"I've been keeping track of all my sexual exploits and I was gonna unleash them on the world in a fiery blaze of eroticism."
— Dennis
Dennis finds a manuscript of the memoir he wrote years ago about his many sexual conquests, and ends up in a rehab center with comedian Sinbad and Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas, after Mac and Frank decide that he should re-enact some of the scenarios in the book to lend verisimilitude to his stories. Meanwhile, Charlie and Dee decide to spend a day in each other's shoes.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Frank cannot pronounce the name of Bon Jovi.
- Adam Westing: Comedian Sinbad and Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 appear as hallucinated versions of themselves, in which Sinbad is an angry, aggressive, unhinged rehab ward king and Rob Thomas is his equally unhinged, violent but largely quiet "bitch".
- All Just a Dream: The Rob Thomas and Sinbad segments were actually hallucinations brought on from the head trauma Dennis received when he was knocked unconscious.
- And You Were There: Dennis hallucinated that a warehouse was a rehab, and that its two employees were Sinbad and Rob Thomas.
- As Himself: Both Sinbad and Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20.
- Ax-Crazy: Sinbad threatens to poke Dennis' eye out, and Rob Thomas tries to beat his testicles with a shoe.
- Baldness Means Sickness: In a big win for realism, the executive Mac was hoping to fool by donning a bald cap and pretending to have cancer points out that if he'd lost his hair due to chemotherapy (which is what actually causes hair loss, not the cancer itself), he should have lost all his facial hair, too.
- Blatant Lies: In Dennis's memoirs he claims that he was the personal sexual advisor to Jon Bon Jovi and that he woke up in a rehab center with the wounds of Christ on his hands and feet.
- Call-Back: Mac uses a wheelchair-and-blanket while pretending to have cancer.
- Cannot Tell a Joke: It's revealed that Dee performs stand-up comedy at an open mic night most evenings, and she's predictably terrible. Then she makes Charlie do it as well, and he's even worse.
- The Cast Showoff: Averted. Sinbad demands that Rob Thomas sing a song for Dennis, but changes his mind and barks at him to shut up before Thomas gets so much as a word out.
- Centipede's Dilemma: Dee's joke at the comedy club can be charitably called a work in progress—at least compared to Charlie's "what is cheese, you know?"—but is hampered horribly by her performance-anxiety-induced dry heaves.
- Continuity Nod: Frank and Charlie still sleep ass-to-ass in the same bed.
- Cigarette Burns: Mac wants to use a cigar to give Dennis stigmata on his hands, though Frank insists a nail gun would be more effective.
- Creepy Twins: Dee encounters a very creepy pair of twin little girls in the hallway of Charlie's apartment building, though it's later revealed that she had a "glue O.D." due to huffing as much as Charlie.
- Dog Food Diet: Charlie and Frank eat cat food every night before they go to sleep.
- First Rule of the Yard: Sinbad constantly harasses and dominates Dennis every chance he gets as if they were in a Might Makes Right prison situation.Sinbad: This is Sinbad's house! When you in Sinbad house, you my BITCH!
- Hypocrite: Dee tells Charlie that his life sucks because of choices he could stop making at any time. Then she reveals that every night she goes to a comedy club to humiliate herself.
- Hypocritical Humor: Frank and Mac play with a laser pointer and talk on a cell phone in a movie theater, but are outraged when another patron tells them to quiet down.
- Ignored Epiphany: Frank pisses in a fountain daily. Dee throws coins in the same fountain to wish for celebrity status, while Charlie steals the coins to pay someone to spy on the Waitress for him. Finally, Dennis uses the water of the fountain to wash his face. Dee is the only one to figure out or comment upon their place in all of these events.
- In Another Man's Shoes: Charlie and Dee are each convinced that they have the hardest lives in the gang, and they both spend a day experiencing what life is like for the other. Mac and Frank end up doing it with each other later.
- Insane Troll Logic: Every time Charlie tries to explain to Dee why he does the ridiculous things that he does.Charlie: Look, Dee, I can't explain it, alright? There's some sort of weird chemical reaction that happens when you combine cat food, beer and glue, it makes you feel like extremely sick and tired and you're able to fall asleep!
Dee: Why would I wanna make myself extremely sick and tired?
Charlie: 'Cause there's gonna be about fifty cats howling outside that window all night long, and you have no idea how loud fifty cats can be.- Strange Minds Think Alike: Frank's entrance in the same scene is punctuated by his bursting through the door and immediately wolfing down a can of cat food before going to bed, although he might already be familiar with the routine by this point.
- Noodle Implements:Dennis: I banged that girl in the fountain. That story was true; the hot dogs, the oatmeal, everything.
- Performance Anxiety: Dee gets so nervous that she ends up dry-heaving (or vomiting, if she's eaten anything prior to going onstage) whenever she tries to perform at a comedy club. It's outright stated that this isn't the first time this has happened.
- Sanity Slippage: Dennis, as the end of the episode reveals that his time in "rehab" was actually spent in a random warehouse and he hallucinated his encounters with Sinbad and Rob Thomas - likely due to Frank knocking him out with a nail gun.
- Scary Black Man: Dennis's hallucination of Sinbad is extremely aggressive and threatening.
- Shaped Like Itself: Charlie is very excited at the prospect of meeting Sinbad, and hopes he wears "something made of windbreaker".
- Shout-Out:
- Dee's encounter with the twin girls in Charlie's building is taken straight out of The Shining.
- Mac repeatedly tells Dennis that he doesn't want to end up like the Million Little Pieces guy — i.e., exposed for fabricating experiences in an ostensibly autobiographical book.
- Stalker with a Crush: Charlie reveals that he steals pennies from the fountain in order to pay somebody to spy on the Waitress for him.
- Sticky Fingers: Mac steals a laser pointer from the Philadelphia Soul executive's office.
- Stylistic Suck: Dennis's memoirs are full of this."Our eyes locked, our hands touched, and she whispered in my ear, 'Dude... your balls totally rule.'"
- Take That!: Dennis's reaction to apparently meeting Rob Thomas is to exclaim "Matchbox 20? Ew." Mac later refers to Thomas as a "douchebag".
- Tap on the Head: Deconstructed; see Sanity Slippage above. Dennis' hallucinated experience in rehab is heavily implied to be due to taking a blow to the head by Frank's nail gun, and he immediately determines that he should go see a real doctor as soon as possible.
- Third-Person Person: Sinbad constantly refers to himself in the third person.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Charlie's addiction to cheese is brought up again when Dee accuses him of eating it out of the rat traps in the bar. He later gives a stand-up comedy set that exclusively revolves around awkward references to cheese.
- The Voiceless: Rob Thomas has exactly one line, tersely snarled in Dennis' face while holding his shoe in a striking position."Watch your ass, new meat."
- With Friends Like These...: Mac and Frank decide to "help" Dennis by knocking him out cold outside the rehab center, giving him stigmata wounds with a cigar and a nail gun, and then forgetting about him for the rest of the episode. To make matters worse, instead of being concerned when it's revealed Dennis has been hallucinating the entire time, they're mostly just annoyed that he "lied" to them.
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Mac wears a bald cap and pretends to have cancer in the hopes that Bon Jovi will agree to perform a private concert for him. Unfortunately, the executive sees through his brilliant ruse right away and informs him that when people go through chemo, they usually lose their facial hair as well.
