Dennis: Nobody can drink that much.
Frank: Not with an attitude like that.
The gang tries to break Wade Boggs' record of drinking 70 beers during a cross-country flight, but Frank and Dennis soon get distracted trying to compete for entry in the mile high club.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: The "desert trash" girl who Dennis hooks up with on the plane becomes this afterwards, calling him her boyfriend and convincing another passenger to swap seats with her so that they can sit together. Dennis ends up getting off the plane in North Dakota just to escape her.
- An Odd Place to Sleep: Dee ends up crashing on the baggage carousel at LAX after finishing her 71st beer.
- Black Widow: Frank suggests that the classy woman flying alone who Dennis initially sets his sights on is on the run after killing her husband.
- Bland-Name Product: The gang drinks 'Premium Light Beer' during their drinking contest.
- Call-Back:
- Mac once again loses the gang's chugging contest.
- While pretending to be a doctor, Frank introduces himself as "Mantis Tobboggan, MD".
- The Cameo: The actual Wade Boggs appears to Charlie as a hallucination.
- Comically Missing the Point: Charlie when Mac is trying to explain his plan to get the extra beers from the cargo hold.Mac: Charlie, we're not on a wide-bodied DC-10 for nothing.Charlie: Right. We bought tickets.Mac: ...Well, yes, but we chose a wide-bodied DC-10 for a purpose.Charlie: To get up in the sky.Mac: Let me walk you through it.
- Competition Freak: Mac still manages to be this despite the fact that he's not even in the competition, encouraging Charlie to start a "Sosa-McGuire" rivalry with Dee.
- Crazy-Prepared: Mac packed a duffle bag with 100 beers and checked it into the cargo hold just in case the group was cut off by the stewardess. He even made sure the flight the gang took was in a DC-10 aircraft as it's one of the few plane models where one can travel freely between the passenger cabin and cargo hold.
- Deadly Euphemism: Subverted; Dennis tells Frank to "take care" of the frat boy and later clarifies that he didn't mean kill him after Frank slips the kid a large amount of sleeping pills.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Mac states that the "integrity of the game will be compromised" if the others find out about Dee's "performance-enhancing drugs," a clear reference to the MLB steroid scandal.
- Drinking Contest: The gang is competing to beat Wade Boggs' record of drinking 70 beers on a cross-country flight.
- Dwindling Party: First of all Dennis gets off the plane at North Dakota to escape his "girlfriend", then Frank collapses after too many beers, and finally Dee passes out on the baggage carousel at the airport. Only Mac and Charlie actually make it to the playing field, and of the two of them only Charlie is actually competing.
- Episode on a Plane: Save for the last scene, the entire episode takes place on the plane.
- Flyover Country: Dennis does not have a high opinion of North Dakota, calling it a "barren wasteland of a state".
- Innocuously Important Episode: The episode seems like regular hi jinx of the week for The Gang until season 12's Dennis' Double Life reveals what happened after Dennis got off the plane in North Dakota.
- Hypocrite: Dennis dismisses the woman Frank has scouted as "North Dakota trash" who is "far beneath a gentleman like myself" but ends up sleeping with her when the woman he picks out turns out to be married.
- Is There a Doctor in the House?: The stewardess asks whether there's a doctor on board when the frat boy takes a turn for the worse. Frank pretends to be one in order to avoid the plane having to make an emergency stop.
- Just Plane Wrong: Mac states that the aircraft they're flying in is a DC-10. The last time a DC-10 was flown for passenger service by an American airline was in 2007 while this episode takes place in 2015.
- Know When to Fold Them: Discussed. When Frank tells Mac to give him another beer, Mac points out the flight is almost over and he's 40 beers behind Charlie and Dee and advises him to "just sit back and enjoy the show". Frank tries to prove he can catch up, but collapses after just one beer.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Mac remarks that it's "kinda gloomy" in LA, alluding to the title of the show — which, for extra irony, is often filmed in LA.
- Lazy Bum: After Charlie hits Mac's first pitch to the outfield out of the total of 3 out of 10, Mac decides he doesn't want to run all the way out there to get the ball since he didn't think Charlie'd be able to hit the ball that far, especially considering how drunk he is and thus didn't think to bring any extras, declaring him as the winner of the challenge.
- Memetic Mutation: Mention Wade Boggs anywhere on the internet, and you can guarantee someone will reply with a quote from this episode, most likely one of Charlie's quotes falsely assuming Boggs is dead, or Mac's response to Charlie that Wade Boggs is very much still alive.
- Moving the Goalposts: Inverted: Charlie manages to knock Mac's pitch to the outfield at the end of the episode, but since that was the only ball Mac brought, rather than get it back, Mac just decides to say that Charlie beat Bogg's record.
- Mile-High Club: Frank and Dennis compete to see who can enter it first. Frank also seems to be under the impression that it's something he's just come up with, and refers to it as the "air sex society." Additionally, Frank is disappointed to learn from the flight attendant that the airline does not sell condoms mid-flight.
- Noodle Implements: The items that Frank requests while pretending to be a doctor.Frank: You want this young man to live, you're gonna have to get me some aspirin, a roll of duct tape, a bag of peanuts and four beers.
- Only Sane Man: Mac ends up being this by virtue of being the only one not drinking, having lost the chugging contest. He designates himself "the commissioner" and spends most of the episode becoming increasingly exasperated by the rest of the gang's Alcohol-Induced Idiocy.
- The Peeping Tom: Mac hides behind a pile of luggage to watch Dennis have sex in the hold.
- Running Gag:
- Charlie thinks Wade Boggs is dead, and the contest is to honor his memory.
Mac: Again, Wade Boggs is still alive.- Dee keeps on mistakenly calling Boggs "Boss Hogg", a character from The Dukes of Hazzard
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Dennis abandons the plane (and the contest) during their layover in North Dakota, so he can escape his new 'girlfriend.'
- Serious Business: Lampshaded by Dennis at the beginning of the episode, when he asks if they aren't taking the competition a little too seriously.
- Sherlock Scan: Parodied when Dennis uses this technique to pick out a woman to seduce. Most of his deductions are based around her not wearing a wedding ring. Turns out she just takes off her ring when she flies.Dennis: Frank, of the 206 passengers on this flight, 98 of them are women. But only one of them is a suitable candidate: 44G. Notice how she glances forlornly at the empty seat next to her. It was meant for someone special. And the tan line on her ring finger suggests the wound is still fresh, leaving her vulnerable. Furthermore, when we hit turbulence earlier, she giggled, telling me she's a bit of a thrill-seeker.
- He fails again with the second woman he seduces, believing she's 'Great Plains' trash who will be getting off the plane in North Dakota. But she's actually 'Desert Trash' from California. He admits that in hindsight her gecko tattoos were a dead giveaway.
- Shout-Out: Dee keeps getting Wade Boggs confused with Boss Hogg of The Dukes of Hazzard.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Mac and Dennis claim that movies such as Executive Decision and Passenger 57 have taught them that there's a secret hatch that will allow them to move freely about the plane.
- Tampering with Food and Drink: Frank gives the frat boy a beer laced with twelve sleeping pills after Dennis voices his concerns about the kid cutting into the plane's finite supply of beer.
- Travel Montage: The gang's progress is occasionally intercut with the standard "plane moving over a map of the States" image, but with beer cans instead of the usual red line.
- Worst Aid: When the frat boy has a seizure, Frank "treats" him by duct-taping him to his seat and taping his mouth shut.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: When Charlie and Dee each finish their 71st beer, they began celebrating. Then Mac reminds them that the beer was only the first half of the challenge. They still have to go to a baseball field and bat 3/5 since that's what Wade Boggs used to do. Dee passes out on the baggage carousel while Charlie manages to hit the only ball Mac pitches.
