Reynolds vs. Reynolds: The Cereal Defense

"Reynolds vs. Reynolds: The Cereal Defense" is the tenth and final episode of the eighth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Synopsis
Court is in session at Paddy's Pub as Frank and Dennis present their cases to the rest of The Gang (with Dee and Charlie serving as lawyers and Mac as judge/bailiff), resulting in a verdict that will change their lives FOREVER... but not really.

Recap
10:19 AM on a Friday in Philadelphia, PA

Frank is driving, using a navigation tape pre-recorded by Charlie to help with his directions. The tape is out of sync with the route, confusing and irritating Frank. Meanwhile, Dennis is eating a bowl of cereal in his Range Rover and listening to a gardening segment on KPFN Radio. Dennis calls the talk show host "a dumb bitch" seconds before Frank rear-ends him, resulting in the bowl being flung out of Dennis' hand, splattering all over the dash and inner wind-shield. At the bar, Mac tries to win Charlie's approval of genetic mutations adapted from comic books to the real world through evolution. While the duo argue with Dee, Frank and Dennis begin to start their argument walking in. Dennis tells his side of the story of what happened this morning. The gang keeps arguing until Frank opens his side of the story with Dennis eating a bowl of cereal. Dennis, on the other hand, threatens to take Frank to court and sue him. Dee disagrees by recalling a series of bench warrants of sexual misconduct and list of unregistered guns in Frank's car.

When the fake trial is set at the bar, the gang argue who's the defendant to imply if who's guilty. Mac comes in with a "trial meter", a board where the gang moves their gavel to each side of the board to represent the events of what happened. Mac wants to be the judge/bailiff and Dennis disagrees, resulting in Frank to be called to the stand, where Charlie reveals he was taken to a mental institution. Dennis tricks Frank with a glass of wine by spilling it all over his shirt and demonstrates the events of what happened. Frank was at a dead stop when Frank took a sip, resulting in Charlie to side with Dennis. But Mac states that Frank knew the risk, so if Frank is by default for the first sip, Dennis is at fault in the car, causing Charlie to reside with Frank and Mac.

Dee later calls Mac to the stand and questions him if he could evolve a superhuman race of strongmen through genetic mutation and Mac confirms he thinks that evolution is a "load of bull crap", causing Frank to withhold a recess. Frank drags Mac to his office, where they come up a with a plan where Mac believes in evolution, but three hours later, Mac shows with another "trial meter" board that evolution is a lie, representing God on the right and evolution on the left. After a series of arguments, Mac demonstrates a representative meeting where "Science is a Liar (sometimes)", showing a pattern where Aristotle, Galileo, and Isaac Newton, are total bitches for their theories to be proven wrong [sometimes], resulting in Dennis to call the trial insane and calls a Mac a fool. Dennis also states that Mac is wasting his time researching a bunch of guys he never met and takes them "upon faith" where they disprove their theories incorrectly. Mac retaliates by saying the same thing to confuse Dennis and pressures him to answer the question. Dennis says yes (but wasn't ready to answer the question) and the gang move their crucifixes on the left.

The gang move back to the cereal trial where Charlie votes for Frank and Dee votes for Dennis. Dee states they're nowhere with the trial when Mac moves his gavel to the fence, so the gang take the trial to the streets. Dennis and Mac drive to his apartment and back to the bar and Frank drives Dee and Charlie to their place at back, but Frank is still paying for the damages. In Dennis' car, Mac tries to get Dennis to admit that he was swayed by evolution a little bit. Dennis is interrupted when Frank crashes into him twice. Frank and Charlie blame Dee for interrupting Charlie while he was giving directions. Dee goes crazy and threatens to propose a trial and against herself and Charlie, then the others disagree and head back to the bar, leaving Dee to walk alone.

Alliances

 * Dennis and Dee
 * Charlie and Frank

Starring

 * Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly
 * Glenn Howerton as Dennis Reynolds
 * Rob McElhenney as Mac
 * Kaitlin Olson as Dee Reynolds
 * Danny DeVito as Frank Reynolds

Co-Starring

 * Seth Coltan as Man

Trivia

 * It's likely that the episode is based off the real life Scopes Trial, a legal case charging a teacher with teaching the subject of evolution to his class, which was illegal at the time. The trial was supposed to be about whether or not it should be legal to teach science in school, but it became more so sidetracked into a debate about whether or not evolution was actually true.
 * The plot of this season finale was revealed on 27th August, almost four months before its airdate.
 * Here's a photo from the set of this episode: "The Gang with the lucky fan".
 * The man who leaves the bar as they're ready to take the argument outside shows up when Frank is being questioned, in "Witness for the prosecution". When we first see him, he's already sitting at the bar. He drinks at least two glasses of beer, and doesn't do anything else - he doesn't even look their way.
 * Back in, there was an episode with The Gang at actual court.
 * Charlie has been considering himself to be an accomplished lawyer since 03x10.
 * Mac began to wear Tommy Bahama shirts back in "Frank's Pretty Woman", and throughout most of season 7. Including this episode, he also wears the shirts in 08x04 and 08x06, and will proceed to wear them occasionally in future episodes, despite his major weight loss.
 * Since this episode, every other member of the Gang besides Mac seems to have a much more ambiguous stance on religion, suggesting his arguments did sway them in some way. Most prominent is Charlie's agreeing with Mac that God burnt Cricket's face in "Psycho Pete Returns", and in "The Gang Goes to Hell", when after joking about Frank being the Devil, a well-timed fog horn causes them to worry about actually angering God and try to avoid being sinful.
 * The radio station Dennis is listening to at the beginning of the episode goes by the call letters KPFN. However radio callsigns east of the Mississippi River start with a "W" rather than a "K", while stations to the west of the river are vice versa, meaning the station's call letters should be WPFN. There have been known to be rare exceptions to this rule, including KDKA in Pittsburgh.
 * Since the episode starts at 10:19 AM, the trial begins at around 1:30 PM since Mac took 3 hours to make the Trial Meter. The next time jump of three hours (waiting for the Evolution Meter) brings them to well past 5-6 PM by the time the trial wraps up.
 * According to the “Always Sunny Podcast” episode on “Mac Bangs Dennis’ Mom,” the episode was inspired by a real incident where Glenn Howerton was rear-ended while eating cereal in his car and came into work complaining about it to Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, who found it hilarious when he revealed the cereal part and decided that it should be an episode.
 * The word rebuttal is misspelled in the title card "'Rebuttle' of Donkey Brain Defense"

Quotes
"Oh, Sandra... You dumb bitch."

- dennis

"Let's begin with my opening statement, if I could. First off: who is the defendant in this matter?"

- charlie

"Alright, well, irregardless, I would like to know, as Frank's lawyer who I am persecuting and who I am defending."

- charlie

"I will scratch everybody's eyes out of their sockets!"

- dennis

"One might even call it... donkey brained."

- charlie

"It means to have the brains of a donkey, or a donkey type creature."

- charlie

"Mac, do you believe that you could create a super-human race of strongmen through genetic mutation and evolution?"

- dee

"Rock, flag, and eagle. Right Charlie?"

- mac

"Isaac Newton was born and blow's everybody's nips off with his big brains."

- mac