The Gang Inflates quickly became one of my all-time favorite episodes from the moment it aired. It’s not only a great example of what Sunny’s humor is, but a hard nod to the audience that, while a lot has changed over the years and the characters are clearly growing, they’re still committed to keeping the Gang stuck in their ways. Things are “blown up” to try and spur the Gang to move forward, yet they all end up in the same place they began, proving they can’t (or won’t) move forward:
Mac and Dennis blow up a couch to replace their old one, inspiring Dennis to pitch a new business idea he has complete confidence in (despite the fact that he had just high-fived Mac over trading a ten dollar bill for a five). Mac easily proves he can’t even make good decisions for himself while Dennis proves that not only does he have terrible business sense in the market (inflatable furniture), he also has bad business sense with investments (Charlie’s TMNT pies). Charlie washes out their debt, but they’re in their mid-40s now and provenly no closer to being able to fend for themselves.
Dee’s life is blown up when she is forcibly evicted from her apartment. Displaced, she has to glue herself to the walls of the Gang’s apartments to keep from being pushed out. Frank is the only one who has given her security and it's only because he literally owns the ground she walks on. Charlie gets her back into her apartment, but she’s been with these guys for two decades and she still has to stick herself into every situation to keep from being ignored.
Charlie’s doors are blown down as Frank refuses to hear out his investment opportunity, intent on making changes in an uncomfortable way. Charlie just wants Frank to take him seriously, hear him out on his investment, but the man won’t do that, so he has to go the long route instead. His clear sense of business-talk convinces Dennis to invest, and while it immediately turns out to be seen as another ‘worthless’ Charlie investment, it actually proves that Charlie does understand business tactic (more-so, the manipulation side of things). He didn’t set out on his endeavor to trade the pies off to Frank, he wanted to go in on them together, but he uses what he’s learned in order to keep ahold of what they know—to maintain the status-quo and put everything back to how it’s always been.
In my opinion, it’s the perfect season opener: we’re not going anywhere, and while the Gang are going to keep trying to move forward, they’re not going anywhere either. But with that being said, one thing did go somewhere this episode: my title subject—Mac and Dennis’ couch.
For as far as we know, that thing is gone for good (and, the inflatable furniture may be here to stay). And while they’re very proud of the fact that they’ve had it for so long (albeit, rented, not owned), they’re ready to move on, and have already chucked it by the time we enter the opening scene of the season. (What spurred this? I’d say it’s pretty fun to let your imagination run wild and free on that question.) What immediately struck me as interesting is the claim of longevity of their couch: fifteen years.
You could go the simple route of chalking it up as a nod to the audience: we’re entering the sixteenth season, so they have fifteen seasons behind them, and thus “fifteen years,” with the couch, but since Season 15 made the conscious decision to keep the show in the present-day, one season = one year no longer works for the characters. So how do we figure that Mac and Dennis, as characters living in 2023, claim they’ve had their couch for fifteen years?
They’ve been roommates for well over fifteen years, but have they had their couch for longer than fifteen years? Well yes, but also no.
Their signature black leather couch doesn’t actually make an appearance until Season 2 (Season 1 featured a three-seater, brown couch), so we can assume they got it in 2006. Now that would still put Mac and Dennis’ couch over fifteen years in 2023, until you factor in the period of time in which they definitely didn’t have their couch—Seasons 10-12.
Thanksgiving 2013, Mac and Dennis' apartment burns down (and thus, their couch burns too) and move in with Dee for a couple of years. In the beginning of 2017, Mac restores their apartment to its exact-likeness, black leather couch included (side note: finding out they rent that thing actually makes Mac look a little less insane for being able to perfectly replace their furniture after the fire).
So they had their couch from 2006 through 2013, about eight years, and then once again from 2017 through 2023, about seven years, to bring us to:
Was it simply thrown out for a plot device? Fifteen years stated only as a nod to the show’s milestone? Or is letting go of the couch telling of something further defining? Fifteen years, reached only by constantly returning and scraping together botched time, finally put behind them? Is this, being the one lasting change from the episode, a hint that Mac and Dennis are finally ready to let go of something familiar and accept something new?
Since we never physically return to their apartment in Season 16, that remains to be seen.
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