"The Gang Hits the Slopes" is the third episode of the eleventh season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Synopsis[]
Dennis and Frank battle Dee and Mac for control of the mountain and Charlie learns the rules of the slopes.
Recap[]
9:30 AM, On a Friday, Poconos, PA
Dennis, Dee, Mac and Charlie are at the summit of a ski slope. Charlie is worried about hurting himself, but the rest of the gang are adamant that things work differently "on the mountain" and that they will all be fine. Dee, Mac and Dennis set off down the slope, demonstrating extremely skilled skiing. Charlie arrives at the bottom of the slope much later, screaming and holding two bottles of beer instead of poles, and crashes into a table.
Dee and Mac feel that the mountain is a place for partying and for that reason visit "Babe Manor", an apartment occupied by Dave Drisko, an employee of the resort. They quickly find that Babe Manor is more depressing than anything else, with the other occupants being Turkey, who is trying to win back custody of his daughter, and Roach, whose numerous concussions have left him with a short temper. The Manor is filled with bags of empty beer cans which the occupants collect to pay rent.
Dennis, meanwhile, is focusing his energy on winning the upcoming Sunday's big race. Frank arrives and explains that he has bought the mountain and intends to turn it into a private resort for rich people, and Dennis decides to join forces with him.
At Babe Manor, a large number of young and attractive women have inexplicably appeared to join the party, and all readily go topless at Drisko's request. Frank, Dennis and Charlie crash the party, and it is revealed that Frank and Drisko have a rivalry dating back three decades, when the two raced and the loser, Frank, was banned from the mountain for 30 years. Drisko again challenges Frank to a race, but Frank instead offers to have Dennis race Drisko in his stead, to which Drisko agrees.
Later at the lobby, Dennis has acquired a team of four Swiss "goons" to back him up during the race. Charlie is confused by this, as well as the PA announcer who continually makes addresses having to do with the gang personally, and decides to go hang out with Mac and Dee instead. He finds them in a linen closet where Drisko has drilled a peep-hole into the women's showers as a prank. Equally confused by this, and by Drisko's subsequent attempt to become erect so that he can show his penis to Dee as a prank, Charlie leaves. He comes across a naked Bulgarian woman named Tatiana in a hot tub who invites him in. They spend the night having sex.
The next day, as everyone is gearing up for the big race, the police arrive to arrest Drisko on a number of sexual assault charges, claiming his semen was found at several crime scenes. They remove his hat and wig, revealing that he's actually bald and grey-haired. Drisko rips open the jacket and shirt of a female officer and is viciously pummeled by police before being dragged away. Charlie appears with Tatiana and decides to race Dennis for "the people" in Drisko's stead.
As the race begins, Charlie is moving extremely slowly compared to Dennis and falls way behind, but as Dennis tries to perform a spin late in the race, he lands badly and breaks his ankles. Dennis nevertheless manages to crawl to the finish line and win the race. He cries out in joy to Frank, content in the knowledge that the mountain is theirs and that the exclusive resort will be built.
Frank instead reveals that the whole planned exclusive resort was just a diversion to distract local environmentalist groups from the fact that he was fracking the mountain to extract its natural resources. He also reveals that he hired a number of prostitutes similarly for the sake of diversion, these being the women at Drisko's party and Tatiana. The gang decides to head back to Philadelphia, Dee and Mac dragging a screaming Dennis by his arms.
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[]
- Dean Cameron as Dave Drisko
- Courtney Gains as Roach
- Natasha Alam as Tatiana
- Kevin Farley as Turkey
Co-Starring[]
- Denell Johnson as Police Officer
- Elle Evans as Katarina
- Kassandra Kanaar as Silvia
Trivia[]
- Charlie's dislike of leaving Philadelphia was previously mentioned in "The Gang Hits the Road" and "The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore".
- The Poconos have come up multiple times on the show
- In The Storm of the Century, Mac is obsessed with waiting out the storm by going "to the Poconos"
- In A Very Sunny Christmas, Mac mentions that they got an industrial-sized snow blower from "some dude in the Poconos"
- in McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century, Charlie claims that the McPoyle family crest contains a Pocono swallow.
- Drisko is named after editor and co-producer Josh Drisko. Other characters named after people associated with the show: Heinrich Landgraf, aka Pop-Pop, named after John Landgraf, the president of FX Networks ("Pop-Pop: The Final Solution"), and Michael Rotenberg, a "talent agent" who bangs Dee, named after an executive producer of the show ("The Gang Broke Dee").
- Kevin Farley who plays Turkey in this episode is the brother of actors John P. Farley and the late Chris Farley.
- This is the first time the title card does not appear over a black background, the other episode being "Being Frank."
- This is only the second time a font other than the usual font has been used in the credits (in this case, for the title and the closing credits), the other time being "The Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre."
- Dennis' reaction to breaking his ankles is based on an iconic video of freestyle skier Tanner Hall crashing whist trying to clear Chad's Gap (video here).
- The episode was filmed at the Mammoth Mountain ski area in Mono County, California.
- Tatiana is Charlie's fourth confirmed sexual partner, the others being Stacy Corvelli, Ruby Taft, and Dee Reynolds.
- Dean Cameron, who plays Drisko, was the star of a 1991 film titled Ski School. This episode pays tribute and mocks the aforementioned film.
- The establishing shot at 14:43 is of River Run Day Lodge at Sun Valley Ski Resort in Ketchum, Idaho.
Quotes[]
- Roach: "DID YOU CUM IN MY BURRITO?!"
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