"McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century" is the seventh episode of the eleventh season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Synopsis[]
Old grievances bubble to the surface when The Lawyer agrees to sue Bill Ponderosa on behalf of Liam McPoyle and his lost eye.
Recap[]
7:54am on a Friday
Charlie, Frank and Bill Ponderosa ‘Pondy’ are standing in a court room. The McPoyle’s are suing Bill for spiking the punch at Liam McPoyle and Maureen Ponderosa’s wedding causing Liam to be attacked. Bill has hired Charlie and his Uncle Jack as his lawyers because he is broke. Charlie has a bird theory that he thinks will help the situation as he is well-versed in bird law.
Frank is being supportive by having a bag of drugs available to hand.
Charlie makes sure Dee is prepped and has her story straight.
Dennis then arrives in the hope of sweet talking the judge in an attempt to get him out of paying his alimony payments to his ex-wife, Maureen (who has now turned full ‘cat’).
Mac is jealous he doesn’t have a ‘thing’ in the trial as it is the ‘trial of the century’ so will try and come up with one.
Uncle Jack is in court with large fake hands, which he denies are fake…
The not Jew lawyer arrives who is representing Liam McPoyle in court today- Liam cannot attend as he has pink eye.
Trial
McPoyle vs Ponderosa – Seeking damages for the loss of an eye in the form of a one-time payment to the sum of $200.
Opening statements
The Lawyer – 'Friday the 13th was a night of chaos. Milk spiked with bath salts by Bill which was served to wedding guests'.
Uncle Jack – 'Liam has a history of lying, Bill is a loving family man, he is innocent'.
1st Witness- Dee
Dee was the one that told the police that Bill spiked the punch but didn’t actually see him do it. Dee does not remember the night all that well as she was locked in a freezer and her memory was clouded by rage.
The Lawyer counter claims that Dee gave a statement to the police that Bill did in fact spike the punch as he is a god dam drug addict and he was out of his mind, she swears on her mother’s grave he is guilty, guilty, guilty. She admits she had sex with Bill- but denied she was his prostitute. Bill bought her a mink coat – it was purchased at McPoyle and Doyle’s trappings and fur- it was in fact made of Muskrat and not mink. Dee now annoyed with Bill for buying her a fake coat admits again in court that Bill is guilty and that he tried to bribe Dee with the coat.
The Judge, The Honourable Clarence Melvoy asks Dee if she knows what perjury is.
Mac feels he still isn’t being utilised properly. He wants to deliver the bombshell; he will find one.
2nd Witness- Maureen Ponderosa
The Lawyer asks Maureen if it was her wedding that Liam was attacked in. She replies with ‘Meow”, she has gone full cat.
The Lawyer suggests to the judge that nothing represents the tragic aftermath more than the transformation of this woman to cat because the evening in question had such a psychological impact on her.
Dennis asks to approach the bench- he wants the judge to start a motion that he no longer should pay alimony to a ‘cat’, judge will not allow it.
3rd Witness – Frank
Frank explained he snuck Ryan McPoyle into the wedding in his trunk as he was not invited to his brother’s wedding because they have beef, also because he stinks. Frank said that Ryan was going to kill Maureen. This causes Uncle Jack to claim that if anyone was going to be blamed for spiking the punch it would be Ryan…. Then he quickly spins around and points to Ryan in the court room where his giant fake hand flies off at him. Mortified he screams ‘NOBODY LOOK, NOBODY LOOK!!’ and grabs his fake hand back, now they are duck taped on to his wrists.
4th Witness- Ryan McPoyle
Jack confirms to Ryan that he has indeed stabbed his brother before and goes onto ask him if he attacked his brother at the wedding. In the witness stand it is actually not Ryan sitting there, he is Lion McPoyle. Jack asks why he came up to the stand and not Ryan., Lion says because Jack shouted, ‘his brother’ and threw his giant fake hand at him.
Ryan is at home with Liam helping take care of him and his infected eye.
Lion then confesses that Ryan did stab Liam in his eye that night.
Lion says they were all drinking milk at the wedding therefore everyone was drugged. The Lawyer says it doesn’t matter who did the stabbing because Bill spiked the milk causing everyone to go insane, which is the point he has been trying to prove this whole time.
Mac arrives with the BOMBSHELL
5th Witness- Mac
Mac has recently been informed that Ryan McPoyle will only drink mothers’ milk! Which means there’s no way he would drink other milk, which means he was sober when he attacked his brother.
The Lawyer asks how Mac came by this information, Mac says he banged Margaret McPoyle and she wrote it down because she’s mute. The Lawyer asks Margaret to show the picture she carries of mother- she shows a picture of a cow. Mother is the name of the McPoyle family cow who provided the milk for the wedding.
Bombshell diffused.
Dee walks into the court room angrily shouting ‘Abramowitz!’ Exclaiming that the Lawyers great grandmothers name was Abramowitz which makes him a dirty liar because he has been denying he is Jewish.
Charlie is raged that they are losing the case and Uncle Jack knows nothing. Bill is taking some drugs with his son Bobby present as he is his dealer because he is reliable, Frank joins in as he is paying for it.
Charlie does his bird theory. He tells the judge about the McPoyle family crest which features a Pocono swallow sporting its trademark unibrow.
Charlie says there was another member of the McPoyle family clan at the night of the incident, a member that has not been met yet, a one Mr Royal McPoyle. Who is a bird, the McPoyle’s family pet which is a Pocono Swallow. His recent research suggests that this type of bird has a history of violence. It took Margaret’s vocal cords in 1999, it took Keith McPoyle’s eyes and ears in 1976, and according to bird law its three strikes and you’re out. Bye bye birdy.
Charlie claims that Royal McPoyle attacked Liam and Lion was lying about Ryan to protect Royal from the chair, lethal injection or perhaps some sort of small bird guillotine.
6th Witness- Pappy McPoyle
He is the patriarch of the McPoyle family, Royal was his pet bird and has had him since he was a boy and never goes anywhere without him. Judge asks Pappy to move his hat, he is reluctant to remove it, so Charlie does it for him, revealing Royal McPoyle sitting on top of Pappy’s head. Charlie tries to talk to the bird by talking pigeon.
Meanwhile in the courtroom, Dennis teases Maureen with a laser to chase - causing havoc and shouting by all attendees in court.
Pappy then instructs Royal to fly! Royal attacks the lawyer in the eyes.
The Judge is furious with the mayhem of the trial and throws the case out. The Lawyer is sitting there traumatised with a blood-soaked bandage on his eye.
Everyone starts to leave court.
The Judge announces the next case in court is ‘Morgan State Delivery vs. Paddy’s Pub’.
The gang walk back into court as its their second case, the judge says hell no!!
The End.
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[]
- Lance Barber as Bill Ponderosa
- Dakota Buchanan as Bobby Ponderosa
- Andrew Friedman as Jack Kelly
- Jim Ortlieb as Belka Maier
- Catherine Reitman as Maureen Ponderosa
- Thesy Surface as Margaret McPoyle
- Brian Unger as The Lawyer
- Reginald VelJohnson as Judge Melvoy
- Sean Whalen as Lion McPoyle
- Guillermo del Toro as Pappy McPoyle
- Chris Jai Alex as Bailiff
Uncredited[]
- Gary Sievers as Keith McPoyle
Trivia[]
- The episode focused on the aftermath of the events from "The Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre".
- This is the first time that the gang actually defeats The Lawyer in the series, and brutally at that. Not only did he lose the case, but he was disfigured in the process.
- Despite being a trial on behalf of Liam McPoyle, neither Liam nor his brother Ryan McPoyle appear in this episode. This episode does, however, bring back many of the McPoyle clan, namely Margaret and Pappy, last seen in "The Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre". The reason Ryan and Liam did not appear is presumably because their actors were not available at the time.
- Charlie wears his "bird law" outfit in this episode.
- Frank calls The Lawyer a Jew once again, and claims it's a compliment, even though in "Chardee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo", he says one of the games he'd play as a kid was "Kick The Jew".
- Bobby Ponderosa, previously seen in Season 10's "Mac Kills His Dad" returns in this episode selling cocaine to his dad.
- The Lawyer made his first appearance since Season 8's "Pop-Pop: The Final Solution".
- We first saw Maureen's human-to-feline transition in he Season 10 episode "Mac Kills His Dad."
- The case at the end of the episode is a call-back to Season 10's "Charlie Work."
- Frank testified "I snuck Ryan up in the trunk of my car", but it was in the trunk of Dee's car.
- Doyle McPoyle from Season 3's "The Gang Gets Invincible" is revealed to have opened a business called "Doyle McPoyle's Trappings and Fur".
- Mac has once again banged Margaret McPoyle, after their first affair in "Who Got Dee Pregnant?"
- A slight inconsistency with Margaret occurs once again; in this episode it only seems to be that she's mute (and revealed that this is because Royal McPoyle took out her vocal chords), while in some previous episodes she's referred to as a deaf-mute. It's possible that she was born deaf, and recently learned to read lips, however.
- Uncle Jack's weird obsession over the size of his hands (which we first saw in "Dennis Gets Divorced") has progressed to the point that he is now wearing fake hands. In the season 12 episode "Old Lady House: A Situation Comedy", Mac and Charlie see him at Charlie's mom's house not wearing them, and he apologizes for not having his hands on, suggesting that he now wears them constantly when he is in public.
- The episode contains a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock. Namely, Royal McPoyle attacking the Lawyer is a reference to "The Birds" and the music heard during Charlie's questioning of Pappy McPoyle is "Funeral March of a Marionette" by Charles Gounod, theme to the television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".
- Royal McPoyle, a Poconos Swallow, is in reality a White-Throated Magpie Jay
- that the entire episode takes place in and around the courtroom, and that a bird gets loose and wreaks havoc at the end, is most likely an homage to the Three Stooges 1936 classic "Disorder In The Court," except that in that film the bird merely steals the opposing lawyer's toupee and doesn't disfigure him by taking out his eye.
Quotes[]
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Season 11 | Season > 12 |
| 1. "Chardee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo" 2. "Frank Falls Out the Window" |