The Gang goes bowling when Dee joins a bowling team, which leads to a battle of the sexes.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Amicable Exes: While Dennis claims Charlie's presence will psyche out the Waitress, he amicably compliments her hair and while she manipulates him, it's more for the game than out of personal animosity.
- Anti-Climax: Dee's mental victory over Dennis is deflated when everyone but the Waitress left in the middle of her roll, with the Waitress not giving a shit, leaving the contest unconcluded and Dee baffled.
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Charlie loses all interest in bowling when he notices a birthday party being held in the arcade. Dennis has to keep finding him when it's his turn and he runs off immediately after he's bowled.
- Batman Gambit: The Waitress tricks Dennis into breaking his dominant hand in a Strength tester machine by goading his fragile masculinity.
- By the Power of Grayskull!: Parodied. Dennis "summons the very fact that he is a man" to help him win the strength game against the Waitress. He does win, at the cost of breaking every single bone in his hand.
- Centipede's Dilemma: The Waitress makes Charlie miss all of his rolls by asking him where he puts his elbow when he bowls.
- Character-Driven Strategy:
- While Dee shows some impressive bowling skills, all of Dee's skill plummets when Dennis is around.
- Dennis is a fairly average bowler, relying on the psychological hold he has on his sister to make her flunk.
- Frank manages to get a strike by slowly rolling his ball, reflecting his age, his Trollish behavior and his role as the
Magnificent Bastard. - Charlie is pretty good when he bowls, but only when he isn't consciously focusing on the game. This may be a Call-Back to prior episodes, where despite the janitorial skills he frequently displays, he fails at being an Almighty Janitor when he actually tries to do it without thinking.
- Mac lampshades that "dominance" is his sporting style. While he's actually not that bad of a bowler at first, he's also very easily goaded into making careless mistakes, instantly making a gutterball when Gail implies that he can't spin the ball and make a strike.
- Artemis admits to being a garbage player when she's not in-character (and she also intentionally throws a gutter ball as part of her character as well).
- Continuity Nod:
- Ryan and Liam note they got out of the video rental business.
- Gail indicates an attraction to Mac, and later ditches the game to have a three way with Frank and Artemis. She tried to hook up with both guys in The Gang Gives Frank An Intervention.
- Mac repeats his "stride, stride, stride, execute" chant from "Mac and Charlie: White Trash."
- As indicated by the bowling alley menu, the McPoyles still really like milk.
- Liam McPoyle comically struggles to sign a document because of his lack of depth perception.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Even as kids, Dennis couldn't handle Dee doing something without him and so actively tried to destroy her fun.
- Depraved Bisexual: Artemis and Gail ditch the game to have a three way with Frank.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The bowling alley menu lists the McPoyle Special (with extra mayo, warm condensed milk, and family secret sauce) for $16.69, as well as warm milk.
- Force and Finesse:
- Discussed in the beginning of the episode with Mac. Because of his desire to "dominate", he puts too much force into his pool strikes that the cue ball flies off the table. Ironically, his forceful play makes him a good bowler, but Gail manipulates him into trying to spin the ball, in which his misapplication of force and finesse fails epically.
- In the strength game, the Waitress uses a well-executed kick to make 823 points. Dennis, relying on "the very fact that he is a man", goes for a raw punch that scores higher, but he ends up breaking all of the bones in his hand in the process, meaning he can't bowl.
- Genre Savvy: At the start of the episode, Dee has caught on that whenever she has her own "thing" that doesn't involve the Gang, they immediately involve themselves in it. Wouldn't you know it, she finds that the Gang had followed her to the Bowling alley and immediately challenges her team in a Girls vs. Boys Plot.Dee: Can't you please just leave and let me have one thing to myself?
Dennis: Nah. - Gilligan Cut: Dennis says there's no way they're going bowling with Dee. Cut to title card.
- Girls vs. Boys Plot: Dennis challenges Dee's team in an attempt to prove male superiority.
- Glass Cannon: In the punching machine challenge, Dennis gets a score of 999, beating the Waitress's own score of 823. However, this effort winds up destroying his hand.
- Hypocritical Heartwarming: While the Waitress does hate Dee and regrets even inviting her to the game, she hates Dennis more and doesn't like how he messes with Dee's head to get her to lose the game (while also being incredibly misogynistic).
- Hypocritical Humor: Gail the Snail calling Dee gross.
- Hypocrite: Dennis accuses Dee's team (and sports-playing women in general) of being vindictive and inherently uncooperative, unable to help themselves in tearing each other down. Of course this is right after he and the other guys crash the Bowling alley, challenge them unprompted and uses psychological conditioning to sabotage Dee in the first place.
- Incest Subtext: Dee doesn't pay Dennis attention for five seconds and he makes it everyone else's (especially her) problem, apparently doing so since they were kids. He also had his dick in hand while they were talking, and wanted Mac to hold her down and rip open her coat. For Dee's part, she instinctively acts like Dennis when she takes charge of the group, knew full well he had a boner, and it's obvious she loves her brother despite also wanting to murder him, just wanted one thing to herself.
- Incompatible Orientation: Gail gets turned on by Mac despite his sexuality.
- Laser-Guided Karma: For being such a misogynistic piece of shit who never wants Dee to do anything outside of him, Dennis breaks every bone in his hand.
- Lost in Character: Played for Laughs. Artemis initially puts on a good bowling performance because it is part of her play's character but purposefully bowls a gutter ball for her last frame because her play's character does the same in the third act.
- Manipulative Bastard: Dennis's strategy amounts to having each member of his team go up against the opposing team member most thrown off by their presence. Dee later returns the favor by having her team get in the heads of the men.
- Minor Injury Overreaction: Ryan's "horrible" story of why he doesn't bowl: he got his hand pinched by the ball return. He had a bruise for a week.
- Mirror Character: Dennis and Dee both try and win through manipulation, and Dee sees herself as the leader of the female group, but really is an arrogant Control Freak, like her brother.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: Ryan and Liam have moved on from the video store business to running a bowling alley to explain their presence in the aforementioned bowling alley.
- Offscreen Teleportation: When the guys needle Dee with questions in the cold open, Mac is abruptly at Dee's left when he was just at the pool table to her right in the background .
- Out of Focus: Frank doesn't do much beyond crave chili cheese fries and flirt with Artemis.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Dee finally manages to knock down a single pin, despite interference from Dennis, only to find Gail and Artemis ran off to have sex with Frank, and the rest of the Gang left to see a Sixers game. Therefore, no one witnessed her victory except the apathetic Waitress.
- Shout-Out:
- Dennis asks why Dee looks like Carmen Sandiego.
- Ryan licks his bowling ball before rolling, and he and Liam are later seen vigorously polishing their bowling balls - two classic routines of The Jesus.
- Dee bowls a perfect strike while "Disco Inferno" plays in the background, a reference to a similar scene in Kingpin.
- In the background of the arcade is a Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)-themed pinball table.
- Straw Misogynist: Dennis is in full force here, his every other line being about how women are incapable of working together or beating men in sports.Dennis: Women are devious and self-destructive and always default to using their insidious venom on the most sought-after victim of all... each other.
- Too Much Information: Gail the Snail notes she went down on someone in the parking lot, prompting a disgusted reaction from Dee.
