S12.E05: Making Dennis Reynolds a Murderer

[Lantern7]

Remembering that I need to do this. If you have not seen the commercial for this episode and want to be unspoiled before watching, bail out now.

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An episode filmed in the true crime style of Making a Murderer and The Jinx which begins with 911 call: A cat-woman formerly known as Maureen Ponderosa has been found dead in an alley and Dennis is the prime suspect.

[Galileo908]

Good to see Perd Hapley was transferred to Philadelphia.

Don't know what I love more: Frank accidentally incriminating himself, Dee playing Maureen in the re-enactments, Charlie watching wrestling, Dennis & Mac MSTing movies, or Mac not knowing how MSTing works.

I havebn't seen Making a Murderer, but apparently Charlie was based on Brenden Dassey.

Oh god, that last twist was great. I bet Mac and Charlie WERE behind Making a Murderer after all.

[Christina]

They absolutely nailed Making a Murderer. Nailed it. Frank's B-line of The Jinx made perfect sense, too. Every character fit together perfectly in this episode. Sometimes with this many characters one or two gets lost. But Sunny does it so well.

[Lantern7]

I don't watch those shows, so I'm thinking that I missed a lot. On the plus side, Mac shows again that he's not funny, Dee is always willing to do a gig, and Frank has done far, far worse than Dennis. Probably. Maybe. Gotta love Frank fleeing by cab, getting reminded of statue of limitations, then going back because the TV people had a decent spread. Because Frank, that's why.

[Galileo908]

4 minutes ago, Lantern7 said:

I don't watch those shows, so I'm thinking that I missed a lot. On the plus side, Mac shows again that he's not funny, Dee is always willing to do a gig, and Frank has done far, far worse than Dennis. Probably. Maybe. Gotta love Frank fleeing by cab, getting reminded of statue of limitations, then going back because the TV people had a decent spread. Because Frank, that's why.

Don't forget hitting on the cab driver for good measure.

[DrSpaceman73]

I haven't seen Making of a Murderer or whatever its called, but of course it was obvious that is what they were doing.  Maybe it helps to have seen that show. 

Had its moments, but wasn't my favorite episode. 

[Joimiaroxeu]

Murder is chips.

[Hero]

"She was prancing around on the roof like an asshole." ??

 

I'm mad that this show and the actors have not won any awards. 

[vousviou]

12 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I haven't seen Making of a Murderer or whatever its called, but of course it was obvious that is what they were doing.  Maybe it helps to have seen that show. 

Had its moments, but wasn't my favorite episode. 

This is pretty much my reaction.  I feel as though a parody really ought to stand on its own even if someone hasn't seen the target.  Otherwise, it ends up like a lot of Saturday Night Live or later Simpsons where you can tell the creators are patting themselves on the back for how many references they got in, rather than how funny it actually was.

I don't want to be too harsh, because it wasn't terrible, but the heavy borrowing slowed the show down.  Always Sunny at its heart is about (paraphrasing one of the characters here) people yelling at each other until the loudest voice wins, and this show didn't have that.

Howerton did well as the central focus, Olsen's impersonations of Maureen were funny, Charlie's tranquilized interview was hilarious, but overall it felt padded to me.

One other observation I had was that there's really one been one straight up Always Sunny show at the halfway point this season -- the water park one.  By that, I mean where the gang does something pointless, there's no social commentary, no unique format, just the gang being greedy and nasty to each other and generally being funny. 

It's been a good season overall, with no clunkers, but I wish there were more in the format of Charlie Catches a Leprechaun, The Gang Gets Stranded, Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack, with a simple setup and then cascading chaos.

[ganesh]

I haven't watched the show, but I know of it. I enjoyed the episode a lot. I'm sure there's some little things I missed, but it was really funny. Dee 'acting', Charlie drugged out. I didn't think Dennis did it, but finding it to be just a setup is the ridiculous thing they'd do. 

The punch line being Dennis wasn't actually the psycho this time. 

[Christina]

If you are into true crime stories, The Jinx is worth a watch. It is based on Robert Durst's life and the people in his life that have been murdered. Robert was tried and acquitted of one of the murders, but still a suspect in the disappearance of his first wife and the murder of his long-time friend (which I think he has now been charged with but I haven't kept up with his story). He met with the documentary filmmakers and at the end of the meeting, walked into a bathroom still miked, and says, "What the hell did I do? I killed them all, of course." That was what they were playing up with Frank still being mic'ed. It was six episodes and aired on HBO.

I don't recommend Making of a Murderer, because they left so much out it wasn't in any way thorough and was completely biased. It was 10 episodes, which was the argument at the very end about how they were dragging it out, and Dennis was all, "What about the surveillance video that clears me?" In MOM the nephew was taken to police headquarters and questioned like Charlie. He is mentally challenged and kept asking if he told them what they wanted to hear would they take him back to school because he had a test. The cops told him what they wanted him to say. That part of the documentary was angering. Charlie was playing that part and that's why he kept asking to go watch wrestling. 

It's not as funny if it is being explained to you, but they nailed it. The entire thing from Frank admitting his crimes while mic'ed and how Charlie and Mac planned on dragging it out for 10 episodes without offering a lot of clear information. And every character had a part to play that made sense in the ensemble. 

[ganesh]

Yeah, but I don't think one had to be privy of those shows to enjoy this episode. I only know of those shows in general because I regularly watch the news and they were covered at one point. I still thought this was funny.

[DrSpaceman73]

11 hours ago, vousviou said:

This is pretty much my reaction.  I feel as though a parody really ought to stand on its own even if someone hasn't seen the target.  Otherwise, it ends up like a lot of Saturday Night Live or later Simpsons where you can tell the creators are patting themselves on the back for how many references they got in, rather than how funny it actually was.

I don't want to be too harsh, because it wasn't terrible, but the heavy borrowing slowed the show down.  Always Sunny at its heart is about (paraphrasing one of the characters here) people yelling at each other until the loudest voice wins, and this show didn't have that.

Howerton did well as the central focus, Olsen's impersonations of Maureen were funny, Charlie's tranquilized interview was hilarious, but overall it felt padded to me.

One other observation I had was that there's really one been one straight up Always Sunny show at the halfway point this season -- the water park one.  By that, I mean where the gang does something pointless, there's no social commentary, no unique format, just the gang being greedy and nasty to each other and generally being funny. 

It's been a good season overall, with no clunkers, but I wish there were more in the format of Charlie Catches a Leprechaun, The Gang Gets Stranded, Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack, with a simple setup and then cascading chaos.

You're right about this season being different.  They seem to be more "gimmicky" this year, though not sure that is the correct word, except for The Gang Goes to the Water Park. 

[Amarsir]

In the moment, I thought the resolution was going to be that it didn't matter whether he did it or not because Maureen was legally classified as a cat. This is better, and in hindsight that wouldn't work in the Sunny universe where the outside world is pretty normal and it's just The Gang and the secondary characters that are insane. But it felt like the out they were going toward.

[Oscirus]

This episode felt like an episode where they wanted to give the cast some time off to take care of their future projects while at the same time fulfilling their contractual obligations to FX. Glenn just happened to draw the short straw so he had to carry the episode.

[mothmonsterman]

Okay, so Dennis could have actually killed her, right.  He had cat tranquilizers in his safe, he didn't want Charlie to tell the police about them, Maureen was "on the roof prancing around, then she just drops."  So he could have slipped her the tranquilizer knowing she would be going to the roof soon.

Once again I love the layers of this show.

[cynicat]

I'm so out of the cultural loop that I didn't even know this was a parody of an actual documentary.  That being said, I still found it really funny.  So for me, it did stand on its own.