[7.8/10] This one started slow, but won me over. I like the idea of Mac and Charlie realizing they’re lower class, but not thinking they’re as low as white trash and trying to spruce up a pool to prove it. More than the storyline itself, just the two of them as a comic pairing are great, from Charlie’s skepticism at Mac’s ability to flip out of the pool, to Mac’s continuing baffflement at Charlie’s idiocy. The two of them trying to solve a problem, really any problem, is a recipe for laughs, and their getting stuck in a pool worked like gangbusters on that front.
I also got a kick out of the reciprocal bit where Dennis and Dee are convinced that they are upper class by birth, no matter their current station, and try to get into the private pool to prove it. The two of them mistreating that poor attendant, and then getting booted anyway, was a hoot. And their disgust and discomfort at the public pool was really funny as well.
On the whole, I like the hypocrisy of everyone from The Gang, The central joke of the episode is a superb one -- that these people bristle at being considered low class while engaging in behaviors confirming them to be the very thing that they look down on. That goes for pretty much everyone but Frank, who’s enjoyable bizaree in his “fringe class” mode of greasing up watermelons (and himself), trading hot dog bites for towels, and all-in-all being the inveterate weirdo he is. And the lot of them playing around in an open fire hydrant like he suggested is the perfect finale.
Overall, a firmly enjoyable episode with a great idea at its center and some crack comic pairings.
