The Gang Escapes

"The Gang Escapes" is the second episode of the thirteenth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It aired on September 12, 2018.

Synopsis
To boost productivity, Dee hires an "Escape Room Experience" service to come to Dennis and Mac's apartment

Plot
2:30 PM, on a Saturday, Philadelphia, PA

Dee introduces an Escape Room service to the guys as a way of team building, as she’s done it before and considers it fun and challenging. Amanda, one of its employees, talks them through the game, and if they escape before the timer goes off, they will get their team picture posted on their website. The guys don’t consider this a proper challenge, so Frank decides whoever wins gets steaks, which everyone else agrees to.

The Escape Room service preps Mac and Dennis’s apartment for the game, which Dee is excited to begin. However, once the door locks, Frank starts to panic, due to his traumatic memories of being locked up at the “nit wit” school, so Charlie calms him down with some chewing gum, the sound of which drive Dennis insane. They also become annoyed when Dee tries to lead the group, and end up locking her in Dennis’s room. After a disagreement on who should be the leader, the guys split off into two groups to find clues; Mac and Dennis find a heart-shaped lock, and Charlie and Frank find the key to the lock, but both groups refuse to tell one another.

Still trapped in Dennis’s room, Dee asks Amanda over the walkie talkie for help, but wants to escape on her own terms to prove herself to the guys. Meanwhile, the two groups start smashing everything in the rooms, looking for the lock/key respectively. Dennis continues to hear Frank’s gum chewing and sees it as a classic power play as, in terms of animal dynamics, “the head cow is always grazing”. He tells Mac to get him some of that gum so he can assert his own dominance over Frank. Mac gets some gum from Frank and Charlie, but ends up eating it himself, wanting to appear as a “head cow” too, and reveals to them the lock they’ve been searching for. The group organizes a summit, with all four of them chewing gum loudly, and try to leverage one another for the lock/key, but end up coming to a stand still.

Back in Dennis’s room, Dee, after constantly pounding on the door and yelling, realizes the guys can’t hear her, as Dennis sound-proofed his room. She inadvertently activates Dennis’s sex room, with his own instructional video, vibrating bed, and creepy atmosphere, much to her disgust. Knowing there’s no way out of his room, Dee opts to do something “drastic” to escape.

After a long and intense negotiation, with Charlie as head speaker, the guys manage to come to an agreement, and open the lock, hoping to find the code that will unlock the door. However, the lock was only the first clue in the game, as they find a series of other clues within it, and panic over realizing the amount of time they have left to solve them. They then find Dee outside on the ledge, having successfully escaped Dennis’s room, and Amanda unlocks the door, ending the game, to help her, but is too late as Dee slips and falls off.

Dee ends up in the hospital, with a broken arm, furious at the guys for not letting her help them. However, the guys come in, applauding her for helping them win the game by taking a fall. Dennis also applauds her for finding the only way out of his sex room. They ask Amanda to take their picture, but she claims they didn’t win as she let them out. However, Mac counteracts by saying that the timer was still going, and she didn’t specify how they were supposed to escape before then, so they still technically won, despite her ending the game. Frank brings out their celebratory steaks, and they let Dee eat first as a thanks, which she happily accepts. Amanda then takes their picture, with Dee still chewing her steaks.

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

 * Kate Comer as Amanda

Trivia

 * The Ass Pounder 4000, previously seen in "Hero or Hate Crime?" and "Dennis' Double Life", reappears in Mac's bedroom.
 * We found out that Frank went to a "nitwit school" in the Season 8 episode "The Gang Gets Analyzed", and we actually saw it (though it was closed) in the season 10 episode "Psycho Pete Returns."
 * Dennis is able to hear Frank chewing gum from another room on the other side of the apartment. Dennis demonstrated a similar sensitivity to sound in the Season 10 episode "The Gang Goes on Family Fight."
 * When Dee searches for a way to stop Dennis's room game, Dennis on the laptop says "Ah ah ah! You didn't say the safe word!" This is probably a reference to Jurassic Park, when an image of Dennis Nedry would say a very similar line when the wrong password was entered.
 * Dennis also says "Clever girl" when Dee is on the ledge, another Jurassic Park quote.