12x08 The Gang Tends Bar

[8.4/10] Full disclosure: I may be overrating this one a little bit since I was excited to see that Megan Ganz, of Community fame, is the credited writer. But still, I think this one is legitimately good. IASIP has often found ways to escalate the insanity of The Gang’s misadventures and tried to top itself, but I love the tack that the craziest thing for them to try to do at this point is to just straight up run the bar.

As I’ve said in other write-ups, I’m an easy mark for comedy where a straight man goes nuts trying to get a bunch of idiots to complete a task, so watching Dennis tear his hair out over his efforts to convince the rest of The Gang to just do their jobs, without descending into their usual crazy ways or trying to trick one another, really worked for me.

But I also like how well every character is served here. The feud between Charlie and Frank over “Jerry,” the tapeworm inside Frank, is strange as all hell, and definitely gross, but also oddly sweet, which is the standard for Charlie/Frank stories. Frank feeling self-conscious about his weight due to a misconstrued comment he overheard from Charlie, and Charlie giving him a trojan horse valentine full of antibiotics is absurd but, again, peculiarly charming.

I also like Dee feeling miffed that Charlie didn’t get her a valentine, and the reflections on the escalating hate mail that erupted from their prior exchanges. Dee initially being touched when she thinks Charlie made her one, then threatening him with anthrax when it wasn’t for her, then forcing him to come up with a love song on the spot (with hilarious bad rhymes), only to make fun of him for it is classic IASIP capering.

And I particularly like how the show sticks to the theme that these people are all just too deranged to even comprehend how to do a normal day’s work. The way that, independently, the non-Dennis contingent of The Gang each thinks that Dennis must have some secret, self-focused meaning for his instructions to clean a mess or clear a line is a hilarious and true-to-character tribute to the group’s sideways thinking. The fact that they then, when unleashed as their full and effed up selves scare away the rest of the bar patrons is perfect.

I particularly enjoy the end, where both Dennis’s secret rage at V-Day, Mac’s little crush on “emotionally unavailable” Dennis, and the crate mentioned at the beginning of the episode pay off in gloriously insane fashion with Mac gifting Dennis with a rocket launcher, and Dennis being genuinely touched by it.

Overall, this is some stellar work from a newcomer to the show, who brings all the great character work and multi-faceted storytelling she developed on Community, and translates it perfectly into IASIP’s tone and world.