"Having reviewed every bar in Philadelphia, I hereby officially declare Paddy's Pub to be the worst bar in Philly."
— Mac (reading a newspaper review of the bar)
Charlie gets drunk and kidnaps a newspaper critic after he writes a bad review of Paddy's, and the rest of the gangnote decide to hold him hostage in the bar while they figure out how to release him without getting themselves in legal trouble.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Kidnapping: Charlie gets drunk and ends up kidnapping Korman, and the gang spends the rest of the episode trying to figure out a way to release him without inviting legal trouble. Later, Dennis and Dee also somehow manage to kidnap Korman's neighbor Mehar as well.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Charlie mentions that he was drinking before he kidnapped Korman.
- Badasses Wear Bandanas: Discussed when Charlie finds a bandana and he and Mac get into a fight over who should wear it.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: When Mac is reading Korman's initial review at the beginning of the episode:Mac: (reading) "The first thing I noticed about Paddy's Pub is its charm..."
(the others all make general pleased noises)
Mac: (reading) "...it has none." - Big "NO!": Korman does this when Mac and Charlie help him go to the bathroom.
- Big Stupid Doo Doo Head: Dee addresses Korman as "poo-poo pants" at one point.
- Bond One-Liner: Charlie tells Korman that he's "out of time" after smashing his clock with a hammer.
- Call-Back: The gang are shown singing a capella together again.
- Can't Take Criticism: After reading about the poor review their bar got, Dennis, Dee and Charlie confront Korman and threaten to sue (and assault via hammer) him. When that fails, Charlie - in typical Charlie fashion - gets drunk, stalks and kidnaps him.
- Carpet-Rolled Corpse: Charlie suggests doing this to Korman while he's still alive in order to smuggle him into the bar without anyone seeing.
- Chaotic Stupid: Nearly everything Charlie does in this episode is dictated through a lens of blind rage and alcohol, making one bad decision after another without thinking about the consequences and escalating the problem.
- Chekhov's Gun: The beginning of the episode shows the gang setting up a new flatscreen TV and Blu-Ray player in the bar. They're eventually forced to give it to Mehar as a bribe to keep him quiet about the whole kidnapping thing.
- Crime After Crime: After Charlie kidnaps Korman, Dennis and Dee break into his apartment to cover their tracks but discover that they've got the wrong apartment and kidnap Mehar when he walks in on them.
- Cruel Mercy: Korman opts not to tell the police the Gang kidnapped him, since, as he says in his review, leaving them with each other's company is the worst hell they could each receive. Considering each member of the Gang had, and would continue to, deliberately screwed over or messed with one another, he's bang on the money.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The gang respond to Korman giving them a bad review by harassing him at his place of work, kidnapping him, tying him to a chair and verbally abusing him for several hours while forcing him to write a new review.
- Extreme Omnivore: Charlie takes a bite out of a urinal cake in order to make a point about how clean the bathrooms at Paddy's are.Mac: Bro, I just pissed in there. Like, five minutes before you came in.
Charlie: Don't say that now, you're gonna make me look bad. - Good Cop/Bad Cop: Mac and Charlie respectively while dealing with Korman.
- Here We Go Again!: Having narrowly avoided conviction for kidnapping due to their collective ego's and Charlie's poor impulse control, they could just let him have the last word in his second review and wash their hands of the previous day. Instead, they become offended that they were not mentioned by name and decided to go up to him and complain. Charlie stopping for a second to retrieve his hammer implies that the entire episode will play out again, the whole gang not having learned a damn thing.
- Hypocritical Humor: Dennis asking "how's that for class?" after spitting in Korman's coffee.
- The Gang are all offended by the unflattering things Korman wrote about them in his review, and express this by calling him things like "faggy", "retarded", and "overly negative".
- I Have a Family: Mehar tells the gang that he has a diabetic cat in an attempt to convince them to let him go. They just kidnap the cat as well.
- Improvised Weapon: Mac grabs a pool cue while demonstrating his "cooler" abilities.
- The Key Is Behind the Lock: Charlie locks the car keys in the trunk with Mehar, leaving the gang wondering how to get him out.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Korman's first review complains about the Gang yelling at each other, reflecting real life criticism of the show.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Mac and Charlie have this reaction after they're forced to handle Korman's penis to help him go to the bathroom while he's still tied up.Mac: How long do you think we can hold that inside?
Charlie: It's burning me up inside, man! - Lower-Class Lout: Korman's first review describes Dee as a "surly, white trash waitress" and Mac, Dennis and Charlie as "classless boors".
- Miles Gloriosus: Lampshaded when Mac tries and fails to break the car window with a roundhouse kick. Charlie tells him to take at least one karate lesson if he's going to claim to be a master at it.
- Nobody Poops: Averted; Korman announces that he needs to pee almost immediately after Charlie ties him to a chair.
- Noodle Incident: Dee claims that there have been "many stabbings" in the bar.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Dee calls Korman a "faggot" for ordering white wine. She later asks if he would like some lipstick with his chardonnay, before calling him "faggy" again. Dennis also calls him a "straight-up retard".
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Korman delivers an absolutely vicious written one to the gang in his second review."The owners all deserve to rot in jail, though having to spend every day with each other in that vile establishment is a decidedly greater punishment. That is why I decided not to press charges, leaving them to live in the hell on earth that they've created for themselves for the rest of their pathetic and miserable lives."
- Running Gag: The Gang keeps mixing up Korman and Mehar's apartments. They even end up dropping off Korman in his neighbor's apartment.
- Shout-Out:
- Mac compares his bouncing abilities to those of Patrick Swayze in Road House (1989).
- Charlie refers to Korman as "Mr. Man" after tying him up and forcing him to write a new review in a similar fashion to Kathy Bates in Misery..
- Skewed Priorities: After reading Korman's second review of the bar, the gang are mostly irritated that none of them were mentioned by name.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Dennis says this verbatim to Dee at one point.
- Tap on the Head: Charlie seems to think that this is how amnesia works, suggesting that they hit Korman over the head with a bottle and then take him back to his apartment so that he forgets anything ever happened. The rest of the gang point out how stupid this is, but they're eventually forced to go with it when Charlie hits Korman with the bottle anyway. Naturally, it doesn't work and the first things he lists in his second review are all the previously mentioned things they tried to use to make him think it was a dream.
- Trunk Shot: Used twice when the kidnappings of first Korman and then Mehar are revealed to the rest of the gang.
