Let me start by saying that the first time I watched this episode, I didn’t think it was all that funny until The Waitress showed up and was completely drunk, and then I absolutely loved everything that happened after that. However, I was pretty tired when I was watching it then, but when I was watching this episode for the second time, I thought that this episode was absolutely hilarious and now I think it’s probably one of the best episodes of season seven. I’m guessing I was simply too tired to truly enjoy this episode the first time I watched it, because this episode really is brilliant and it just keeps getting better and better every time I watch it.
One thing that has really stood out to me a lot this season is the fact that they’ve had a lot of episodes that take place mostly outside Paddy’s Pub at various other places, if not entirely outside of the bar, such as episode 7x09 “The Gang Gets Trapped”, which I also absolutely loved. I kind of like that they’ve done a lot of episodes that are set mostly outside the bar this season. I think it helps keep the show fresh. Maybe they’ve done a lot more episodes that were set primarily, if not entirely outside the bar, than I’m remembering, but it just seems like they have done a lot more episodes set outside of the bar this season than they have in the previous seasons.
This episode featured the returns of Maureen Ponderosa, Rickety Cricket, and The Waitress. It turns out that Maureen had used her alimony payments that she has been receiving from Dennis in order to get a diamond put in her dead tooth. I have to say that I think it looked absolutely gross and just flat-out weird. I’m really glad that they featured Maureen in this episode though, because I’ve been wondering what the current situation was with Dennis having to pay Maureen alimony in addition to the debt that she had wracked up before she was even married to Dennis that her lawyer had saddled him with. They hadn’t mentioned Dennis’ very brief marriage to Maureen Ponderosa since they got divorced in episode 6x02 “Dennis Gets Divorced”. One last thing that I loved about Maureen’s appearance in this episode was definitely Frank commenting on how bad Maureen’s breath smelled. It must smell really bad because the last time we saw Maureen; someone (I can’t remember who) described her breath as smelling like “she nibbled on little pieces of shit".
I continued to absolutely love Dennis in this episode, who kept talking about how he was really cool in high school and spent the episode “waiting for his minions to swarm him”. However, pretty much everyone at the reunion was less than thrilled to see him and refused to give Dennis the time of day, so I have to wonder if Dennis truly was one of the popular kids when he was in high school, or if Dennis had only mistakenly believed that he was cool due to his narcissistic nature. If you ask me, season seven has really been the season of Dennis/Glenn Howerton, because Glenn has blown me away with his acting in pretty much every single episode this year. While I’ve always loved all of the characters, Dennis has never really stood out to me all that much, but this season Dennis has really stood out to me more than ever before as one of my favorite characters, right along with Dee and Charlie.
We finally learned Mac’s full name in this episode, which is Ronald McDonald. I think that’s a hilarious name for Mac, and I loved how they revealed his full name by showing it when he put on his nametag. The first time I saw this episode, I wasn’t expecting them to reveal Mac’s full name at all; although, in retrospect I should have seen the reveal coming as soon as Dennis told him to put his nametag on. I loved Dennis reaction to seeing Mac’s nametag. It was very understated, especially the way he just giggled softly as he walked away from Mac.
They also revealed that Mac stopped going by the named Ronald in high school after he busted one of his classmates for selling drugs so that he could be the main drug dealer at their high school, which led to his classmates to give him the nickname “Ronnie The Rat”.
Dee was excited to be at their high school reunion, because she no longer wears a metal back brace like she did in high school, which is where her nickname “Aluminum Monster” stems from, and it was also coined by one of her classmates, Adriano Calvaniste. Dee was wearing a backless dress to show off her back, which got Adriano’s attention. Dee spent the whole episode hanging out with them and making fun of Charlie, Dennis, Mac and Frank and her classmates like Adriano and his friends were doing. She told Charlie that she was going to do this as a way to gain the trust of “the cool kids” from high school so she could be a part of their inner social circle, and once she was a part of their social circle she would get revenge on them for both her and Charlie, who Adriano had given the nickname “Dirt Grub” and had made him eat spiders. Although, I don’t think that Dee honestly meant what she said about also wanting to get revenge on Adriano for Charlie. I’m guessing that she was just doing this for herself. Also, I have to say that I felt really bad for Charlie since he actually believed that Adriano would like him if he would inhale various kinds of chemicals or eat strange things.
Mac ended living up to his nickname “Ronnie The Rat”, because after he saw that Adriano had made copies of the tickets that they were given to redeem for drinks so he could get more than the two drinks each person was allowed, he ratted Adriano out. Everybody got mad and somehow Charlie ended up being the one who got blamed for the whole thing, which caused him to get mad and go into the bathroom in order to inhale various chemicals and get high. Frank tried to stop Charlie, but he wouldn’t listen and promptly passed out as soon as he inhaled some of the chemicals that he had mixed together.
What happened next was both beyond awkward, yet downright hilarious all at the same time. Dee came into the bathroom with Adriano and several of Adriano’s friends, and they ended up giving Mac, Frank and Charlie wedgies. I have to say that I think it’s both really weird and really funny at the same time that Dee was the one to give Frank a wedgy since he’s her dad. Also, I have to say that what we saw of Charlie’s underwear looked absolutely disgusting. I get that Charlie is supposed to be a character that lives in filth and squalor, but at the beginning of the episode he did say that he had brought some extra clean pairs of underwear in case someone gave him a wedgy, so I don’t understand why he wouldn’t have put on one of those clean pairs of underwear before he went to the reunion in the first place. Although, if he had, then there wouldn’t have been any reason for the reaction from the guy who tried to give him a wedgy and his reaction to Charlie’s underwear was beyond hilarious.
Rickety Cricket was at the reunion, and it looks like he’s really cleaned himself up since we last saw him in episode 7x06 “The Storm of the Century”. He’s apparently a priest again, but his presence at the reunion caused Dee’s time as one of the popular to be short lived. Dee was quickly shunned once again after everyone realized that Rickety Cricket had stolen their jewelry by hugging them throughout the evening, which he blamed on Dee and told everyone that she had told him that she loved him several years ago. It turns out that Rickety Crickety had ringworm all over his chest, which looked disgusting. I thought it was really weird that Rickety Cricket was trying to hug everyone throughout the episode, but once they revealed that he had stolen everyone’s jewelry and wallets, it all made sense.
Charlie was really excited about the prospect of getting to see The Waitress since they’ve been getting along better than usual lately, but he didn’t get a chance to see her in this episode since he was busy with everything else that was going on with Dee and Adriano. The last time we saw The Waitress was in episode 7x02 “The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore”, and in that episode she spent an entire night hanging out with Charlie at the beach only to tell him the next morning that she had been high on ecstasy the entire time. In this episode however, it was revealed that she’s off the wagon and is drinking again. The Waitress spent the entire episode walking around drunk and rambling on and on about how nobody seems to remember who she is since the people in charge of nametags at the reunion didn’t have one for her. At first I, along with a lot of other viewers apparently, was thinking that her name was Nikki Potnick since just a moment before she walked over to Dennis’ table rambling about her nametag, Frank joined Dennis at his table, telling him that he had managed to sneak into the reunion by stealing the nametag that was supposed to belong to a girl named Nikki Potnick. However, Glenn Howerton tweeted on his Twitter account that The Waitress’ name isn’t Nikki Potnick. I have to say that I for one am glad that they didn’t reveal The Waitress’ name in this episode since they had already revealed Mac’s full name earlier in the episode. I think that it would have cheapened the reveals of Mac and The Waitress’ names if they had revealed them both in this episode. I do hope that they reveal The Waitress’ name at some point though. Maybe they can save that reveal for the series finale. Since this was part one of a two-part episode, I’m hoping that Charlie will get to spend some time with The Waitress in the next episode.
One last thing about this episode that I’d like to comment on is the fact that Frank went to The Gang’s high school reunion. I get that they are all supposed to be friends, but he is Dee and Dennis’ father, so why would he want to go with them to their high school reunion? Why would any parent go to their children’s high school reunion? Maybe Frank blackmailed The Gang into letting him go with them, and we simply didn’t hear about it. Ultimately, I decided to not get too hung up on trying to come up with a reason to explain why Frank would go to his kids’ high school reunion with them, because I absolutely loved Frank in this episode. I definitely think that Danny DeVito deserves to win an Emmy for his acting on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, because he plays the role of Frank Reynolds perfectly.
All in all, I absolutely loved this episode, and I really do think that this episode just keeps getting better and better every time I watch it. It’s definitely one of my top favorite episodes from season seven now I’ve always thought that It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia has a great replay ability factor to it in terms of being able to watch an episode over and over and still be able to enjoy it as much as I did the first time that I watched it, if not more, and this episode is definitely proof of that. The way that the writers handled the reveal of Mac’s full name was absolutely brilliant. Every scene that The Waitress was in was definitely one of the other many highlights of this episode for me personally. I thought that this was an altogether really well written episode, and the entire cast was great in this episode, especially Glenn Howerton and Danny DeVito. I’m really looking forward to the next episode because I can’t wait to see what happens next, but on the other hand I’m also dreading it because it’s also the season finale, and after that I’ll have to wait an entire year for season eight to start.
All things considered, I give this episode a rating of an A+.
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