"The grunty one physically abuses the shrill one, and the shrill one psychologically abuses the grunty one… and it really plays."
— Dennis
When Charlie accuses Mac's mom of keeping his own mother hostage, Dennis suggests setting up hidden cameras in the women's home to settle the matter, only for the gang to discover that the resulting footage is pretty entertaining once they put a laugh track over it. Dennis sets out to make Old Lady House into a real sitcom, while Dee tries to prove her comedy chops and Frank becomes obsessed with banging Mrs. Kelly now that she's "famous".
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Despite maintaining that they think Mac's mom, and Mac himself, are the worst parts of the footage, Dennis still plays the laugh track under them for the most part. He only refuses to do so when Dee is purposefully trying to invoke it.
- Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: Just after the cameras are installed, Bonnie claims Mrs. Mac spilled hot soup on her on purpose and Mrs. Mac denies it. Mac and Charlie argue, siding with their respective parents, until Mac realizes there's an obvious way to settle it.Mac: Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Charlie: (gasp) We could also get some soup.
Mac: No, the... the video. - Beyond the Impossible: It's revealed that Bonnie can write letters to Charlie that he can read by using random pictures and symbols. However, he was unable to correctly read Bonnie's latest letter (asking him to be around more), thinking it was a plea for help.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Bonnie intends to hit—and possibly kill— Mrs. Mac with a hammer, but Mrs. Mac wakes up before Bonnie can do the deed.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: In-universe: Mac repeatedly talks to Dennis directly through the cameras while at Bonnie's house. At one point, he tries forcing Dennis to keep his mom in the show by making sure she's in every shot.
- At the end, this is how Charlie spills the beans: pointing out the hidden cameras.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Dee accidentally shits her pants at the end of the episode while trying to fart.
- Brother–Sister Incest: Charlie reacts with disgust when Dennis tries to implement a romance between his mother and his Uncle Jack, pointing out that they're brother and sister. Dennis simply responds that the audience doesn't know that.
- Call-Back:
- Uncle Jack is embarrassed that he's not wearing his giant hands when Frank drops by unannounced.
- Bonnie does things in threes when she starts getting anxious.
- Mac references the trope by name when his mother repeats a phrase that she'd already used earlier in the episode.
Mac: "Buzz off", you know, that's like a, a call back, which could become a catch phrase. - Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: Mrs. Mac keeps announcing that she needs to take a shit, much to her son's exasperation.
- Catchphrase: Invoked and discussed by Mac in his attempt to create one for Mrs. Mac, but technically subverted by Mrs. Mac herself, who keeps saying she has to defecate, but uses different words each time.
- Continuity Nod: Dennis states that his surveillance equipment has been lying in storage ever since he moved into Dee's apartment. He also mentions Old Black Man.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: All Charlie needed to do was be more present in his mom's life.
- Creepy Uncle: Uncle Jack drops by to collect a hard drive that he "accidentally left under the floorboards" at Bonnie's house, and Dennis muses that his creepy pedophile vibe will be hard to sell "even in Europe". He's later seen wearing a Boy Scout outfit for unclear reasons.
- Cringe Comedy: Dee's "wacky neighbor" act, due to the fact she thinks the laugh track is being played over her antics... and Dennis outright refuses to.
- Deconstructive Parody: The episode ruthlessly takes apart traditional three-camera sitcoms, demonstrating how they utilize laugh tracks and musical cues to manipulate audiences into laughing at situations that would otherwise seem boring or even disturbing.Frank: Having those other people laugh tells me when I should laugh!
- Drop-In Character: Dee tries to force herself into the show as a "wacky neighbor character" who drops by the house.
- Frank later shows up as the 'random stranger who bangs Charlie's mom'.
- Drunk with Power: A rare variant where the power is completely imaginary. Dennis is just editing surveillance footage to make a pretend sitcom, but then he starts seeing it as real, and believes he can fire Mrs. Mac's "character" and replace her with a minority.Dennis: Listen, people... it does not matter how you people try to ruin this thing. I will make it work, because I'm a genius.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Old Lady House ends with Charlie, Mac, their respective mothers and Uncle Jack laughing and embracing.
- Executive Meddling: In-universe, Mac insists on interfering with the show by going over to the moms' house and 'retooling' Mrs. Mac's character while the cameras roll. Later on, Charlie shows up to stop Frank from banging Bonnie.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Dee and Mac; the former because of her desperately unfunny attempts to force her way into the show and the latter due to his insistence that his mother is a star in the making.
- Genre Shift: Charlie suggests trying to spin Uncle Jack getting his hard drive into a spy thriller. Dennis lampshades how nonsensical that would be.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: Dee spends the majority of the episode with her head stuck in the stair bannister after she wedges it in there in an attempt at "physical comedy".
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Charlie ignores his mother's calls and letters.
- Kayfabe: Dennis "cancels" Old Lady House at the end of the episode by pulling the power of the cameras from the house, stating that now that Bonnie and Mrs. Mac know they're part of a show it's not fun anymore.
- "L" Is for "Dyslexia": Bonnie's note to Charlie is composed entirely of strange symbols and pictures so that he can "read" it.
- Love Triangle: Dennis tries to create one between Bonnie, Frank and Uncle Jack. Charlie is understandably disturbed by the idea.Charlie: I don't want a love triangle between them. I don't want any shape of love between them!
- Politically Incorrect Hero: When Dee points out that spying on women without their knowledge is incredibly shady, the guys justify it by insisting that "they're not women, they're old", managing to be both sexist and ageist at once.
- Precision F-Strike: Mrs. Mac delivers one to her son at one point.
- Show Within a Show: Old Lady House is a fake sitcom starring Bonnie and Mrs. Mac, created by the gang planting hidden cameras throughout their house, then editing and playing a laugh track over the resulting footage.
- The ending makes it a show within a show within a show, with the revelation that Dennis recorded the gang watching and commenting on Old Lady House as yet another show for his amusement.
- Sitcom Homage Episode: The episode is a dark parody of sitcoms, particularly how a laugh track can turn the most unpleasant of situations into a funny one.
- Spy Cam: The gang sets up disguised cameras in Bonnie and Mrs. Mac's house to spy on them, until Dennis decides to add editing and laugh tracks to turn it into a sitcom. He even put cameras in their bedrooms.
- The Stinger: The end of the episode reveals that the gang's previous conversation was also part of a fake show, as the image pulls back to reveal Dennis watching them on a screen, apparently having been secretly filming them the entire time.
- Take That!: Towards family-friendly sitcoms that treat abusive relationships as lighthearted entertainment. Further jabs at sitcom cliches include adding laugh tracks to scenes that aren't funny on their own merit and Dee's ill-conceived attempt at being an Ensemble Dark Horse.
- Toilet Humor: Dennis plays fart noises over every shot of Dee's behind after she gets stuck in the bannister, which the rest of the gang agrees is the only funny thing about her performance. She later tries to embrace this in order to make the others laugh, only to end up accidentally soiling herself.
- Token Minority: Dennis considers replacing Mac's mom with an "ethnic".
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Bonnie affirms at the end that she and Mrs. Mac actually do get on very well, despite the physical and psychological abuse they'd been heaping on each other throughout the rest of episode.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Mac desperately clings to the delusion that his mother loves and cares about him, despite all evidence to the contrary (at the beginning of the episode point blank denying that she loves him). To her credit, she at least lets him claim she loves and misses him at the end of the episode with no protest beyond an eye roll, and allows him to pull her into the group hug despite her obvious discomfort.
