"The Great Recession" is the third episode of the fifth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Synopsis[]
Mac and Dennis try to keep the bar afloat in the tough economic times; Frank starts a family business with Dee; newly poor people gather outside the bar.
Plot[]
11:00 AM On a Tuesday, Philadelphia, PA
"Don't try to stop me!"
Dennis, Mac, and Charlie bemoan the arrival of homeless in RVs setting up camp in front of their bar due to the economic downturn. They go inside to find Frank attempting suicide by hanging, but he is unsuccessful. Frank mentions he has lost all of his money in a Ponzi scheme, and Dennis cuts Frank down from his rope.
Dennis, Mac, and Frank meet up at their local Dave & Buster's to have dinner in a seemingly routine meeting of Paddy's Pub's "upper management." Dennis and Mac want to discuss giving themselves bonuses, while Frank criticizes the idea especially in light of the bar suffering during the current economic recession and Frank not having any more money. Dennis and Mac respond by firing Frank on the spot to "streamline" their business.
Back at the bar, Dennis and Mac threaten to fire Charlie and Dee as well unless they can defend that their positions are worthwhile. Charlie is enthusiastic, but Dee balks at the idea. Dennis and Mac mentions they do not actually know what Dee does at the bar, and doubts Dee can mix them drinks. When asked to make a drink, Dee tries to take a shortcut by simply opening a bottle of beer, but Dennis requests a mojito instead. Cornered, Dee declares she quits before the guys can fire her.
Dee finds Frank and demands money since she quit working at the bar and can't pay her rent. Frank refuses, stating no more bailing out the gang since he has lost all of his money. Dee then inquires about what Frank is doing, and he reveals he has a business plan. Dee wants to join Frank to earn money herself, but is only accepted by Frank when she promises to let him use her credit status however he wants.
Charlie shows Dennis and Mac what essential tasks he does at the bar to save his job, such as burning garbage in the furnace for heat, filter rainwater barrels, siphon electricity from around the neighborhood to the bar, and turning on the neon "Coors" sign in front of the bar (which is really the "Closed" sign, further proving Charlie's illiteracy). As Dennis fires Charlie, Frank and Dee pull up to the bar in an RV, revealing they are living in the RV as part of their new business after subletting Frank and Charlie's apartment. With his set of keys to the bar taken away, Charlie is essentially homeless. He attempts to move back with his mom, only to find she has sublet his room to his uncle (someone who Charlie fears to be alone with).
"It's a deep cut!"
Frank reveals to Dee that his new business is to sell knives and industrial vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Dee is upset they took out a high-interest loan in her name to fund the business, but has no other choice. As they make their sales pitch to their first potential customer, Frank cuts his hand badly with the knives during his demonstration, and runs to the bathroom. Dee fails to distract the potential customer with her sales pitch about the vacuum cleaners, and they end up finding Frank unsuccessfully trying to hang himself again.
Dennis and Mac reconvene at Dave & Buster's again, where Dennis pitches the idea of making their bar run like Dave & Buster's model. They order and print "Paddy's dollars" to mimic Dave & Buster's Power Card system of in-store currency. When returning to the bar, they notice an increase of RVs parked on their street and homeless encampments. Dennis comes up with the idea of distributing the Paddy's dollars to the "shanties" for free so that they would come to their bar for drinks and create a "self-sustaining economy."
"Fresh, local Delaware runoff crabs!"
Frank is now taking Dee to the docks, saying he has a contact that will help them with a new business venture. The contact turns out to be Charlie, now living by the docks in a cardboard box and fishing for crabs. Frank states they will now be crab fishermen to a disgusted Dee. Soon, however, Frank gets a call on his cell phone and excitedly thanks the person on the line.
Back at the bar, Dennis and Mac have distributed their entire supply of drinks to the people they handed out the Paddy's dollars to after they cashed them back in. Without replicating the Dave & Buster's system where patrons exchange real money for in-store currency, Dennis and Mac realize they have only earned their Paddy's dollars back with no profit and essentially having given away their bar's drinks for free. Frank returns to the bar with Charlie and Dee, happily exclaiming the government is reimbursing Frank for all the money he lost to the Ponzi scheme. He offers to take Dennis and Mac to Dave & Buster's to discuss the future of the bar, and the "upper management" once again excludes Charlie and Dee.
Cast[]
From an extended ending scene.
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[]
- Lynne Marie Stewart as Charlie's Mom
- Andrew Friedman as Uncle Jack
Co-starring[]
- Kristen O'Meara as Beth
- Sabrina Vittore as D&B Waitress
Uncredited[]
- Shaun Paul Costello as Dude
Trivia[]
- The episode heavily featured product placement for Dave & Buster's. According to Glenn Howerton, the joke was ruined by the fact that FX ran commercials for both during the entire episode, resulting in overkill.
- From Glenn Howerton's ("Dennis") Twitter:
- 11:05 AM Oct 8th : Just got back from vacay. Gotta love n quite a bit of hate on last week's recession ep. Sounds like 50% got the joke and 50% did not
- 11:08 AM Oct 8th: Although I will say FX was NOT supposed 2 accompany the ep. w all those fucking D&B's and Coors commercials. That's what fucks it up.
- 11:10 AM Oct 8th: If u watch the ep. w no commercials on DVD or iTunes or whatever u will like it a lot more. I promise. We learned our lesson on that one.
- The plotline revolving around Frank losing his money in a "Ponzi scheme" is most directly a reference to the case of Bernie Madoff, a financial advisor who bilked his clients out of billions. Similarly, his getting "bailed out" at the end by the government references how world governments spent hundreds of billions of dollars to keep banks from defaulting after they lost billions of dollars on bad investments. (An earlier episode from this season, "The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis", also was inspired by the economic woes of the time that the episode first aired.)
- Along those same lines, "Paddy's Dollars" are a sly commentary on what happened to cause the mortgage crisis that tanked the economy in the late 2000s. Mortgage brokers started giving out mortgages to pretty much anyone who applied, even people with no or bad credit. They would then package those bad mortgages together and sell them to another bank, who would then take all the bad mortgages they had and sell them to another bank, and so on. Like Paddy's Dollars, however, this did not lead to a "self-sustaining economy."
- The "crabs" Charlie and Frank pull out of the river that Dee refers to as "sea scorpions" are actually crayfish, an extremely common type of crustacean that can be found in many types of rivers and are fairly worthless in comparison to crabs and lobsters.
- The location of Paddy's Pub - at least approximate - can be seen if you look closely enough: we see a street sign that would place it at off the corner of 3rd and Dickinson, in South Philly. (Source) However, the real building of "Paddy's Pub" - Pan Pacific Warehouse - is set in LA at Mateo St. and Palmetto St. (544 Mateo Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013).
Images[]
