The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition

"The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition" is the twelfth episode of the fourth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Synopsis
The gang redecorates a poor family's home a la Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Recap
3:27PM on a Friday

Charlie, Mac, and Dennis are talking about the TV show Extreme Home Makeover in the bar when Dee and Frank enter. Dee and Frank are arguing because Dee is inheriting their old house from her & Dennis's mother (the house that Dennis inherited but lost for allowing Frank to step foot in it). Charlie tells Frank that he should make a vision board and put the house on it. The three guys proceed to explain the process of The Secret, a famous self-help book that tells you to envision what you want and watch it come to you, and show Frank their vision boards. Charlie's board contains a bunch of photos of Ty Pennington, the star of Extreme Home Makeover, because he's got such a sweet life. Dee chimes in, saying that she got her mother's mansion because of The Secret (or, in her words, she "envisioned the courts recognizing how ridiculous it was that [her] son of a bitch, asshole mother didn't leave [her] anything and then I did some good deeds and boom"). The guys are distraught, as they had not realized that doing good deeds was part of the deal. They decide, however, that they ultimately must help others to achieve their dreams.

Charlie, Mac, and Dennis come up from the basement, having fashioned a makeshift wrecking ball out of Frank's bowling ball and some chains. They explain their plan to do a home makeover for the good deed part of their Secret process. Dee joins them, having figured out that she's going to need a lot of money to pay the property taxes on her new house. Frank tags along as the foreman hopes of getting his house back from Dee. They choose the Juarez family, a newly immigrated Mexican family down the street. Charlie and Dennis are in charge of the renovation of the house, and Mac gets relegated to helping Dee with the family's cultural makeover because he's too competitive about smashing.

They agree to "go about this in the most extreme way possible" and burst into the Juarez's house at night. They blast music and scream and kidnap the Juarezes with blindfolds. Mac and Dee take them from the house to a room filled with American souvenirs. They try to explain their plan of assimilating them & making over their house, but the family does not know enough English to get the idea. Dee makes use of her broken high school Spanish, telling the family, "Be easy. Your house is no more. Your life is no more. We are extreme. Like television." They are understandably terrified.

Frank fails to hire a construction crew and instead takes a nap in the Juarezes' bed, leaving Dennis and Charlie to figure out the renovation themselves. They begin to smash everything. Frank comes down eventually, looking for beer, and the guys kick him off the work site. He goes and finds Mac and Dee, who are having the Juarezes make their own vision boards. Frank tries to hand the mother scissors, and she stabs him in the leg. He, of course, whips out his gun, and further frightens the family.

Cut to Dennis and Charlie at the hardware store. Dennis has loaded up his cart with some construction/destruction supplies while Charlie has chosen some cloth for a taco-themed bed (because "What does a little Mexican girl love more than anything else in the world? Tacos, buddy!"). The cashier (Retta) rings them up to $3,212.11. They request that the costs be charged to the "Extreme Home Makeover account," and an emotional, Sears-filled argument ensues. Finally, they decide to bring Mr. Juarez in to sign him up for a store card and put the purchase on it. Mac, Dennis, and Charlie agree that they are doing him a favor by taking him from no debt to "good old-fashioned American debt." Frank films the entire conversation, as he has begun taping their endeavor because he's "tired of this Secret bullshit" and he wants to watch them fail over and over again.

Mac escorts Mr. Juarez back to the makeover zone, and Dennis and Charlie head back to the house. Dennis explains the advantages of shorter jean shorts, and then the two debate whether to start the demolition with a flamethrower or a wrecking ball while Frank films them. Ultimately, they decide that they need to bring the neighbors in to help them clear out the furniture, as they is what they do on Extreme Home Makeover. These neighbors, however, just take the furniture and leave. They also take Dennis's tool belt. Frustrated, the guys decide that it is time to demolish via flamethrower. And then, once the wall is "all weakened from the burned-up fires," they will smash it down. Frank suggests that they open the window to get a draft going on the fire, and so they do.

Meanwhile, Mac and Dee have made over the Juarezes, who are now wearing wigs and bright blue contacts (which looks, as Frank puts it, "freaky as shit"). Mac suggests that they screen Apocalypto, a Mel Gibson movie in which he must escape the Mayans and rescue his family. Mac says it's "good old-fashioned American cinema" and that it will help the family learn how "their ancestors used to be savages until Mel Gibson and the Catholics came in and saved everybody." Frank interrupts this, however, and drags them all back to the house with bags over their heads. He pulls off the bags, and they see that he has rented a bus for the reveal of the new house, just like they do on Extreme Home Makeover. The bus pulls away to reveal Charlie and Dennis, stumbling through the pile of rubble and ashes that used to be the Juarezes' home.

Cut to the gang standing in front of Mrs. Reynolds' old house, where the Juarez family jumps and runs with excitement, holding bags and suitcases. Dee laments decision made in the unseen courtroom trial that she had to give her mother's mansion to the Juarezes.

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

 * Gabriela Moreno as Daughter Juarez
 * Alejandro Patino as Father Juarez
 * Laura Patricia Vega as Mother Juarez

Co-Starring

 * Retta as Hardware Store Clerk

Trivia
"A Very Sunny Christmas" episode.
 * Dennis mentions that his dream board includes owning a Lamborghini - this theme will later return in
 * Charlie is a die-hard fan of TV host Ty Pennington.
 * Dennis has lost his "party mansion" after the events of "Dennis and Dee's Mom Is Dead".
 * In "Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack", Dee has difficulty reading the Spanish instructions for her and Dennis' Botox injections because, as she says, she has never taken Spanish. However, in this episode Sweet Dee speaks Spanish decently, and states that she took Spanish classes in.
 * Charlie's freak out over Frank saying the show is a "bunch of manipulation" ("It's about caring, and Sears!") references the fact that the original show had a great deal of product placement of Sears products.
 * In the eighth season episode "Charlie's Mom Has Cancer", we find out that the "Juarez" family later had to sell the house because they could not pay the property tax.  This, in itself, is another reference to "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," because the same fate befell many people who got new homes on the show.
 * This is the second time a Mel Gibson missionary movie has been mentioned in the show— the first being in the second episode of the entire show, "Charlie Wants an Abortion", when Megan says that she's seen The Passion of the Christ 12 times.Shorts.png
 * This episode marks the first appearance of the recurring cut-off short-shorts worn by different members of the gang.

Quotes
Mac: Yeah, and I'm gonna  impregnate Danica Patrick while getting drunk in the Sahara desert on a dune buggy.

Charlie: [about the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition That show is about how awesome Sears is!!! And how much Sears products save people's lives!!! And it's about caring and Sears and...

"Wake up, my brown friend - it's time to change your life!"

- mac

"Okay, hold still! Can't run from the kindness of strangers!"

- dee

"What does a little Mexican girl love more than anything else in the world?"

- charlie

"Tacos, buddy!"

- charlie

"The first step to becoming an American... get a credit card."

- mac

"We're doing him a HUGE favor! And do you realize how extreme this is? To go from no debt to good old-fashioned American debt? That's the way to do it."

- charlie

"I can't believe their name isn't Juarez. Was anyone else surprised by that?"

- charlie

"It's a shocker! Shocking for me..."

- mac