8x04 Charlie and Dee Find Love

[7.8/10] A very fun episode that has the sort of solipsism and insane twists that are endemic to The Gang and lead to plenty of comedy. I particularly appreciated the fact that, as Dennis predicted, Dee (and by extension Mac) are legitimately in a Dinner for Schmucks/Pig Party situation, where Trevor Taft is in a competition with his frat brothers to find the biggest loser, but in the end, it’s Charlie who’s pulling a Dangerous Liaisons/Cruel Intentions on Ruby Taft and not the other way around.

Maybe it’s just me speaking as someone who naively thought Cruel Intentions was sexy and brilliant when I was 14, but Charlie using (I think) exact quotes from that movie got a luagh out of me. And the way he seemed to get over The Waitress, move on to Ruby, and then just when you think his heart’s going to get broken, he’s not only the same old Waitress-obsessed guy he always was, but he even semi-successfully pulls off this insane scheme! It’s a superb comic reversal.

The other half of the episode is more run-of-the-mill IASIP insanity, with Dee doing a ridiculous striptease, Mac continuing his propensity to interrupt Reynolds family relations and being really into wrestling, Dennis taking his physical appearance so seriously that a comment about him being pale sends him to the tanning salon, and Frank sneaking into the Waitress’s apartment to put rat poison in her shampoo. It’s the sort of deranged antics that the show regularly wrings comedy out of.

Overall, a very nice episode that plays on things we already know about the characters, but doesn’t just regurgitate past hits. Breath of fresh air.