The Janitor Always Mops Twice

"The Janitor Always Mops Twice" is the sixth episode of the fourteenth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Synopsis
In the black-and-white noir world of his memory, Charlie navigates the seedy underbelly of Philadelphia as Frank has been "diarrhea poisoned," and it's up to Charlie to clean up the mess.

Plot
10:00 PM, on a Thursday, Philadelphia, PA

Charlie is stumbling around in the bar, grabbing his stomach which is red, seemingly bleeding, until he falls down. In a voice-over, he begins to tell what has lead to this.

One night - after a trying day involving a mess in the handicapped toilet - Charlie is just about to huff glue, pouring glue in a paper bag, when he is accosted by Dennis, who's taken the role of the gangster, and Mac, his goon, who want him to clean up a mess in the bar. Charlie refuses and provokes Mac, pressing the glue bag into his face when he attacks him so that he falls unconscious. Dennis tells Charlie they have rented out the bar for a private party the next day to some bigwig, so it needs to be clean.

While Charlie is mopping up a red substance in the bar, a cloaked woman enters the bar. Charlie is initially pleased but startles when she puts down her hood and he sees that it is Dee. Dee tells him Frank has been diarrhea poisoned and is stuck at her place. Charlie asks her why Frank hasn't called him, instead sending one of his goons and they argue whether Dee is a goon.

When Charlie arrives at Dee's and begins to question Frank, Frank isn't really cooperative. However, Charlie deduces that Frank must have been poisoned the night before when he closed up the bar. After making the mess in the handicapped toilet he then flew to the nearest apartment, Dee's. Frank tells him to stop asking questions.

The next day Charlie questions everyone who might bear a grudge against Frank, but they all haven't seen Frank in days. When he returns to the bar, Charlie encounters The Waitress in an alley, telling some man to leave her alone. He immediately jumps in, sending the man away. The Waitress tells Charlie she has a shady past but wants to make an honest living now, only her boyfriend Vincent won't stand for it. Charlie offers her a place to stay and tells her to call him if Vincent bothers her again.

In the bar, Dennis tells Charlie that the party is not for the big-wig but his teenage daughter, meaning they can't sell booze. When Charlie questions him about Frank Dennis confirms he hates Frank's guts but claims he has nothing to do with his diarrhea. Just then, Charlie sees Dee coming out of the basement and angrily follows her, since he has told her to stay with Frank. As it turns out it is not Dee, but a disguised Rickety Cricket who admits Frank let him stay in the basement where he runs a cherry racket from. He hired Cricket to contaminate cherries in the local bars. Charlie thinks someone who got the contaminated cherries has poisoned Frank.

Charlie goes home and is soon joined by the Waitress who tells him the only safe place is his arms and they spend the night together. The next morning, however, Charlie wakes in his bed not with the Waitress but with Dee, who is playing dead, as Mac and Dennis attempt to take a picture of Charlie and "the body". They wanted to blackmail him on Frank's orders as they are in on Frank's scheme.

After they have left, Frank calls Charlie, telling him to come to the bar where Frank will tell him everything. Charlie finds Frank in the basement with his "guts cut to ribbons" from falling on a char of cherries that "sliced his stomach into bits". Charlie confronts Frank with his cherry racket but Frank tells him it isn't his scam. Before he can reveal to Charlie who is behind it, Charlie gets hit on the head from behind.

When he wakes up, he is joined by Vincent who seems to be the mastermind behind the cherry racket. He asks Charlie where the Waitress is, telling him she belongs with him. He then suggests Charlie should join his organization, telling him refusing would be bad for his health. Charlie makes an ammonia bleach cocktail resulting in some sort of gas that makes Vincent fall unconscious. (Charlie, of course, has developed immunity for the chemicals). He then finds a chip Vincent has been playing with and puts it in his pocket.

Later Charlie is sitting at the bar when the Waitress comes in. Charlie tells her Vincent is out of commission and she gives him a cherry pie as thanks. Charlie asks her why she didn't tell him about Frank's cherry racket when he begins to feel bad and his stomach begins to gurgle ominously. The Waitress reveals she is behind the cherry racket. She begins to tell him about her scheme but stops when she sees he is still eating that pie. Charlie is a bit confused since "there a lot of threats going around" and eats another couple of bites. The Waitress reveals that she diarrhea poisoned Frank and that Vincent was not her boyfriend but her Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. She tells Charlie she has poisoned him because he got too close and that she'll leave town. Charlie tells her she won't get away with this. He reveals he knew she was lying since he found Vincent's AA chip and then drank bleach, what he believes to be the universal poison antidote. He and the Waitress begin to argue whether bleach cancels poison out or makes it worse. Charlie is eventually forced to concede she was right, vomiting cherries on her. He then tells her he has called the cops. Dee, dressed in a police uniform comes in, announcing she has been undercover the whole time. The Waitress comments that this doesn't make any sense and Dee says she switched things up since she was tired of being called a goon before dragging the Waitress out.

Charlie stumbles around the bar - as shown in the first scene - trying but failing to reach the toilet. In the voice-over he announces he'll shit his brains out all over the floor, but he'll mop twice.

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

Guest Starring

 * David Hornsby as Cricket
 * Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Waitress
 * Wass Stevens as Vince

Co-Starring

 * Gilberto Ortiz as Teen Boy

Trivia

 * This episode doesn't feature the normal opening credits montage. Instead, the credits, in a different font, simply appear on the screen, accompanied by a Noir-inspired music
 * The episode heavily references and borrows from Film Noir, using black-white coloring, adding a genre-typical soundtrack, and the Gang assuming typical film noir roles though they repeatedly get out of character, commenting on their roles.
 * Although clearly heavily fictionalised by Charlie's imagination, it's entirely possible the events depicted in the episode actually happened, but far differently from how Charlie perceives them. It is the strongest sign that Charlie actually misses the Waitress despite their disastrous relationship together.