charlie Kelly/Charlie Day stole this episode for me personally, I think that Glenn Howerton also deserves an honorable mention for his performance in this episode as well. In classic Dennis fashion, Dennis believed that the key to maintaining the same level of success for Paddy’s Pub was to maintain his good looks, and he took outrageous measures to try and do that. I thought that his hair just looked flat-out weird once he dyed it black after he found some gray hairs. Dennis didn’t stop there with trying to maintain his good looks though. He also got a chemical peel done on his face, and it made his face look all red and blotchy. I thought that he looked absolutely ridiculous after he had gotten the chemical peel done, but in a very funny way. Dying his hair after he finds a few gray hairs and getting a chemical peel done on his face was a classic move on Dennis’ part.
The only thing that I found kind of disappointing about this episode was Dee, which is weird for me since she’s basically my favorite character on the show. She had some funny moments in this episode, for example, I loved the part where she kept trying to tell the customers her jokes, but they weren’t listening, because all they wanted was to get their drinks. My other favorite Dee moment is when Mac is showing her the map of all the places he wants to travel on a boat now that the bar is successful and she sees that pretty much all of the countries outside the United States have been crossed out in addition to several areas of the United States that Mac had also crossed out, because he didn’t want to go to those places. That scene was hilarious! However, I just feel like Dee was outshined by Charlie, Dennis, Mac and Frank in this episode, and I simply got more laughs out of their material than I did from watching Dee’s scenes in this episode.
In the end, Paddy’s Pub suddenly went back to getting very little business without much explanation, just like the bar had suddenly become popular with no explanation. This is the point in the episode when Mac comes into the bar; now fat, because he thought it was a part of their “avatar” plan. The Gang ends up telling him that they gave up on that plan a long time ago and they all start making fun of him for being fat, which infuriates Mac and is ultimately what prompted him to go talk to the priest.
All in all, I loved this episode for the most part, but it still wasn’t nearly as good as some of the other episodes they’ve had so far this season. Charlie Day and Glenn Howerton really did steal this episode for me. They were both absolutely amazing in this episode. That being said, I give this episode a rating of a B.
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