"Was there anything in Dennis Reynolds' past that would suggest him capable of murder?"
— Narrator
After Maureen Ponderosa is found dead in an alleyway with her neck broken, Dennis becomes the prime suspect in the ensuing murder investigation.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Acting for Two: All examples are in-universe.
- Discussed in the context of Austin Powers. Mac doesn't seem to believe an actor can play two characters in one movie without being "a wizard".
- Invoked with Dee playing Maureen in the reenactment as well as herself. Despite having an executive role in the documentary, Mac doesn't seem to notice this.
- Affectionate Parody: Of True Crime documentaries such as Making a Murderer and The Jinx.
- Ambiguously Evil: The documentary itself leaves open the question of whether or not Dennis really did kill Maureen. Subverted at the very end, however, when it turns out that the documentary was made by Mac and Charlie and there's video footage proving that Maureen's death was an accident that they deliberately left out.
- Ambiguously Human: The person who found Maureen's body couldn't tell if it was a woman or a cat.
- Bad Impressionists: Mac's terrible Borat and Austin Powers impressions. Charlie digs it though.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Dennis killing several crows as a child is treated as a sign that he may have killed Maureen.
- Body Horror: Maureen's ongoing transformation into a cat has arguably reached this level, given that she was planning a procedure to get extra nipples added.
- Call-Back:
- It's mentioned again that Frank once ran a sweatshop in Vietnam.
- One of the images shown of a teenaged Dennis was also used in "Dee Made a Smut Film".
- Maureen's "transition" into a cat, which featured prominently in her last two appearances, becomes an important plot point as a potential motive if Dennis did kill her.
- Creepy Souvenir: Frank tells the detective to look for the missing collar as the murderer may have kept it as a trophy.
- Documentary Episode: Apart from the final scene, the entire episode is filmed in the style of a true crime documentary, complete with dramatic reconstructions and talking head interviews with the gang.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Maureen's transformation into a cat is described in the same language used to talk about transgender issues, and at one point the lead detective explicitly compares the two.Detective Girard: A man wants to turn himself into a woman? Okay, who am I to judge. But really, a cat? What's next, a watermelon?
- False Confession: Charlie claims that Dennis and himself murdered Maureen using a variety of Professional Wrestling moves so the detective will stop interrogating him and let him go watch wrestling. It should be noted that Charlie was on cat tranquilizers at the time, possibly contributing to the confession.
- I'll Never Tell You What I'm Telling You!: Charlie's "I'm not supposed to tell you what's in his safe."
- Incestuous Casting: In-Universe — Dee refused to take part in the documentary unless she was allowed to play the part of Maureen in the reenactment. This, despite Dee being Dennis's twin sister, and Maureen being Dennis's ex-wife.
- Is This Thing Still On?: In a direct parody of Robert Durst's famous confession in The Jinx, Frank excuses himself to go to the bathroom and inadvertently confesses to his crimes, unaware that his mic is still on.
- Human Resources: Played for laughs; Frank admits that whenever a worker died or lost a limb in his sweatshop, he would put the remains in the soup that got fed to the rest of the workforce.
- Killed Offscreen: The episode opens with Maureen's body being found in an alleyway.
- Manipulative Editing: The end shows that Mac and Charlie deliberately edited out a number of things to make Dennis look guilty. Including the camera footage of Maureen's death.
- MST: Mac and Dennis apparently enjoy doing this with the movies they watch, though Mac seems to be under the impression that he actually invented it. He also doesn't appear to grasp the concept of riffing all that well, as apparently he only quotes random out-of-context lines from Borat and Austin Powers that have nothing to do with what's happening onscreen.Dennis: He didn't come up with it, it's just Mystery Science Theater 3000.
- Nothing Is Scarier: While Dennis has a pleasant conversation with the detective, he is left alone in the interrogation room after the detective leaves. The literal second he's gone, Dennis becomes stone-faced and turns to look down the lens of the camera in the room... and doesn't move or blink for two hours.Detective Girard: Twenty-four years on the job... I've never seen anything like it. (tape fast-forwards; Dennis doesn't move) Two hours. (tape fast-forwards again) Never moved. Never blinked. Gives me goosebumps just thinkin' about it.
- Not What It Looks Like: Because of Charlie's apprehension in talking to both Dennis and the detective, it seemed like Charlie knew something about the investigation. In reality, he was doped up on cat tranquilizers.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Dee is still clearly disturbed when recalling that Dennis snapped the necks of crows as a child and admits she still has nightmares about it. Calling herself "old" in her recollection of the trauma is also out of character for her.
- Parental Neglect: Frank admits he neglected Dennis as a child and actually claims this exempts him from blame if Dennis really did kill Maureen.
- Precision F-Strike: Frank makes a sexual comment about a woman after getting out of a taxi. Said woman tells him to "Fuck off, creep."
- The Reveal: The "documentary" was actually just a project made by Mac and Charlie, and Dennis didn't kill Maureen, she fell off the roof while acting like a cat.
- Running Gag: Maureen was still using Dennis's alimony payments to further her transformation into a cat right up until her death.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Dennis shares footage of Frank admitting to the crimes he committed in the sweatshop in Vietnam, Frank excuses himself to go to the bathroom... while we are clearly shown him fleeing the building and hopping into a cab in order to head to Paddie's. But after the cabbie hears his story, and tells him his actions could be defended under "Statue of Limitations", Frank has the cabbie turn around.
- Shout-Out: Mac's idea of MSTing is just making references to Borat and Austin Powers (MST3K itself, obviously, gets a huge nod in the process).
- Sickening "Crunch!": Can be heard in the background when Dennis' sister tells the story of him snapping a crow's neck as a kid.
- The Sociopath: Dennis comes across as this in the documentary. For example, he killed several crows. He claims to have killed the first one "to put it out of its misery." But he explains that he killed the others because he couldn't believe that a crow's neck could snap that easily.
- Special Edition Title: The usual title cards and opening sequence are replaced with cat imagery and clips from the documentary.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In-universe, a sizable chunk of the documentary ends up focusing on Frank's illegal activities in Vietnam, him admitting to destroying evidence related to it, and him sexually harassing an employee at the police station.
- Take That!: Dennis, Mac and Charlie highlight the manipulative and exploitative nature of these kinds of documentaries at the end of the episode.Mac: It's sort of like eating a bag of chips, you know? It's never gonna actually make you full, and at the end you're sick, but you wanna go back for more.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Dennis stares unblinking at a security camera for two hours after the detective leaves the interrogation room.
- Too Dumb to Live: Maureen fell to her death while frolicking on a rooftop like a cat.
- Trash Landing: Deconstructed with Maureen who tried this but broke her neck in the process.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: It's revealed that Dennis snapped the necks of several crows as a child, something which Dee claims to still have nightmares about.
- Wag the Director: In-Universe. Dee does this during the filming of the re-enactments.
