Equation for you: Consuming 70 beers + an enclosed space = an amazing episode from the Sunny gang. It’s just mathematics. The opening salvo of season 10 delivers one of the better episodes of the latter seasons of IASIP, albeit not without its issues. The episode opens with the gang boarding a flight wearing white shirts that state a certain number of beers. The lone exception is Mac who has appointed himself Commissioner of the Contest after losing an unseen chugging contest prior to boarding.
Dee sets an early lead by consuming 29 beers before takeoff but by no way is this a winning strategy. Within minutes of reaching cruising altitude Dee is sleeping like a little drunken baby resting her head on her seat mates shoulder. We meet up with Charlie who is trailing behind Dee who for some reason thinks Wade Bogg’s is dead (he is very much alive) and insists that he is drinking in his memory. This gag reaches its pinnacle when a very inebriated Charlie hallucinates that a dead Wade Boggs is cheering him on and shares a drink with him.
Dennis and Frank gleefully continue down the dark paths they traveled up to Season 10. Dennis’ particular brand of narcissistic serial killer traits are on full display. His monologue on the only passenger who meets his sexual criteria on the plane is especially disturbing and uproarious (“if she were standing you’d notice she’s got no panty line, giving me about five extra seconds to enter her swiftly before she realizes I am not the answer to her problems”). This meticulous speech is made even funnier when Dennis ends up joining the Mile High Club with the desert trash he said was far below him. She turns out to be not only insane but also a stage 5 clinger causing Dennis to disembark in North Dakota. Frank is best in small doses and here he mostly a non-entity in the contest and just pops up to make disgusting but hilarious statements. Whether it’s asking the flight attendant if they provide condoms or taking care of the Frat boy who is also consuming the finite supply of beer contained on the DC-10.
The contest ends with the lone surviving member, Charlie (Frank ended up passing out in the isle after chugging beer 41 and Dee crapped out on the luggage carousel after consuming her 71st beer), hitting the only ball that Mac brought with him so he declares Charlie the winner of the contest. My only issues with this episode were the stretches of logic with the gang definitely committing a myriad of felonies and not one mention of Charlie’s phobia of leaving Philadelphia but it was so funny that this did not stop me from enjoying it.
Grade: B+