Nick and Carmen appalled at Mac's Heteronormative Crusader actions (pictured)
"I thought we established that after you had the procedure, there was gonna be a call, and then you had the procedure, and I never got the call. Instead you called this soft body, and you gay married him! And now you're calling me gay, telling me I'm tripping, and trying to confuse me with your liberal biblicisms!"
— Mac
Mac decides to mount a protest against gay marriage after running into his ex Carmen and discovering that she's completed her sex change and is now married to a man. Meanwhile Dennis and Dee reunite with their old High-School Sweethearts Maureen and Bill Ponderosa, and Frank and Charlie debate whether they should get a domestic partnership for the health benefits.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Aesop Amnesia: By the end of the episode Mac admits that he was wrong and that anyone should be able to get married, but later episodes reverse this and have him even more bigoted than ever.
- Armored Closet Gay: Carmen's husband Nick correctly thinks that Mac is this.Nick: My guess is that you've been confused for a very long time.
- As the Good Book Says...: Mac tries to convince Carmen and Nick of the wickedness of their relationship by quoting from The Bible. Nick, who is black, counters by quoting a verse condoning the beating of slaves and asking Mac if he intends to beat "my black ass."
- Blatant Lies: Mac claiming to be Dennis in order to get into the gym using his membership, despite the fact that Dennis's picture looks nothing like him.
- Continuity Nod: Dennis claims that nothing in the apartment actually belongs to Mac, which makes sense given that he threw out all of Mac's stuff when the latter faked his death.
- *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": Charlie throws his back out trying to lift a box of pennies, and then Frank throws his back out trying to crack Charlie's back into place, and so on...
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Dennis throwing Mac out of their shared apartment — which Mac never signed the lease on because of his poor credit history — plays out like they're in a gay relationship without the legal protections of marriage.
- Fan Disservice: The overweight Bill Ponderosa is shown mostly naked in Dee's bed.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Mac shows up at the end to “apologize” to Dee, Dee suddenly starts gagging for seemingly no reason. This foreshadows the reveal moments later that she has slept with Bill.
- Flat "What": Charlie and Dee have this reaction when Dennis randomly mentions he always thought he'd be married at his age.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Dennis marries his high school sweetheart Maureen within hours of meeting up with her again.
- Future Loser: Bill Ponderosa was apparently a popular and attractive jock in high school, but the years that have passed since then have not been kind to him.
- Green-Eyed Monster: The rest of the gang suggest that the real reason Mac is so against Carmen's marriage to Nick is that he's jealous Carmen never called him after completing her transition and married someone else. Mac more or less confirms this by the end of the episode, though he refuses to admit it outright.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: A close-up shot of Maureen's dead tooth is used to show that Dennis is starting to regret marrying her at the end of the episode.
- Heteronormative Crusader: Mac spends most of the episode railing against homosexuality and claiming that Carmen and Nick's marriage is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.
- Incompatible Orientation: Mac, an Armoured Closet Gay, pining for his ex, the trans woman Carmen, who is straight and married to a man named Nick.
- Insane Troll Logic:
- Mac insists that Carmen's husband must be gay despite the rest of the gang pointing out that Mac is the one who's gay as he had sex with her while she was still pre-op.
- Frank was apparently under the impression that in order for him and Charlie to get married, one of them would have to become the "woman" by having their dick cut off and sold to China. Once Carmen sets him straight, he's more than on board with the idea.
Frank: Two dudes getting married, that doesn't seem very gay. - Leaning on the Fourth Wall: At one point Dee thinks that Mac is asking to marry her, and they both react with disgust. In real life, their respective actors are Happily Married.
- Love Triangle: Mac/Carmen/Nick.
- Marriage of Convenience: Charlie suggests that he and Frank get a domestic partnership so that he can get on Frank's health insurance and so that he can prevent Dennis and Dee from pulling his plug and inherit his money the next time he inevitably has a heart attack and has to be put on life support.
- New Old Flame: Maureen Ponderosa is introduced as Dennis's high school girlfriend, despite the fact that she's never been mentioned before now. To a lesser extent, her brother Bill is also this for Dee.
- Parental Incest: Frank and Charlie decide to get married despite it being strongly implied that Frank is Charlie's biological father.
- Pet the Dog: Aside from Mac, the rest of the gang seem genuinely pleased for Carmen completing her transition and getting married. They also seem (apart from the casual slurs) surprisingly accepting of her identity, with Dennis causally dismissing Mac's gay marriage argument with "one's a guy, one's a girl, how is that gay?"
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The Gang still think of Carmen as "the tranny", even during the above Pet the Dog moment.
- Product Placement: Dennis and Dee meet the Ponderosas inside a Subway, with the chain's logo prominently displayed behind them throughout the scene.
- Quote-to-Quote Combat: When Mac attempts to convince Carmen and Nick that their marriage is a sin by quoting from the Bible, Nick comes right back at him with another passage that condones slavery.
- Third Wheel: Lampshaded when Dee bails on her and Dennis's double date with the Ponderosas, leaving Bill awkwardly hanging around Dennis and Maureen until they tell him to leave.
- Tin Man: Dennis claims that he's experiencing feelings for the first time since he was fourteen years old after being reunited with Maureen.Dennis: I am having — this is crazy, but I'm having feelings again, like some kind of fourteen year old kid or something. You remember feelings, right?
Mac: ...Yeah. I have feelings every single day of my life.
Dennis: Do you?
Mac: Are you saying you don't have feelings? - Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: One of Mac's complaints about Carmen and Nick's relationship is that she's in shape and Nick isn't. Therefore, Carmen and Mac should be together instead because Mac is in shape like her.
- Vomit Chain Reaction: Dee merely gagging is enough to set off Mac's gag reflex in response.
- Wham Episode: Although the marriage itself gets undone in the next episode, Dennis and Maureen's marriage will have important repercussions for Dennis for the next several seasons.
- Worst Aid: Frank refuses to pay for a doctor, so Charlie and Frank try to crack each other's backs instead of seeking medical care, with predictable results.
- You Need a Breath Mint: Several characters comment on the fact that Maureen has terrible breath as a result of her dead tooth.
- Your Door Was Open: Commented on when Mac barges into Dee's apartment after she's just had sex with Bill.
