Charlie: I'm packing a couple extra pairs of underwear in case I get an atomic wedgie.
Mac: That's not gonna happen, dude! We're adults now.
The gang attend their high school reunion and quickly end up regressing back to their teenage selves. Mac and Charlie find that they're still objects of ridicule for their old bullies, while Dee is thrilled to finally be accepted by the popular crowd and Dennis discovers that he might not have been as popular as he thought. (Part 1 of 2)
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: Dee turns on the gang pretty quickly when she's accepted by the cool kids, despite her insistence that she's actually plotting revenge on their behalf.
- Affectionate Pickpocket: Cricket takes the opportunity to hug most of the attendees while dressed up in his priest garb, stealing their valuable in the process.
- Badass Boast: Dennis gives a lot of these, seemingly unaware that everyone is laughing at him behind his back.Dennis: I'm gonna stay right here, and I'm gonna wait for my minions to swarm me. And swarm they will, Tim! Alone you'll be. Such sad little games we play.
- Big Man on Campus: Dennis thinks he was this in high school, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
- Butt-Monkey: The Waitress gets this even worse than the gang, to the extent that even Frank and Maureen end up ditching her.
- Call-Back: Dee calls Frank "jerk turkey".
- Class Reunion: The central conceit of the episode.
- Comically Missing the Point: Dee's interpretation of the song "Baby Got Back".Dennis: Sir Mix-a-Lot was not talking about women whose backs have recovered from a horrific spinal disorder! He was talking about gorgeous black women and their big, beautiful black butts.
- Continuity Cavalcade: Almost every character previously mentioned to have gone to high school with the gang puts in an appearance, including Rickety Cricket, the Waitress, Maureen Ponderosa, Brad Fisher, Stash and Tim Murphy.
- Continuity Nod:
- Dee claims that Charlie was the class clown in high school while Mac was the main drug dealer, which is pretty much how Dennis described them in "Underage Drinking: A National Concern".
- From the same episode, Dennis is still angry at Tim Murphy for sleeping with his prom date and Frank steals a nametag belonging to Nicki Potnick, whose car the gang mentioned crashing in high school.
- Brad Fisher is now covered in scars after Charlie gifted him a box of hornets.
- Cricket tells the popular crowd how Dee lied about being in love with him and ruined his life.
- Mac mentions that his dog Poppins once gave him ringworm.
- Maureen notes that Dennis is late on his alimony payments.
- Crazy-Prepared: Charlie packs extra underwear at the beginning of the episode in case someone gives him an atomic wedgie.
- Embarrassing Nickname: In addition to Dee's "Aluminum Monster" moniker, we learn that Mac and Charlie also had these in high school: Mac was "Ronnie the Rat" because he was a narc who ratted on the other drug dealers, and Charlie was "Dirtgrub" because of his poor personal hygiene and weird eating habits.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Mac repeatedly tells Charlie to stop joining in with the others when they laugh at him.
- Extreme Omnivore: Adriano Calvanese apparently got Charlie to eat spiders on at least one occasion.
- Foreshadowing: At the start of the episode, Dennis says the worst thing to be in high school was to be utterly forgettable. Cue The Reveal that he was a delusional nobody who thought he was a Big Man on Campus.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: The gang immediately ditch Frank when the security guard refuses him entry, and Dennis spends the rest of the episode trying to get rid of him after he sneaks in anyway.
- He Cleans Up Nicely: Cricket shows up in his priest uniform claiming to have got his life back together, and to his credit, he does look much better than the last time we saw him. Eventually subverted, however, as it's revealed that he's still homeless and was just trying to steal from everybody.
- Hypocritical Humor: Lampshaded:Mac: I'm not gonna take some shit from some bartender!Charlie: You're a bartender.Mac: He doesn't know that!
- Jerkass: Adriano Calvanese still acts like a high school bully despite being well into his thirties.
- The Lad-ette: Dee chugs beer from a funnel before the gang go into the event.
- Manchild: Heavily implied to be the case with Adriano and his friends. They still act like bullies, despite being in their thirties, and Adriano states that he was going to let Dee "jerk me off" later.
- Nausea Fuel: In-universe, when Brad attempts to give Charlie a wedgie, his underwear is apparently so filthy that it comes out looking like stretched cheese and disintegrates in Brad's hands, completely horrifying him."I've been waiting a long time for this — euuuggghhhh, GOD!"
- The Nondescript: Dee describes the Waitress as "the most forgettable girl in the school". And for once it's not just a case of the gang being selfish jerks; nobody else remembers her either, and the event organizers forgot to make her a name tag.
- Not on the List: Because he is neither a former student nor faculty, Frank isn't allowed in the reunion until he manages to acquire someone's name tag
- Off the Wagon: The Waitress is a drunken mess throughout the entire episode.
- Old Friend, New Gender: Played for laughs when Frank steals Nicki Potnick's nametag.Adriano: Looks like you had a rough couple of years there, Nicki.Frank: Uh, yeah. I'm a guy now.
- Pet the Dog: Mac and Frank seem genuinely concerned when Charlie runs off to the bathroom to huff chemicals after being mocked by the cool kids.
- The Pig-Pen: It has apparently been a very long time since Charlie has washed his underwear; it literally disintegrates in the hands of the person giving him a wedgie.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Lampshaded by Dee, who states that Adriano and his cronies really love homophobic jokes for some reason.
- She Is All Grown Up: Adriano comments on how Dee's looks have improved now that she doesn't have to wear the back brace and invites her to join the cool kids as a result.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Dennis's claims of being the most popular kid in the school are heavily implied to be true only in his mind as he's mostly ignored by the actual popular crowd.
- Status Quo Is God: Because nobody in the gang can be successful for long, Dee is kicked out of the cool clique at the end of the episode after Cricket tells everyone they slept together.
- The Stool Pigeon: Mac was this in high school, and he reverts back to his old ways by snitching on Adriano for printing out extra drink tickets.Mac: Ha, you got in trouble. You got in trouble!Adriano: Wow. Ronnie the Rat strikes again, huh?
- Unfortunate Name: Mac's full name is finally revealed: Ronald McDonald. He initially tries to get out of wearing his nametag for this reason, but Dennis forces him to put it on.Dennis: Well, okay, Ronald McDonald...Mac: Don't call me that!Dennis: Well, it's your name. So, Ronald...
- The Unreveal: The Waitress's real name isn't revealed, as the event organizers didn't make a nametag for her. Word of God says it's not "Nicki Potnick", the nametag Frank stole.
- Wedgie: The popular crowd plus Dee give them to Mac, Charlie and Frank as revenge for Mac ratting out Adriano.
- You Are Fat: Several characters comment on Mac's weight gain.
