"We're gonna dance our asses off!"
— Frank
Charlie's illiteracy gets the gang in trouble (again) when he puts up Paddy's Pub as the grand prize in a radio dance marathon, so the gang must win the competition—against the enemies they've made so far in the series—to keep the bar.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Charlie accidentally puts the bar up as the prize for the dance marathon, resulting in this.
- Accidental Innuendo: Mac and Charlie talking about Dennis "getting cream all over his face".Mac: Cream always rises to the top.
Charlie: And you're like made of cream, dude, and your cream is all over his face, man, you know what I mean, and he hates that shit.
Mac: That pisses him off. I'm always putting my cream all over his face and it pisses him off.- Later:Charlie: I'm about to show you the white-hot cream of an 8th grade boy.
- Later:
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Inverted. The referees automatically disqualify anyone who hits the floor, regardless of the obvious foul play that's going on, with no consequences to the cheater.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Dennis.Charlie: You piece of shit!
Dennis: Yeah, maybe.
Waitress: You piece of shit! Dennis Reynolds, I trusted you!
Dennis: Why?! - The Chessmaster: Dee, believe it or not—she orchestrates most of the dirty tricks and schemes that the Gang uses to take out their competition, and even hides a trump card (Cricket attacking the other dancers) until the last seconds of the contest. Unfortunately, the rest of the Gang refuses to listen to her just because Frank arbitrarily ranked her last on his new ratings system.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: The gang can't seem to stop sabotaging each other, despite the fact that they all lose the bar if one of them doesn't win the contest.
- Competition Freak: Lampshaded at the beginning of the episode when Frank decides to put the gang on a ranking system in order to appeal to their competitive natures and motivate them to actually do their jobs.
- Continuity Nod: Cricket now has hydraulic leg braces after his legs were broken by the Mafia.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Anyone who loses a dance-off is forced to wear a keg around their neck for the remainder of their time in the competition. Both Mac and Dennis end up wearing them after Mac loses to Dennis and Dennis loses to Charlie.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Mac's dance-off against Cricket is over in the space of about two seconds after Cricket's leg braces stop working and he collapses in agony.
- Dancing Is Serious Business: Justified, since the terms of the competition mean that the gang will have to forfeit the bar if they lose.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: When Mac challenges Dennis to a dance-off, he does a move that makes it look as though he's performing fellatio on Dennis.
- Dumbass DJ: Fat Michael and Squirrely D of the Q Crew, who host the dance marathon, are extremely loud and obnoxious.
- The Farmer and the Viper: The Waitress teams up with Dennis, who immediately betrays her and gets her thrown out of the competition. When she furiously yells that she trusted him, his only response is a genuinely baffled (and not unreasonable) "why?"
- Glad I Thought of It: Dennis pulls this on Dee.Dee: This could be a great opportunity to shake things up a bit with the other contestants, you know, use the partner switch to get inside people's heads.
Mac: Why is the person that's ranked last trying to hatch a plan?
Frank: Yeah, I wonder that too.
Dennis: I just came up with an idea, though. This could be a good opportunity to shake things up a bit with the other contestants, you know? Use this partner switch thing to get into people's heads.
Dee: Are you being serious? - Hidden Depths: Charlie's admittedly impressive 8th grade dance routine (that he still remembered after twenty years)to Berlin's "Take My Breath Away," which he uses to beat Dennis in their dance-off. Mac likens it to a ballet.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Dee gets Cricket to try to attack Larry, the only remaining contestant besides herself. Cricket misses and ends up kneecapping Dee, forcing her out of the competition.
- Honor Before Reason: Since Charlie puts Paddy's itself up as the prize for the dance-off, one of the Gang needs to win to keep all of their livelihoods intact. But rather than working together to outlast the rest of the competition, the whole group gets involved in petty squabbles and Frank's ridiculous rating system, systematically taking each other out instead.
- Hypocritical Humor: Another homeless guy derisively calling Cricket a "street rat".
- I Resemble That Remark!: When Frank explains to Mac why he's only third in the ranking system.Mac: What?! Why am I third?!
Frank: Too volatile.
Mac: BULLSHIT!! That is bullshit, Frank! - Incest Subtext: Dennis and Dee are shown slow-dancing at one point, right after the D.J.s tell the contestants to get "sextra close."
- Jerkass Has a Point: The Waitress reacts to Dennis dropping her mid-dance and getting her eliminated by tearfully saying that she trusted him, and he responds with a bemused "Why?". Given how many times he's tricked and manipulated her throughout the series up to that point, he's right that she shouldn't be surprised that he was going to do it again.
- Kick the Dog: Dee's callous rejection of Cricket when he accidentally takes her out of the competition, even after he saved her from eating a sedative-laced brownie earlier on - but on the other hand, he did shatter Dee's kneecap.Dee: Never talk to me again, you goddamn street rat!
- "L" Is for "Dyslexia": Charlie misreads "prize" as "pride" in the competition entry form, and writes down Paddy's as the thing he's most proud of.
- Love Dodecahedron: The dance competition really brings all the (mostly onesided) flirtations among the cast to the fore. Charlie is in love with the Waitress, who hates him but has a serious crush on Dennis. Dennis couldn't care less about the Waitress but tries to put the moves on an attractive woman who's there with her fiance, who Charlie then dances with to make the Waitress jealous, causing Dennis to dance with the Waitress in revenge. Rickety Cricket is still in love with Dee, but also gets a brief Ship Tease with the Waitress when she suggests they join forces. There's also a fair bit of Incest Subtext between Dennis and Dee.
- Made of Iron: Charlie eats enough cough syrup-laced brownies to kill a gorilla, and doesn't hit the ground for hours.Charlie: I can handle my sedatives.
- Manipulative Bitch: Dee manipulates all the petty rivalries and love triangles amongst the gang in order to win the competition as revenge for Frank placing her last in the ranking system. She almost succeeds, but Cricket accidentally takes her out at the last second.
- Martial Arts and Crafts: Mac inserts arbitrary "karate" moves into his dancing. Lampshaded by Dennis, who tells him to wear out the Waitress with his "spastic moves."
- Mating Dance: Dennis pretends to be a dance instructor as an excuse to grind on Gloria.Dennis: Stick your knee into my groin, just like that. Now grind your hips, and pulse your thighs.
- No, You:Mac: Your illiteracy has screwed us again, Charlie!
Charlie: Your illiteracy has screwed us, man!
Mac: That doesn't even make any sense!
Dennis: He's not illiterate! - No Sense of Personal Space: Dennis and Dee are the only ones (not counting manipulation) to take "get sextra close" during slow dancing to heart.
- Non-Indicative Name: The DJs, Fat Michael and Squirrely D, are played by identical twins, and neither looks fatter or squirrelier than the other.
- Not So Above It All: Both Cricket and the Waitress are willing to resort to some underhanded tactics in order to get their revenge on the gang.
- Operation: Jealousy: Dee deliberately invokes this by telling the Waitress to grind on a homeless guy in order to make Dennis jealous. The real reason is to make Charlie jealous and take both the Waitress and Dennis's dance partner out of the competition.
- The Pigpen: When the two of them partner up for the slow dance, Mac complains that he "doesn't even understand" the smell coming from Charlie's body and states that he's never even seen Charlie put on deodorant.
- Phrase Catcher: Several characters refer to Cricket as a "street rat," much to his chagrin.
- Shout-Out:
- When Cricket crashes out of the competition one of the DJs states that "he's fallen and he can't get up," in a reference to the old Life Alert ads.
- According to the Sunny podcast, this episode was an homage to They Shoot Horses, Don't They?.
- Slipping a Mickey: Frank and Cricket team up to make cough syrup filled brownies as revenge when they're both taken out of the competition. Later, Dee manages to get everybody but Dennis, Mac, and the homeless guy to eat them, leaving the competition down to just the four of them.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: As Dee lays on the ground with an injured knee, Frank tries to cheer her up by explaining she's no longer ranked last — Charlie is.
- Touché:Charlie: You piece of shit!
Dennis: Yeah, maybe. - Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Dennis wins the dance-off Mac challenges him to by just standing there looking confused, because Mac's "martial arts"-based routine is just so bad.
