"Are you guys kidding me?! You're focused on boobies at a time when a massive storm is about to hit Philadelphia? This is a hurricane we're talking about!"
— Dee
Dee is concerned when news hits of a Category 5 storm headed straight for Philadelphia, but Dennis, Mac and Charlie are more interested in the large-chested news anchor covering the story from their local department store.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Dee is apparently convinced that it's only a matter of time before the machines rise up to wage war on humanity.Dee: Robopocalypse. Machines communicating with each other and conspiring to destroy the human race.
Frank: That is complete nonsense, Deandra.
Dee: Is it nonsense?! Is it nonsense, or is it nonsense that we rely solely on computers to run every aspect of our lives, huh?! - Adam and Eve Plot: When Dennis first suggests that they bring some girls back to the bunker with them, Charlie immediately jumps to the "repopulating after the end of the world" scenario.
- Artistic License – History: Dee incorrectly states that the Mayans are extinct. Although the Mayan civilization collapsed after the Spanish came, millions of Maya still exist today and inhabit the countries of Central America and Southern Mexico.
- Berserk Button: Dennis doesn't take kindly to the two girls he tries to hit on revealing that they have boyfriends.Dennis: (his smile immediately drops to a glaring frown) ...your boyfriends?
Brunette: Yeah, our boyfriends.
Dennis: ...You two have boyfriends? ... How did you not know... that the reason I invited you back to my bar... was to bang you? Get outta here. GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE! GET-GET OUTTA HERE, SHOO AWAY FROM ME! - Big Storm Episode: The gang spend most of the episode trying to prepare after learning that a Category 5 hurricane is headed for Philadelphia. Ultimately subverted, however, as the storm is downgraded to a "light drizzle" at the end of the episode.
- Bilingual Bonus: At the end of the episode, Mac gets bored watching his friends cause a riot at the store and kidnap a buxom newscaster, so he switches back to the equally buxom Latina weatherwoman to hear her say, in Spanish, "Now, the storm still hasn't passed. Please go to the store. Get the things you need to [survive]."
- Buxom Beauty Standard: The guys' fascination with Jackie Denardo is almost entirely due to her admittedly large breasts.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Lampshaded after Dennis and Charlie learn that Mac has ditched them, taking the car and all of their cash with him.Charlie: Do you really think he'd do that to us?!
Dennis: He would absolutely do that to us. - Comically Missing the Point: Charlie keeps trying to sign the "contract" that Dennis draws up to get girls to agree to sleep with him.
- Crazy-Prepared: It's revealed that the bar has an emergency bunker that was originally put in place for Y2K. Unfortunately, all of its supplies have long since been depleted by Charlie munching on the various supplies, as well as Dennis using it as one of the locations to bang women.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Mac, Dennis and Charlie are so entranced by Jackie Denardo's breasts when they're watching the news broadcast at the beginning of the episode that they fail to pay much attention to the Category 5 hurricane that's headed their way.
- Dude Magnet/Hot Scoop: Jackie Denardo is a reporter who is desired by all of the male characters.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Frank becomes worried about Cricket's well-being after accidentally shooting him in the hand, and is insistent on taking him to the hospital even as Dee and inititally Cricket himself argue against it.
- Charlie grows quiet and uncomfortable as Dennis starts to lash out at the women in the store who have boyfriends. After they leave, he tries to calm Dennis down and calls him out for the Disproportionate Retribution.Charlie: It's okay. Take it easy, all right? What was that? That was too dark.
Dennis: They lied to me.
Charlie: Oh, okay. Well, just...let it go, all right?
- Everything Is Racist: Frank tries to demonstrate to Dee how the media manipulates people, such as portraying white people take stuff from stores during a crisis as surviving and when black people are doing it as looting, using clips of Hurricane Katrina and the Rodney King riots as examples. Dee tells him the difference is the white people in the Katrina clip are taking food so they don't go hungry, while the black people in the Rodney King clip are stealing stereo equipment and other electronics they don't need to survive. Frank hypothesizes that maybe the black people have bread hidden inside their stereos.
- Evil Luddite: Dee not only bought into the Y2K hysteria, but she still believes that machines are potentially going to rise up in the present. When the riot in the store breaks out, she starts attacking an automated cash register with an bat.Dee: KILL THE MACHINES! It's their fault!
- False Rape Accusation: Played for laughs when Dee accuses Dennis of raping girls in the bunker. Dennis emphatically denies this, but Mac can be seen nodding behind him as he does so.
- Freak Out: Dee has one when she's forced to drive Cricket to the hospital while expecting the storm to hit at any moment.
- Gibberish of Love: Dennis falls into this when he tries to speak to Jackie.Dennis: I'm Dennis! ...Reynolds.
Jackie: (slightly weirded out) Hi, Dennis.
Dennis: I have a bar! I own a bar, it's my bar. I wanted to invite you to it, for... uh, we have food and supplies and it would be a good place — this storm is gonna be bad. As you know. So why not be at the bar? With me. Um... and, you know, for the good of the race. So come to the bar and, uh... Oh, and I have a contr- an agreement, and I need you to sign... - Girl on Girl Is Hot: Dennis' "agreement" states that the women who sign it must pledge they do not have a boyfriend or are engaged in a sexual relationship with another individual, "females excluded."
- Humans Are Bastards: Once Rickety Cricket drives through the store, everyone just starts looting and breaking stuff to prepare for the storm.
- If It Bleeds, It Leads: When Jackie finds out that the storm is going to miss Philadelphia, she asks what she's supposed to tell the viewers, as there's no story in a light drizzle. Her producer tells her to figure out some sort of other theatrical hook, and she decides that a climate change angle could work. Shortly after that, a riot breaks out behind her and she quickly tells the camera crew to begin rolling.
- Impaled Palm: Frank accidentally shoots Cricket through the hand after stumbling on him sneaking around the bunker.
- Inadvertent Entrance Cue: When Frank and Charlie are arguing about the acceptable time to start looting.Charlie: What are we waiting for?!
(cue Cricket crashing Dee's car through the front of the store) - Major Injury Underreaction: Cricket initially has a very understated reaction to being shot in the hand, mostly because he doesn't want to go to the hospital as he's under the impression that they euthanize homeless people.
- Mayan Doomsday: Charlie brings up the 2012 "prophecy" repeatedly, though he keeps getting Mayans confused with Mexicans.
- Millennium Bug: Dee demanded that the Gang build a bunker to prepare for Y2K. Charlie, Mac, and Dennis raided it after nothing happened, leaving it empty.
- Mistaken for Racist: There are shades of this in Dennis's Gibberish of Love to Jackie Denardo. We know from context he means "for the good of the human race", but he forgets that word. It's all but stated Jackie thinks he is a white supremacist.
- No, You: As Dennis shoos the girls he tried to invite back to Paddy's away...Blonde: Dick!
Dennis: YOU'RE A DICK! (turns to Charlie) She's- I'm not a dick, I... OOOOOOH! URRGH! - Only Sane Man: Dee is initially the only member of the gang to grasp the severity of the threat, though her behavior throughout the rest of the episode is far from sane and she's convinced that the machines will take over and enslave the human race the first chance they get, resulting in her trying to destroy a checkout machine with a baseball bat by the end of the episode.
- Out of Focus: Mac disappears after the first five minutes or so and only shows up again at the very end, when he's revealed to be holed up in the bunker stuffing his face with ice cream and watching the chaos unfold on his new 3D TV.
- The Peeping Tom: Mac openly admits to watching Dennis have sex in the bunker.
- Pet the Dog: Frank seems genuinely concerned for Cricket after shooting him in the hand, and insists that they take him to the hospital when Dee is perfectly fine with letting him bleed out (although to her credit, this was less out of disdain for Cricket than her anxiety about the storm, and she does relent about getting him to the ER).
- Powder Keg Crowd: The crowd at the All American Home Center starts looting and rioting after Cricket crashes into the store, despite the storm already having been downgraded.
- Pretentious Pronunciation: The way "Poconos" keeps getting pronounced.
- Properly Paranoid: Dee is rightfully panicked about the monster hurricane coming, while the rest of the Gang is nonchalant.
- Reckless Gun Usage: Frank gets his gun out in response to a powercut, which culminates in him accidentally shooting Cricket.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The story takes advantage of the then-recent landfall of Hurricane Irene, a "mere" Category 3 storm which hit southern New Jersey in August 2011. Intriguingly, the far worse Hurricane Sandy hit Philly a little over a year after this episode aired.
- Running Gag:
- Cricket receives yet another serious injury courtesy of the gang.
- Another of Dee's cars is stolen and crashed.
- Skewed Priorities: Dee's more considered with getting supplies for the storm than making sure Cricket gets treatment for his gun shot wound.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Mac ditches Dennis and Charlie at the store, stealing Dennis's car in order to do so.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Charlie "gets into the cheese aisle" at the store.
