"Flowers For Charlie" is the eighth episode of the ninth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Synopsis[]
When an experiment successfully multiplies Charlie's intellect and takes him away from the bar, the rest of the gang find themselves struggling to complete the menial 'Charlie Work' that has kept the bar running for so long.
Plot[]
9:14 AM On a Wednesday, Philadelphia, PA
The gang are in a laboratory arguing who is the better candidate to be chosen for an intelligence experiment. When a scientist and his assistant Tang See announce the experiment is looking for someone opposite of having "superior intelligence" to take pills that would increase their intelligence, they notice Charlie being interested with a rat maze in the lab. After Charlie repeatedly shocks himself attempting to take the cheese from the wrong exit of the rat maze, the scientist concludes they have found their candidate.
Sometime later back at the bar, Charlie enters while listening to two audiotapes simultaneously, stating he is expediting learning multiple academic subjects and learning to speak Mandarin Chinese. The rest of the gang doubt the pills Charlie is taking is having any real effect, but Charlie's increased vocabulary and refusal to do "Charlie Work" surprises them. Charlie, instead, challenges Dennis, Mac, and Dee to exterminate a large rat they were concerned with before he leaves.
Back in Charlie's apartment, Charlie is performing experiments with an array of lab equipment. He is accompanied by the lab assistant Tang See, who asks Charlie about everything he has learned since beginning to take the intelligence pills. Charlie responds that he believes his IQ to be at 175 and could even break 200, while also admitting to suffering side effects such as ringing in his ears and suffering aches all over his body. Frank then comes in with takeout food and rented movies, inviting Charlie to enjoy a "Gruesome-Twosome Tuesday" with him. Charlie rebuffs Frank's offer, and laughs him off while speaking Mandarin Chinese to Tang See.
Meanwhile, Dennis, Mac, and Dee attempt their own ways to exterminate the rat in the bar: Mac wants to bash the rat with the new rat stick they gifted Charlie previously, Dennis wants to "seduce" the rat into a glue trap, and Dee wants to drive it away with a supersonic pest device. They all fail to produce results, and Dee gets her hand stuck in a rat hole in the wall.
Charlie continues to talk about academic subjects with Tang See while playing two rounds of speed chess simultaneously with him. Frank attempts to learn Mandarin Chinese to catch up with Charlie. When Charlie begins to suffer his side effects more acutely, Frank tells Charlie to stop taking his pills since it is turning him into someone he is not. When Tang See tries to counter Frank, Charlie laughs at both of them, stating Tang See isn't much smarter than Frank either as he declares checkmate.
Dennis, Mac, and Dee devise freeing Dee's hand by using gasoline. However, they devolve to huffing the gasoline instead, putting off the task at hand as they watch the rat escape from the bar.
Charlie is seen reading a book at an outdoor cafe as The Waitress approaches him. She reveals Frank offered her $500 to go on a date with Charlie, although she is visibly reluctant to fulfill the task. Charlie claims he can tell this is Frank's attempt to pull him away from the intelligence experiment, and he himself is reluctant to go on a date with The Waitress due to his perceived intellectual superiority, but accepts. As The Waitress begins to talk about monotonous subjects, Charlie begins to hear sharper ringing in his head.
Frank returns to the bar to find Dennis, Mac, and Dee lazily watching cartoons while high. With Dee's hand still stuck in the rat hole, a sober Frank asks if she is holding onto the trap she attempted to put inside. Dee is unsure, but is freed after Frank tells her to let go of the trap and pull her hand out. Frank rallies the rest of the gang at the bar to go fetch Charlie from the intelligence experiment together, but they offer to go the next day as they are still high.
Eventually, the rest of the gang attend a lecture being held by the main scientist of the intelligence experiment and Tang See. They present to the crowd Charlie, who now uses a wheelchair and walking stick. Charlie himself holds his own presentation that he has been working on and reveals it to the crowd: the technology for spiders to talk to cats, with both animals in separate glass cases and telephone handpieces crudely attached. The scientist reveals to the crowd that their attempt to give a placebo pill to increase intelligence to a subject while being reinforced by Tang See failed to make their subject any more intelligent, although it gave Charlie a sharp increase in arrogance instead as shown when blowing off and leaving his date with The Waitress. A shocked Charlie finds that he did not actually learn Mandarin Chinese and had only been speaking similarly-sounding gibberish, his research and calculations were nonsense, and his debilitating side effects were all his imagination. At this, an unimpressed gang begins to interrupt the lecture with questions and insults, and eventually leaves with Charlie happily taking up Frank on his earlier offer of watching movies.
Cast[]
Starring[]
- Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly
- Glenn Howerton as Dennis Reynolds
- Rob McElhenney as Mac
- Kaitlin Olson as Dee Reynolds
- Danny DeVito as Frank Reynolds
Guest Starring[]
- Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Waitress
- Burn Gorman as Scientist
- Jimmy O. Yang as Tang See
Trivia[]
- The title of the episode, along with its basic plot structure, is a reference to the short story turned novel Flowers for Algernon, in which a mentally challenged man receives an experimental procedure that (temporarily) makes him a genius.
- Some similarities with the novel 'Flowers for Algernon' include:
- Both characters are named Charlie, with their occupations being janitors
- Both of them are stumped by a rat maze
- Both understand and refuse to perform demeaning work
- Both Charlies end up losing interest in their love interests as they get smarter
- When they are at the peak of their intelligence, they start carrying out experiments
- This episode has a reunion of sorts with Charlie Day and Burn Gorman who both starred in the 2013 blockbuster, Pacific Rim that was directed by Sunny guest star Guillermo del Toro.
- Almost all of Charlie's Mandarin is gibberish, improvised by Charlie Day.
- This episode is dedicated to Jim Fuller who passed away in September of 2013. Jim worked on a few episodes of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and was also an assistant director on the hit show Glee.
- This episode was written by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of Game of Thrones. Both of them will go on to guest star in the Season 12 episode "The Gang Goes to a Water Park".
- Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor plays in the background of the beginning of the episode when the scientists first talk with Charlie.
- This episode has a lab rat named "Armitage Shanks", which is the name of a common British manufacturer of bathroom fixtures and plumbing supplies.
- This episode contains yet another reference to Mac's homosexuality (as well as his true feelings for Dennis): the scene in which Dennis puts on some seductive music in order to lure the rat, but they both just end up dancing suggestively at each other, especially Mac who tries to get closer to Dennis.
- Despite the end of the episode revealing that the drug Charlie had been taking to become smart was a placebo, Charlie does in fact display some increased and unexplained knowledge during the episode. It's possible he is just repeating back things he heard on his audio books, but regardless, it suggests Charlie may have a capacity for learning greater than his or the gang's expectations. For example:
- Charlie's definition of the placebo effect is accurate.
- He wishes the Gang "bonne chance" catching the rat.
- Charlie is aware of the famous line from Shakespeare's Hamlet and remarks that he agrees with Shakespeare on the subject of brevity ("brevity is the soul of wit").
- However it should be noted that the phrase was mostly used as an ironic statement within the actual play, seeing as Polonius's (The character who delivers the line) character was rarely brief in his statements. Polonius has a habit of paying attention to his appearance and tends to think himself more witty than he actually is. In this sense Charlie can be shown to only have a surface level knowledge of Shakespeare's work, and to not actually understand the eccentricities of the character depicted.
- Charlie's comment about, "the physical level, the metaphysical level, the 'pataphysical level" is a reference to the philosophy of metaphysics. Whereas physics is the study of how matter and energy interacts, metaphysics is the study of how humans interact with each other, including how they study matter and energy. However, 'pataphysics is an openly pseudoscientific discipline created by French writer Alfred Jarry to satirize the concept of metaphysics by arbitrarily creating a tertiary level.
- Charlie's Mandarin contains more "reasonable words" than would be expected from someone entirely making it up - for example, the word "什么" is clearly heard at least once.
- Charlie alludes to the the fable of "The Scorpion and the Frog"
- Apparently, Charlie's concept of looking smart is to do a British accent, button the cuffs on his tattered army jacket, and utilize a wicker wheelchair and a cane.
Continuity[]
- Mac carries the rat-bashing stick that The Gang made for Charlie as a present in the episode "Charlie Kelly: King of the Rats".
- Mac mentions that Charlie sometimes replaces gasoline cans in the bar with alcohol. This is a direct extension of the previous episode "The Gang Gets Quarantined", where Charlie mentions he replaces bleach jugs in the bar with alcohol.
- Charlie's 'Badnew' tattoo is clearly visible when he meets with the Waitress. He gave himself this stick n poke in "Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad".
- Charlie will recall the events of this episode in The Gang Does a Clip Show, claiming he sometimes thinks in "Mandarin" (still just gibberish).
- Mac previously wore his Durty Nelly's t-shirt in Mac's Banging the Waitress, presented as a sleeveless tee.
Images[]
Quotes[]
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— | “You see, I just realized that I have two ears, so it's a waste to only listen to one thing.” |
| “Let me get this straight, you just realized that you have two ears?” | — | 
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— | “You must excuse me. I've grown quite weary.” |
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— | “You stupid science bitches couldn't even make my friends more smarter.” |
| “Hey, you're right, stupid science bitch couldn't even make I more smarter!” | — |
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| < Season 8 |
Season 9 | Season > 10 |
| 1. "The Gang Broke Dee" 2. "Gun Fever Too: Still Hot" |