Dennis: This has got me thinking, guys. It could be really beneficial for us to go out into the world and do some good deeds.
Mac: Maybe helping other people is the best way to help ourselves.
Mac: Maybe helping other people is the best way to help ourselves.
In a selfish bid to improve their karma and make their own dreams come true, the gang decides to renovate the home of a poor Hispanic family, but ends up kidnapping them instead.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Kidnapping: Thanks to the language barrier and the gang's general incompetence, they effectively end up kidnapping the family and holding them hostage while the renovations are taking place.
- Accidental Misnaming: One of the weirdest little twists of the episode.Charlie: I can't believe their name isn't Juarez.
- Affectionate Parody: Of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
- Bag of Kidnapping: Dee claims that she couldn't find any blindfolds, so the gang put black plastic bags over the family's heads in order to maintain the surprise.
- Brownface: Inverted when Mac and Dee make up the family to look more "American" (i.e. white), complete with pale makeup and contact lenses. In Frank's words, they look "freaky as shit".
- Competition Freak: Mac, as lampshaded by Dennis and Charlie when they refuse to let him be part of the renovation team.Charlie: You get so excited about the smashing, and then you make it competitive...
Mac: That's bullshit, because I'm a better smasher than you guys! I should be the head of the smashing team! You wanna have a smash-off?! - Continuity Nod: It's revealed that Dee inherited Barbara's mansion after Dennis broke the terms of her will by allowing Frank onto the property.
- Cooldown Hug: Dennis massages Charlie's shoulders and then hugs him from behind when he starts getting worked up.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Dee tells Frank she deserves the house more than Frank does because of something she read in The Secret. Frank then encourages the gang to commit kidnapping and arson, and enjoys every second of it.
- Eagle Land: The gang want the Juarez family to embrace the most obnoxious stereotypes of American culture.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: Dennis buys a propane torch that he's very excited about using, and eventually ends up destroying the house with it.
- Gilligan Cut:Charlie: I think I know the most extreme way to go about this.
(cut to the gang stood outside the house in the middle of the night, dressed all in black with balaclavas and a wrecking ball) - Hypocritical Humor: Charlie calling the Juarez family's house a "shithole", given his own living standards.
- Improvised Weapon: The wife stabs Frank in the leg with a pair of scissors at one point, causing him to get his gun out in anger.
- Language Barrier: The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the family understand very little English. Dee attempts to overcome this by recalling her high school Spanish, but only manages to make things worse.Dee: (in Spanish) Be easy. Your house is no more. Your life is no more. We are extreme, like television.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The gang attempt to invoke this by doing "good deeds" in the hopes that it will help them get what they want. It ends up playing out in a completely different way when Dee is forced to sign over Barbara's mansion to the Juarez family as compensation for destroying their house.
- Men Don't Cry: The episode begins with Dennis denying that he was crying during Extreme Makeover.
- Product Placement: Discussed and Subverted. Frank and Charlie both point out that Extreme Home Makeover uses an endorsement deal from Sears to get its renovation budget, but Dennis and Charlie don't have that deal, so they just go to a regular unnamed department store.
- Roofless Renovation: Taken to its most extreme conclusion when Dennis and Charlie end up reducing the house to little more than a pile of rubble.
- Serious Business: Charlie takes Extreme Home Makeover very seriously.
- Shout-Out: Mac wants to show the family Apocalypto to help them assimilate better into American culture.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Dennis and Charlie think that the thing little Mexican girls love more than anything in the world is "tacos".
- Take That!: Frank calls Extreme Makeover: Home Edition a manipulative show designed to make people cry and buy stuff. Charlie doesn't believe him, but he can't stop mentioning Sears and how awesome of a chain it is. He also calls The Secret a bunch of bullshit.
- Unwanted Assistance: The episode revolves around the gang's attempts to "help" a poor family by kidnapping them and destroying their home.
- Utility Belt: Dennis and Charlie wear them for the renovation.
- What Would X Do?:Mac: What would Ty Pennington do?
