"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.
Recap[]
11:00 A.M. on a Tuesday
The recession has hit Paddy's Pub with the arrival of an RV. Frank decides to hang himself because he lost everything in a ponzi scheme. After losing his money, he meets with Mac & Dennis at Dave & Buster's to talk shop over steak and video games. Mac decides to make their bar as efficient as the government so they cut Frank from the management team and begin consolidating.
"Fresh local Delaware runoff crabs!"
Mac and Dennis start firings at Paddy's with Dee after asking her to mix a mojito for them. She proceeds to give them a beer and quits before they can fire her.
Charlie shows Mac & Dennis how he burns trash in the furnace, changes the rain water barrels and siphons electricity from other buildings while showing his illiteracy by explaining that everyday he turns on the "Coors" sign which is actually the "Closed" sign. With one swoop, Charlie is fired and kicked out onto the street because Frank sublets the apartment to start up his business with Dee in their trailer.
Dennis and Mac get drunk off Merlot at Dave and Busters and think of a stimulus plan to help Paddy's pub in this tough economic time. Dennis in his drunken state, comes up with Paddy's dollars. Frank and Dee try to sell knives and a vacuum to their first client but within minutes Frank has sliced open his hand so in a state of depression he attempts to hang himself yet again in their clients bathroom.
Mac and Dennis's plans don't work out as Dennis thought Mac knew the system but Dennis instead reveals he blacked out the night at Dave and Busters. Frank takes Dee to meet a new business associate who turns out to be Charlie. They plan to sell crabs that Charlie has caught but due to a strong sewage runoff in the river, the plan cant work despite Charlie's claims that "crabs are sewage proof".
At the end of the episode, Frank is somehow given a bailout by the government and is again wealthy, saving the group.
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[]
