"Charlie Gets Crippled" is the first episode of the second season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Dennis and Dee's father Frank abruptly appears, causing Dennis to accidentally run Charlie over with his car. After seeing Charlie get attention from strippers over being in a wheelchair, the Gang decides to feign disabilities in order to garner sympathy from others.
Recap
10:15 PM on a Monday
Dennis, drunk driving to the strip club, hits Charlie with his Range Rover when his father Frank spooked him in the parking lot. At the hospital, Frank explains to his children that their mother is a whore and they are getting a divorce. He also tells them that he is giving all his money to charity and starting a new life. Dennis and Dee storm off, and Mac and Charlie decide to take Frank to a strip club to cheer him up.
At the strip club, two strippers feel bad for Charlie because he is in a wheelchair, but Frank ends up having sex with both strippers in Charlie's apartment. The next morning Frank finds Charlie asleep in his wheelchair in the hallway and manages to convince him to crash with him for six months.
Meanwhile, Dennis and Dee raid their parents home for valuables. Back at Paddy's, they gloat over what they took and what the other didn't get and break some sentimental items of each others. Mac arrives in a wheelchair and convinces Dennis to get one so they can pick up chicks. Dee is flabbergasted by their actions. At the mall, Dennis and Mac's strategy fails when they see Dee in walking sticks. They have a wheelchair race to see who gets to claim they have polio but just end up fighting each other on the floor.
Charlie and Frank walk to the strip club again and Charlie decides to dress as a war hero to get even more strippers. Rather than buying a uniform, he buys a 1960s hippie outfit and claims he was in 'Nam. This doesn't work and Frank manages to get the strippers again. Charlie has to sleep in the alley outside Paddy's.
Charlie returns to the strip club one more time where he sees Frank in a motorized scooter. They begin to fight in the parking lot. Just then, Dee walks buy with a man she recently met at the mall while pretending to be disabled. A drunk Dennis drives Mac to the strip club but falls asleep at the wheel, crashing the car into the people outside the strip club.
At the hospital, everyone who pretended to be crippled is now crippled: Dee, Frank, Mac, and Dennis. They begin to fight but Frank shushes them and they decide to go for ice cream, to celebrate the fact that nobody was seriously hurt. As they leave the room, they pass the man who was with Dee, now in a full body cast.
Alliances
- Dennis and Dee - Temporarily team up to steal stuff from Frank's house before he gives it all away to poor people. Alliance quickly breaks down as they fight over who should get what.
- Dennis and Mac - Decide they should go to mall to pretend to be crippled and get things for free. Alliance quickly breaks down as they fight over which disease to have (they both want to have polio) and when they fight in the middle of the mall.
- Charlie and Frank - Team up to get strippers to sleep with them by playing off Charlie's injuries. Alliance breaks down when Frank decides to pretend to be crippled so he could get all the strippers instead of Charlie and "cut out the middleman."
Cast
Starring
- Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly
- Glenn Howerton as Dennis Reynolds
- Rob McElhenney as Mac
- Kaitlin Olson as Dee Reynolds
- Danny DeVito as Frank Reynolds
Guest Starring
- Kristoffer Polaha as Male Employee
- Natasha Leggero as Stripper #1
- Sara Erikson as Stripper #2
Co-Starring
- Tiffany Haddish as Stripper #3
- Josh Fadem as Wayne
Trivia
- Since Danny DeVito was only available for 20 days for shooting during season 2, the production crew had to work on all 10 episodes of the season at once, often shooting scenes from multiple episodes in one day.
- Charlie's "war hero" costume from this episode is based on famed Vietnam war protester and writer, author of the Born on the Fourth of July memoir Ron Kovic.
- As Mac and Dennis are talking about how bad they feel after running into a disabled guy in the mall, they pass a suit store. The girl and the guy working there are looking into the camera and the girl waves to the camera.
- Before Dennis smashes Dee's China lamp at 09:20 the door to the office clearly shows the "Private" sign but when the camera looks back up from the smashed lamp a large white sign has been pinned to the office door just below the bottom of the "Private" sign. Clearly visible at 09:26.
- This is the final episode where the intro starts with the title of the show (and only then - title of the episode).
- The band Sass Dragons used a sample of Charlie's dialogue from this episode in their song titled "Heroin (Don't Do)"
- In this episode, Frank only agrees to pay Charlie's rent for six months, but as of the Season Nine finale "The Gang Squashes Their Beefs" he is still paying the rent long after that six month period has passed.
- First appearance of Frank Reynolds, who would then go on to become a main character.
- Charlie mentions to the stripper that his best friend (Dennis) ran over him with his car. However, in the 4th season episode, Mac's Banging the Waitress, Charlie says that Mac is his best friend, which causes Dennis to act out during that episode.
- Frank refers to Charlie as his "crippled boy" to garner sympathy from a stripper, foreshadowing the likelihood of this being true from "Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad" onward.
Quotes
- Charlie: Okay Dennis, I need to borrow twenty dollars!
- Dennis: What, dude?!
- Charlie: Just give me some money man!
- Dennis: Why don't you ever have any money?
- Charlie: Dee, monies?
- Dee: No way.
- Charlie: What are you gonna do at the strip club?
- Frank: I don't know... I've been manically depressed for the past couple of years... I feel like I just need a serious change or I'm gonna kill myself...
- Mac: Right, so when you say you're gonna give away your money to poor people, do you mean like Mexico poor, or can it be like me and Charlie poor?
- Frank: Well I haven't given it that much thought.
- Dennis: Dee, you scared the shit out of me. What are you doing?
- Dee: Same thing you're doing. I'm not letting dad give all this shit to poor people.
- Dennis: Alright, hey I got here first though. I'm taking the plasma TV and I'm taking the fish tank.
- Dee: How come you get to pick and choose?
- Dennis: It's not that I get to pick and choose, it's that I'm a man and I'm strong. I can carry heavy things. You're a woman, you're weak and... you can't.
- Dee: You're a woman and you're weak.
- Dennis: That doesn't make any sense.
- Dee: You don't make any sense.
- Charlie: [in a wheelchair and army vet attire] This costume, the chicks is gonna go crazy all over it.
- Frank: Maybe you should let me do all the talking.
- Charlie: No, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. So watch and learn.
- Stripper: Awww, look at you sweetie, what happened?
- Charlie: (shouting) Viet-goddamn-nam, that's what happened! Go get me a beer, bitch!
- Dennis: But I love the guy... Alright? He's family, you know... I mean we've been through a lot together. Okay? So... You know.. Is it wrong for me to love him.. I d'know...
- Mac: If I have to listen to you talk about this stupid god damn stuffed elephant anymore, I am gonna punch you in your neck...
- Dennis: HEY! HEY!! Mr. Tibbs was not just some stupid stuffed element... Elephant, okay? He was like a companion to me...
- Mac: STRIP CLUB!
- Dennis: Alright... Let's go...
- Mac: STRIP CLUB!!!
- Dennis: Yeah, lets go to the strip club (arms pumping movement)
- Mac: You're driving.
- Dennis: Alright...
| < Season 1 |
Season 2 | Season > 3 |
| 1. "Charlie Gets Crippled" 2. "The Gang Goes Jihad" 3. "The Gang Gives Back" 4. "Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare" 5. "Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom" 6. "The Gang Runs for Office" 7. "Hundred Dollar Baby" 8. "Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody's Ass" 9. "The Gang Exploits a Miracle" 10. "Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad" |