Recap / Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia S 11 E 03 The Gang Hits The Slopes

"Dudes... let's shred."

— Mac

The gang takes a skiing vacation in the Poconos, where they discover that Frank plans to buy the mountain and turn it into an exclusive resort for rich CEOs unless his old rival can beat Dennis in a race. Meanwhile, Mac and Dee attempt to relive the resort's 80s glory days, and Charlie hits it off with a European model named Tatiana.

---

This episode provides examples of the following tropes:

• Affectionate Parody: Of 80s ski movies, as well as the Porky's-style sex comedies of the same era.
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: Dennis reaches new levels of creepy while hitting on Tatiana.
  Dennis: Tatiana, I want you to clean yourself. For I will enter you hard and deep, and it will last for as long or as short as I please. But you will be clean. Only when you are clean will you know my power.
• The Big Race: Dennis is set to race against Drisko to decide the fate of the mountain, with the loser being banned from setting foot on it for thirty years. He ends up racing Charlie instead when Drisko is arrested for sexual assault.
• Call-Back: Mac wears the duster at the beginning of the episode.
• Cool Old Guy: Subverted, Drisko presents himself as this, but in reality, he's a pathetic loser and a sexual deviant who is stuck in the past.
• Continuity Nod: Charlie states at the beginning of the episode that he doesn't like leaving Philly.
• Creator Cameo: Drisko is played by actor Dean Cameron, who is most known for starring in the Ski School movies that this episode directly parodies. Notice the sound when he is first introduced.
• Deconstructive Parody: Of raunchy 80s comedies like Better Off Dead and Ski School. The episode mocks several of the cliches such as the mountain PA focusing on the actions of the main characters despite there being thousands of people there. It also shows how disturbing guys leering after nude women all the time is and what happens when those "cool kids" grow up into even more skeevy adults.
  • To underdog films in that era. In real life, the more experienced and polished athlete usually comes out on top. Despite having both of his ankles broken.
• Determinator: Dennis is so obsessed with winning the race he crawls to the finish line after breaking his ankles.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Charlie, Mac and Dee are appalled by Drisko's creepy antics such as pulling women's tops off and spying on them in the showers. He sees it as harmless pranking, but they rightfully point out that it amounts to sexual assault.
    Dee: I'd also like to remove myself from the sexual predator team.
  • If Drisko is to be believed, he would never ejaculate in his friend's burrito. Later revelations show he would probably do it to other people's burritos, so he clearly values friendship.
• Evil Laugh: Dennis develops a high-pitched cackle worthy of any eighties movie villain.
• Foreshadowing: Frank referring to the miniature of the mountain as a "candy mountain" is a hint towards the fact that almost all the events in the episode are a part of a distraction he's set up and he only cares about the mountain so that he can frack it and drain it of its resources.
• Hammerspace: Charlie keeps pulling out beer bottles seemingly from nowhere during a conversation with Dennis.
  Dennis: Where are those coming from?!
  • Doubles as a Brick Joke, as they were likely the two bottles Dee gave Charlie at the beginning of the episode.
• Hidden Depths: Mac, Dennis and Dee all turn out to be world-class skiers.
• Interactive Narrator: The PAs are entirely focused on the gang's activities and know everything about their actions the second it happens, no matter how implausible, which Charlie points out after he tells Dennis he doesn't want to race him and the PA instantly announces him dropping out and knows his full name, despite their conversation taking place in a mostly empty lobby. While rest of the weird events in the episode can be explained by Frank setting up the entire scenario as a distraction, even he doesn't have any idea who's making the PAs.
• Insult Backfire:
  Dee: Sorry, Frank, we thought you were some jerk-off who bought the mountain.
  Frank: I am the jerk-off who bought the mountain.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Lampshaded by Mac and Dee as Drisko is arrested for his multiple sex crimes.
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: Drisko has difficulty getting himself hard when he wants to initiate his "prank" on the women in the shower.
• Manchild: Drisko is very immature for his age. Borders on Psychopathic Manchild as it becomes obvious he's a sexual predator.
• Manipulative Bastard: Frank reveals at the end of the episode that he never planned to build a ski resort and he set up the race as a distraction so that he could frack the mountain without anyone noticing.
• Naïve Newcomer: Charlie is the only member of the gang who has never been skiing before and doesn't understand the rules of the mountain.
• Nostalgia Filter: Drisko longs for the glory days of the eighties when life on the mountain was one big party.
• Only Sane Man: Charlie keeps pointing out how ludicrous it is that the mountain's PA system keeps mentioning the gang by name and narrating their activities despite the fact that there are hundreds of other people on the mountain, and is utterly bewildered by how seriously Dennis takes the race. He decides to get on board with it all when Tatiana propositions him, however.
  • Mac and Dee also are appalled over the lecherous behavior that Drisko conducts and calls out how creepy that kind of behavior is.
• Out-of-Character Moment: The episode is largely a Bizarro Episode where the gang behaves differently than they have in the past. This is all repeatedly Hand Waved as being because things work differently "on the mountain".
  • Mac and Dee are unusually nice, siding with ski resort's underdogs against Dennis and Frank. Throughout their time with Drisko, they are quick to point out how wrong his perverted antics are and ultimately change their minds about him when they find out that he's a sexual predator rather than Cool Old Guy they initially thought him to be.
  • Dennis and Frank are their usual, horrible selves, albeit with a dash of 80s villainy. Frank is the greedy, corporate executive looking to buy the mountain and Dennis is the vain, competitive athlete obsessed with being a champion.
  • Charlie, of all people, is the Only Sane Man, constantly questioning the logic behind all of the 80s ski movie cliches that no one else seems to be bothered by.
• Overly Long Gag: Charlie's sex scene with Tatiana, which shows them in a variety of increasingly implausible positions and ends with him playing the saxophone naked.
• Paste Eater: Charlie eats one of the plastic trees from Frank's model resort, believing it to be made of candy, although Dennis also claims that he heard Frank say that it was a candy mountain.
• The Peeping Tom: Drisko drills a hole in the wall of the women's locker room to spy on them showering. Later, Charlie also does this after inadvertently stumbling on Tatiana bathing nude in a hot tub.
• Police Brutality: After Drisko sexually assaults one of the police officers, two of the officers start viciously beating him with clubs, continuing even after he falls flat on the ground, defenseless. Dee and Mac are momentarily thrown by the display of violence before admitting that it's more than likely what Drisko deserves.
• Sensual Slav: Tatiana, the Bulgarian model-slash-prostitute Charlie sleeps with.
• Serious Business: Dennis treats the race as such, and becomes enraged when Charlie doesn't do the same.
• Sickening "Crunch!": When Dennis attempts a jump and breaks both his ankles during the race.
• Sidetracked by the Analogy: Frank asks his rival, Drisko, "How're they hanging?". Drisko interprets "them" to refer to his testicles, and informs him that he lost one of them to a prostate thing. Frank responds that one of his is disconnected too. They both briefly forget what they were talking about.
• Ski-Resort Episode: The episode has The Gang go to a ski resort in the Poconos.
• STD Immunity: Averted. Charlie mentions that, after sleeping with Tatiana all those times, he should probably get tested. Frank, who hired her, agrees.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Drisko is eliminated from the race when he's arrested for sexual assault. The party girls who were okay with him tearing off their tops were actually hookers hired by Frank, to the surprise of nobody in the gang.
  • When Charlie and Dennis get in a ski-race you don't see an underdog moment where Charlie suddenly becomes good at skiing and beats Dennis. Charlie is still an inexperienced skier and gets curb stomped as result. Even when Dennis had both of his ankles broken, he still managed to score a victory.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Roach, one of Drisko's roommates, angrily asks if he "came in his burrito". Given that Drisko is shown to be a sexual predator, Roach's paranoia is actually pretty justifiable.
• Two-Person Pool Party: Charlie ends up having sex with Tatiana multiple times after she invites him to join her in the hot tub.
• Underdogs Never Lose: Averted; Charlie still loses the race even after Dennis breaks both of his ankles, due to the latter dragging himself the final few inches over the finish line.
• Vacation Episode: The episode centers on the gang taking a skiing vacation in the Poconos.
• You Keep Using That Word: Dee and Charlie point out that Drisko's "prank" of drilling a hole in the wall of the women's showers and sticking his dick through it isn't really a prank at all but a sex crime.

---