The D.E.N.N.I.S. System

Thursday night's Always Sunny revisited an aspect of the shows mythology that I was worried they had abandoned. Everyone knows that the shows is about a group of horrible losers who destroy everything around them except each other. In past seasons however, despite being so awful, Dennis was a capable, if not remarkable, coxman. Unfortunately, prior to this episode, the writers had neglected this aspect of his character.

This episode, titled "The D.E.N.N.I.S. System", has a simple premise: Dennis schools the gang on his patented system for getting women to fall in love with him. (He uses an acrostic (the second acrostic featured in Thursday's T.V. line up, the first one was used in 30 Rock) on a flip-chart for effect.) The system is...well, I'm just going to come out and say it...the system is fucking genius.

D- Display Value: For Dennis this means filling a forged prescription for a fake grandmother. For Charlie it means breaking into the Waitresses house with a bag of hair and dismantling her garbage disposal. (It was nice to see the Waitress again, I hope they bring her back to the forefront a little bit. She always brings out the most pathetic (and funniest) side of Charlie.)

Engage Physically: This step involves not only Dennis and his lady friend (a.k.a victim, played by Dennis' real life wife) but also a confederate (namely Mac). Dennis takes his date to a restaurant he knows to be closed. After feigning surprise he suggests they order a pizza and eat at his apartment. Upon arriving at home with said pizza, the couple find Mac sitting on the couch (he would have been in the his room but he saw a black widow spider in there). Seeking privacy, Dennis invites the young lady into his room where he seduces her over a slice of fresh 'za.

Nurture Dependence: Dennis offers a few options to achieve this step: Slashing her tires so she can't drive and must depend on him for a ride, calling her home late at night from a payphone and threatening her in a scary voice so that she runs into his protective arms, etc.

Neglect Emotionally: Self-explanatory.

Inspire Hope: Cue Top Gun Sex Scene.

Separate Entirely: Also, pretty self-explanatory

As the episode goes on we discover that in addition to the D.E.N.N.I.S. system, members of the gang are also employing the M.A.C. system (Move In After Completion), which pretty much consists of Mac sweeping in after Dennis "Separates Entirely" and offering the ladies a shoulder to cry on. Then he bangs them. Further down the food chain is Frank. His plan involves flashing Magnum Condoms and a wad of hundreds at Dennis' and Mac's scraps in the hopes on enticing them with his massive dong.

The episode features a sub-plot involving Dee and her Army boyfriend (from the wrestling episode), who is actually wearing the pair of jorts Frank gave him. Dennis is convinced that army guy is trying to "D.E.N.N.I.S." her. To prove her independence, Dee decided to treat her new boyfriend like shit. He eventually gets fed up and leaves her, but not before calling her a "mean person" (understatement of the season). More importantly, we get more evidence that Kaitlin Olson is one of the more gifted physical comediennes on TV right now. Last season we got a scene of her careening out the door of a shoe store and directly into a parked car, this episode we got a shot of her falling head over high-heels down a steep hill.

Eventually Frank destroys the entire system by attempting to bypass the M.A.C. system and go straight to the scraps by announcing to Dennis's victim that Dennis (and by extension, possibly her) has HIV. The final scene is classic Sunny chaos in which everyone is screaming over one another, Charlie pays a carnie to stab the waitress and a poor elderly woman (Gladys, the piano player from the Nightman Cometh episode) is abandoned at the fair.

-Welcooommme tooo helllllll......