"What are we gonna do?!"
— Charlie
The gang gets Caught Up in a Robbery during a trip to the convenience store, and each member imagines how they might react. Mac fantasizes about being a badass action hero and ascending to a homoerotic heaven; Dee imagines killing the rest of the gang, going into witness protection, launching her career as an Hollywood actress and marrying Josh Groban; Dennis fantasizes about getting shot and having Jackie Denardo assigned as his physical therapy nurse; Frank daydreams about stuffing his face with hotdogs; and Charlie imagines that he saves the Waitress, causing her to fall in love with him as they embark on a Disney-esque life filled with rats and marital bliss.
The show's 100th episode.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Affectionate Parody: Charlie's fantasy is basically the opening sequence of Up, but with more rats. Dee's idea of becoming a crossdressing british butler also echoes Mrs. Doubtfire (along with the more obvious Shout-Out to Mr. Belvedere).
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Dennis gives one to Mac in the latter's fantasy after he's killed by a shuriken to the neck.
- Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: At the very end of the episode, Frank asks the others if they're thinking what he's thinking. They all then proceed to grab as much stuff as they can from the shelves and run out of the store.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Mac, Dee, Dennis, and Charlie's fantasies all consist of them achieving a long-running desire of theirs (ascending to Heaven, becoming a successful actress, bedding Jackie Denardo, and marrying The Waitress respectively). Frank, on the other hand, just fantasizes about eating the hot dogs at the convenience store.
- Artistic License – Law: The Gang, right before the robbery, attempt to buy beers at the convenience store. At the time the episode aired, in Philadelphia, alcohol could not be purchased at a convenience store, it could only be legally bought at a bar, restaurant or licensed liquor store, and had to be drunk at the former two if purchased there. A liquor license is required to sell alcohol.
- Art Shift: The entirety of Charlie's fantasy sequence is done in a Pixar style animation.
- Asian Store-Owner: Lampshaded when Mac kills an older Asian man who he assumed was the Yakuza boss. Turns out he was actually the cashier's father and the owner of the store.
- Awesome Ego: In-Universe. Dee's fantasy involves her murdering the gang and successfully covering it up, becoming a successful actress on the highest rated sitcom of all time, transitioning into a successful film career, marrying Josh Groban, and dating Brad Pitt.
- Balloonacy: In keeping with the Up homage, Charlie's fantasy ends with him attaching hundreds of balloons to his house and floating off into the atmosphere.
- Bare-Handed Blade Block: Mac stops a katana with his bare hands at one point during his fight scene.
- Big Eater: While everyone else's fantasies are a little more extravagant, Frank daydreams about sneaking behind the counter and gorging on hotdogs as a hostage situation unfolds.
- Birds of a Feather: How Dennis seems to think of himself and the robber in his fantasy. The feeling isn't mutual.
- Bond One-Liner: Even when he's imagining himself as a badass action hero, Mac still can't quite get the hang of these, mainly because he doesn't seem to understand what a pun is.Charlie: You used the pun right!Mac: What pun?Charlie: "Cool off" and you kicked him in the fridge! ...He's not getting it, is he?Mac: What is a pun?
- Boom, Headshot!: Dennis is shot in the head at point-blank range at the beginning of his fantasy after he tries to talk the robber down.
- Butt-Monkey: Dee is killed in every single fantasy sequence except for her own and Dennis'. Even in her own fantasy, the rest of the gang initially try to sacrifice her. And even in Dennis', where she isn't shown being killed, she also isn't shown visiting him in the hospital along with the guys, nor does she appear afterward, and it isn't revealed what happened to her.
- Bystander Syndrome: Rather than attempting to intervene in any way, the gang cower behind a shelf before looting the store and fleeing.
- Call-Back
- Rex shows up as one of the shirtless male angels in Mac's vision of heaven.
- Josh Groban likes his ladies to pop.
- Dennis has a series of brief flashbacks after he gets shot, similar to what he experienced after getting dumped at the "rehab clinic" in "Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life".
- Dennis wears cutoff jean shorts while rollerblading with Jackie Denardo.
- Charlie is shown teaching his kids to play Nightcrawlers.
- The picture book the Waitress reads to the kids and Charlie in their montage is the Troll Toll Scene from The Night Man Cometh
- The Cameo: Josh Groban appears As Himself as Dee fantasizes about being engaged to him (before she dumps him in favor of Brad Pitt).
- Caught Up in a Robbery: The gang goes to a convenience store that becomes the site of an armed robbery. The episode shows how each person imagines they'd deal with the situation and ends with showing what actually happened: like the Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonists they are, they all agree to steal as much as they can before sprinting out of the store.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: In Dee's fantasy she kills the rest of the gang and then immediately turns the female robber she teamed up with over to the police.
- Continuity Nod: Jackie Denardo of the Channel 5 weather team is a nurse in Dennis's fantasy.
- Crapsaccharine World: Charlie's fantasy includes a number of notes that make it clear that, idealism aside, it's still based on Charlie's deeply messed-up worldview. They get married at a "marriage store", have their children at a "baby store", and all their children (whom they have an astounding number of) look like clones of them and even have the same jobs.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Dennis's facial expressions and the noises he makes as he's smothering Jackie imply that there's something a bit more... sexual going on.
- Fake Brit: In-universe, Dee ends up playing a British butler in her sitcom Covington's House, complete with terrible accent.
- Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Mac's fantasy version of heaven is a lot like this, albeit one that's populated with buff male angels and an even buffer God.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing:
- When the second half of Mac's fight scene in his fantasy starts up, "Smack My Bitch Up" starts up in the background. Soon after, Dee dies by getting smacked in the face by some nun-chucks, causing fatal whiplash.
- Charlie asks Mac if there's something wrong with his throat mere seconds before he receives a throwing star to the neck.
- Generation Xerox: All of Charlie's kids in his fantasy look exactly like him and the Waitress. Additionally, all of the boys become janitors and all of the girls become waitresses.
- Gilligan Cut: After Dee teams up with the female armed robber:Dee: I got your back, for life.(Cut to both of them surrounded by police)Dee: She did it.
- Gratuitous Ninja: Mac's fantasy features an utterly inexplicable ninja attack.
- Her Codename Was Mary Sue: Most of the fantasies have this going on to varying degrees. Mac and Dee are easily the most obvious, with Dee becoming a world-renowned actress and Mac beating up ninjas.
- The Hero Dies: Mac takes a throwing star to the neck at the end of his fantasy.
- Hollywood Heart Attack: The Waitress appears to suffer one of these at the end of Charlie's fantasy, once she's old and the two of them have lived out a happy life together.
- Hospital Hottie: Jackie plays one in Dennis's fantasy, complete with a Naughty Nurse Outfit that would be highly inappropriate in a real hospital setting.
- Hot God: Mac imagines God as an incredibly ripped, shirtless older man.
- Hypocritical Humor: The rest of the gang snapping at Charlie for daydreaming in the middle of an armed robbery when they've only just come out of their own respective fantasies.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Played for laughs.
- Imagine Spot: Each member of the gang gets one as they imagine how they might react to an armed robbery. Needless to say, it gets weird for all of them.
- Innocent Inaccurate: Charlie's fantasy involves him and The Waitress leaving the "Marriage Store" as newlyweds, and later getting several children from the "Baby Store," as he obviously has no idea how either of those are supposed to work in real life.
- Leave No Witnesses: Dee's reasoning for why she shoots the cashier after murdering the rest of the gang.
- Lyrical Dissonance: The theme tune for Dee's sitcom is a peppy tune with some rather sinister lyrics:Life for a single parent is full of stress/Makes you wanna put a gun in your mouth/Or get real high.../But with a little help I think we'll just get by!
- Mercy Kill: Played for very dark laughs; Dennis kills Jackie after finding out that her breasts were "obliterated" in a traffic accident.
- Mistaken Identity: Mac mistakes the Asian store owner for the leader of the Yakuza in his fantasy.
- Neck Snap: Dee dies this way in Mac's fantasy.
- Never Trust a Title: The Gang does not save the day. They each have a fantasy about saving the day, but the Gang flees for their lives during the robbery in reality.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Jackie's fate in Dennis's fantasy. She nurses him back to health after he's left near-paralyzed, and he pays her back by (accidentally) pushing her into traffic and then (intentionally) smothering her.
- Rescue Romance: In Charlie's fantasy, the Waitress, who wasn't even in the store in reality, falls for him after he saves her from the robber.
- Samus Is a Girl: The robber in Dee's fantasy reveals herself to be a woman after the guys try to "sacrifice" Dee to her.
- The Scapegoat: Dee is this in her own fantasy.Charlie: Dammit, Dee, this is all your fault!
Dee: How is this my fault?!
Mac: It just is, you stupid bitch! - Series Continuity Error: In The Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre, the Gang attends a wedding, so Charlie should know what getting married should be like, while before this, in Who Got Dee Pregnant the guys try to find out who had sex with Dee around the time she got pregnant, and Charlie is aware that this is how children are born. In this episode, his fantasy involves him and the Waitress getting married at a "Marriage Store" and their children coming from a "Baby Store".
- In the first season, Charlie also believes that he could be the father of the child of a woman he had sex with in high school until she tells him he isn't, again showing he should know where children come from.
- In season six, Charlie describes fertilization as "the sperm eats the egg and grows strong into a baby", but he still knows that women give birth.
- Shout-Out:
- Dennis seems to quote Gordon Gecko, albeit not exactly, during his fantasy.Dennis: A fisherman always spots another fisherman from afar.
- Dennis' fantasy also seems to take a few cues from Regarding Henry.
- Dennis seems to quote Gordon Gecko, albeit not exactly, during his fantasy.
- Sinister Suffocation: Dennis's Imagine Spot sees him shot in the head by a robber and nursed back to health by sexy reporter/nurse Jackie Denardo. Ironically, after they fall in love she's hit by a bus and comatose. Rather than return her favors (and upon learning "her breasts were obliterated") Dennis smothers her with a pillow with a disturbing look on his face... while "Walkin' On Sunshine" plays in the background.
- Skewed Priorities: Dennis's first instinct after coming out of a coma is to ask the doctor if his dick still works. Later when Jackie is in a coma, his first instinct is to ask the doctor about her breasts.
- Sound-Only Death: Dee is implied to be torn apart by police dogs offscreen in Frank's fantasy.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: Dennis smothering Jackie with a pillow, set to Katrina and the Waves' Walking on Sunshine.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Josh Groban's song about Dee, in which he repeatedly affirms that she's beautiful and definitely not like a bird.
- Swarm of Rats: One of these features in Charlie's fantasy, though unlike most examples they're actually pretty cute and friendly, akin to the Cinderella mice.
- Sweet Polly Oliver: Dee ends up having to dress as a male butler after going into witness protection.
- Taking the Bullet: A more involuntary example than most; Charlie pushes Dee in front of the robber's gun to save the Waitress.
- 'Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain: Dennis continues talking - albeit complete gibberish - for several seconds after getting shot in the head at point-blank range, and later makes a full recovery. Justified, of course, as it's only happening in his mind.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Charlie imagines himself and the Waitress sitting down to a romantic dinner of cheese on their wedding night.
- Training Montage: A variant occurs in Dennis's fantasy showing his physical rehabilitation after getting shot.
- Vorpal Pillow: Dennis smothers Jackie with a pillow, killing her in a matter of seconds.
- Witness Protection: Played for laughs; Dee imagines that she's put into witness protection after "witnessing" five murders, and for some reason this entails her starring in a wacky British sitcom as a male butler.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Charlie's fantasy encompasses an entire lifetime during the mere seconds that pass in the real world, and both Dennis and Dee's take place over the course of several months or even years.
