"Guys, I'd be a fool not to ride this erotic tidal wave our culture seems to be on."
— Dennis
When Dee shows the rest of the gang her scene in a softcore porn flick, Dennis decides to adapt his erotic memoir into a Fifty Shades of Grey style film, recruiting Dee as his director. Meanwhile, Mac and Frank try to sell Charlie's childish doodles in order to expose the art world as a sham.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes
- Adam Westing: Richard Greico plays a washed-out version of himself starring in Cinemax porn flicks.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: Frank successfully masquerades as an art collector named "Ongo Gablogian".
- Bestiality Is Depraved: One of Charlie's paintings about Cricket's life features him in a "dog orgy".
- Big Sister Instinct: While her video is Not Quite the Right Thing, Dee sounds genuinely frustrated that her brother was raped and he keeps trying to justify it.
- Call-Back:
- Dennis puts on a British accent while reading from his memoirs.
- Dee's acting reel includes footage from her Invigaron presentation and a scene she shot for an M. Night Shyamalan movie.
- Dee and Dennis's first conversation is Dr. Gainer just reversed, and Dee still thinks the best way to get a molestation victim to admit what happened is to bring it up in front of everyone.
- Catchphrase: Charlie spends the entire episode saying "hella".
- Celebrity Resemblance: Dee claims that the high school librarian who Dennis had sex with looks like Rick Moranis.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Charlie eats chalk and draws with tums.
- Continuity Nod: Dennis wants to turn his erotic memoirs into a film.
- Dirty Old Woman: Dennis might want to remember Klinsky as a Hot Librarian, but everyone else (even Cricket) remembers her as a gross bitch who liked young boys.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Played with; Dennis seems to believe that women can't rape men and insists that his sexual enounter with the high school librarian was consensual because he "wanted it", but Dee repeatedly points out that it was still statutory rape as he was under the age of consent.
- Dumbass Has a Point: There is some warped logic behind Charlie eating chalk to settle his stomach, as chalk is actually the active ingredient in most antacids.
- Gilligan Cut:
- As is par for the course, the title sequence.Dee: I did not make a smut film!
Richard Grieco: (from the TV in the background) Gobble that cock.
Title: Dee Made a Smut Film - The plan to have Frank pose as an art collector.Mac: Play. It. Subtle.
Frank: Subtle.
(cut to Frank skipping into the art gallery with an Andy Warhol wig and over-the-top camp mannerisms)
- As is par for the course, the title sequence.
- In-Universe Factoid Failure: Dennis apparently thinks that Fifty Shades of Grey was written by a man.
- It's Not Porn, It's Art: Dee tries to argue this to the rest of the Gang when they point out she's in a porno.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Frank's "Ongo Gablogian" disguise is a thinly-veiled parody of Andy Warhol.
- Only Sane Man: Mac is exasperated by Frank and Charlie buying into the politics of the art world and missing that he's trying to expose it all as a scam.
- Paste Eater: Charlie eats drawing chalk to settle his stomach.
- Rape as Backstory: It's revealed that Dennis was the victim of statutory rape at the age of fourteen by a high school libarian forty years his senior.
- Sequel Episode: To "Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life".
- Shaped Like Itself:Mac: What do the eggs represent?
Charlie: Eggs. You know, like, uh... from a chicken. - Shout-Out: Dennis wants to make the next Fifty Shades of Grey.
- Sophisticated as Hell: Much of the dialogue in Dennis's "memoirs".Dennis: (reading) A woman's mouth is not for the exiting of words but for the entrance of a man's... dick.
- Spanner in the Works: Charlie and Frank ruin Mac's plan to get the art dealer to recognize Charlie's art, prompting this response:
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Charlie and Richard Greico apparently eat chalk.
- Take That!: The entire episode counts as one towards the world of modern art.
- True Art Is Angsty: Mac tells the gallery owner how depressing Charlie's life is when she claims that art has to have a "story". When that fails to impress her, he brings Cricket on board, reasoning that he has the worst life imaginable.
- True Art Is Incomprehensible: Often invoked by "Ongo Gablogian", who "mistakes" the air conditioner for an actual piece and attempts to buy it while explaining his reasoning in a pretentious metaphor about how we're all just air conditioners in the end. He changes gears, however, when he looks at a painting that he actually does connect with.
- What Would X Do?:Charlie: What do you think Greico would do?
Mac: He wouldn't eat chalk.- Of course, when Greico is shooting Dennis and Dee's movie, he asks for a "chalk break."
