Over the past 8+ seasons of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, one thing the Gang hasn’t been short on is money-making schemes. From exploiting a water stain that looks like the virgin Mary to selling gasoline door-to-door, they’re always looking for the quickest way to make a buck, and most of the time ethics don’t play a factor at all. They also aren’t the most discerning group around. Plenty of people have successfully duped them, and done it multiple times. With all that considered, it’s actually pretty surprising that pyramid schemes haven’t showed up in an episode before. But that all changed with the fourth episode of season 9: Mac And Dennis Buy A Timeshare.
The episode starts with Dee making a pitch to Mac, Dennis, and Charlie about Invigaron, her new business venture involving some super berries that will get the toxins out of their bodies and solve every problem imaginable. After all, Alpacas eat these, and they survive winters in the Andes. Dennis and Mac catch on right away that Dee got got, but then they notice a new set of golf clubs she has. She says all she had to do was sit through twenty minutes to get those, so Dennis and Mac head to the presentation to get themselves a new set of irons with promises they won’t get got. Charlie stays around, very worried about his high stress toxin levels (as measured simply in units) so he wants to chug down some of those berries and buys in.
When Dennis and Mac get to the presentation, the salesman says he knows that they aren’t interested in selling berries, they seem too smart for that, in fact, they look like guys who love to relax, so maybe they’d be interested in going on vacation to Florida. Dennis and Mac are definitely interested in that, and after the salesman reveals that pretty soon hotels could cost twenty thousand a week, they’re all too eager to buy three weeks of a timeshare.
Meanwhile, Frank has been missing. Dee asks Charlie about this, but all Charlie knows is that last night Frank said something about a dream and ran out to the park. So, they venture to the park to investigate, and find Frank stuck in a jungle-gym coil wearing nothing but his not-so-tighty-whities. Frank refuses to give any explanation for his current state, just wanting them to help get him out. Dee is more interested in getting information out of him on how to make money out of Invigaron. Frank tells her it’s a pyramid scheme. She doesn’t believe him until he has her turn her reverse funnel diagram upside-down. Frank says the only way out is to sell the product to a few deep-pocketed dummies, like Ben the solider.
Mac and Dennis also go to Frank, looking for someone to buy their timeshare from them. Frank tells them to go back to Ben, and they leave Frank in the coil. This pattern of looking for advice from Frank and leaving him in the coil continues for most of the episode until finally the Gang is fed up with trying to cash in on these schemes and heads back to the salesman to get out of them. He obliges for a mere few hundred dollar cancellation fee from Dee and $2,000 from Dennis. What a sucker.
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