11x05 Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs

[9.7/10] What a half hour of T.V. comedy. This episode draws down to the tenuous friendship and amazing dynamic between Dennis and Mac, and mines it for all it’s worth. Watching the pair of good buddies slowly unravel as they’re forced to subsist in the suburbs and crack like the city mice they are is incredible.

The episode works both as a means to draw the humor from dudebros Dennis and Mac inhabiting the role of the stereotypical fighting couple settling into domestic life (think the episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where SpongeBob and Patrick raise a baby scallop), and from the riff on The Shining that emerges when these two deranged guys are slowly but surely driven mad by their suburban surroundings.

There’s so many great little moments in this one, with gags that escalate to the point of perfection and insanity (like Mac only making mac and cheese, putting Dennis Jr. in it, and then revealing a closet full of kraft dinner, nice background bits like the T.V. area looking more and more disheveled as the episode goes on, and tour de force performance from Glenn Howerton.

I know I’ve complained in recent episodes about the show drawing from the “Dennis gets enraged” well too often, but this was perfect. Dennis keeps fracturing and fracturing, until he is hallucinating and stripping and making dragon yells at his neighbors. Mac’s descent is a little lower volume, but just as fun as he too goes mad at the chirping of the smoke detector and the unnerving quiet of his place. The way things build and build and reach a crescendo is done to perfection.

It’s also a great episode that shows off the show’s editing, with superior montages showing the steady decline of both newly minted suburb-dwellers, and gags that work with the show’s trademark quick cuts. Throwing in the prospect of Frank’s bet and Dee’s side action gives the episode a target, and it hits it flawlessly.

Overall, one of the series’s very best episodes, which is especially impressive coming in Season 11.