It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia |
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In It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s fifth season finale, the gang sinks to new lows to re-stake their claim as Philadelphia Flip Cup champions. While it wasn’t the hands-down funniest episode of the season and paled in comparison to last season’s closer, “The Nightman Cometh,” the gang kicked out yet another laugh-out-loud episode, leaving fans hungry for more than just 12 episodes and awaiting what antics may come in Season 6.
As Frank is modeling his new, skinny jeans in an effort to be hip and trendy, Dee rushes into the Pub, eagerly alerting the rest of the gang that the decade-long ban has been lifted and Paddy’s is now allowed back in Flipadelphia. The gang was banned from the city-wide Flip Cup Tournaments for poisoning the other team. Now they can reignite their rivalry with Molly’s pub – the default winner the last time Paddy’s was actually in contention.
This week’s episode of It’s Always Sunny was a decent one, but not necessarily one of the season’s best. Playing off of director M. Knight Shyamalan’s connections to Philadelphia, the Sunny gang puts their own “twist” on things.
The action kicks off at Paddy’s Pub with Mac and Charlie telling the worst story ever about being locked in a stairwell and meeting a security guard to Dennis. Dennis could care less, playing with his fancy new touch screen phone. Meanwhile, Frank is using his shirt pocket to dispense and eat large links of sausage. Dee walks in and announces that she’s landed a featured role in an extra in an M. Knight Shyamalan movie. As is par for the course, the rest of the gang attempts to figure out how they can get a piece of the action. Frank volunteers his services as Dee’s agent, realizing he can get money for nothing. Dee declines and Frank ends up as Dennis’s agent while Mac and Charlie attempt to write their own script to pitch to M. Knight.
Ever wondered how Dennis Reynolds pulls in so many ladies? Do you only dream of being as suave and sophisticated as Dennis? Well, then! This is the episode of It’s Always Sunny for you! Dennis outlines his six-point plan for scoring with women and dropping them cold as only he can. Observe and learn.
Dennis breezes into Paddy’s to share a voicemail message sent to him by the latest chick he’s gotten to fall in love with him. After the voice on the other end cycles through a litany of derogatory names, Dennis laughs about it and informs his cohorts that this chick who claims to hate him is actually in love with him. And it’s all thanks to “The D.E.N.N.I.S. System.”
After dropping by to torment Dee and borrow some popcorn for their umpteenth viewing of Predator, Mac and Dennis find themselves the brunt of accusatory comments. Dennis refers to his sister as a “cat lady spinster with no friends.” Dee fires back, hitting a little too close to home by insisting that Dennis and Mac are worse than an old married couple, spending every waking moment together and checking in with each other all the time.
With the seeds of destruction planted, Dennis and Mac protest their union too much, finding ways to argue to ensure that they’re not really “an old married couple.” After an argument over possibly watching The Transporter instead of Predator during movie night, Dennis and Mac decide to “break up.” Dennis goes off to spend some quality time with his sister, Dee. As Dee’s cat goes missing, hiding in a hole in the wall, Dennis suggests she should just let the cat die in the wall and demands Dee do all the things Mac used to for him: peel his apples, light his cigarettes, etc.
Picking up on the “As Seen on TV” craze and popularity of such merchandise as the Snuggie, ShamWow!, and any other item shilled by loud, obnoxious spokespersons, the gang decides to market their own Paddy’s merchandise. Spurred on by a merchandising convention, each of the gang comes up with their own heinous ideas to try to pitch at the event.
Inspired by Charlie’s homemade commercial for Kitten Mittens (geared towards noisy cats), the rest of the gang sets about creating their own items to hawk at the pub. Dee insists that as per a contract she signed, she gets 100% of the rights to all Paddy’s merchandise. Insisting that it was just something they had her sign to justify her working for slave wages, Dennis hands Mac the contract, which he promptly eats. Charlie decides he wants to patent Kitten Mittens before the rest of the gang steals his idea and Dee wants to seek legal counsel to see if eating a contract renders it null and void. Meanwhile, Dennis and Mac team up, excluding Frank who has some ideas of his own.
This week, the It’s Always Sunny gang goes lower than ever before using the current trend of professional wrestling to serve up a tribute to the troops. The result is infinitely more entertaining and contains better wrestling than anything Monday Night RAW has kicked out in the past few months. Even better, the gang hits several new lows, Artemis makes another appearance (as does wrestling legend, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper) and Frank quite possibly kills Rickety Cricket!
In a rare act of charity, the gang decides they want to host a benefit for the homecoming troops Want to give back to the troops. As usual, there’s something in it for each of them: Charlie and Mac use it as an opportunity to bust out their old backyard wrestling gimmick, The Pigeon boys and Dennis insists on becoming the third member; Frank wants to promote Paddy’s and try out his brand new gimmick: The Trash Man; and Dee wants to use this as an excuse to get closer to the hot vet she met in a chatroom who’s coming home Stateside.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia nailed the Phillies Phenomenon that swept the city last year during the World Series. With the City of Brotherly Love looking to experience a repeat of Phillies Phever, it makes the gang’s antics on this week’s episode all the more timely.
Told through a series of flashbacks, the gang finds themselves in court for a plethora of unpaid parking tickets. Starting out at the home base of operations, Paddy’s Pub, Mac, Frank and Charlie were busy concocting grain alcohol-heavy “Riot Punch” in gallon milk containers. Dennis contributes to the cause by ripping open his shirt to blast his chest, complete with red, Magic Marker “Phillies” scrawled across. Charlie shows his team spirit by preparing to unleash Green Man yet again, believing it’s the perfect foil for the Philly Phanatic. The lunacy continues when Sweet Dee bounces into the bar, decked out in pink Phillies gear, outlining her plan to hook a player. Mac will run interference and Dee will make a break and plant one on a Philly of her choice.
This week, the gang attempts to spare Charlie’s feelings by hiding the bombshell that The Waitress is getting married. (Incidentally, The Waitress’s real name is never mentioned in the episode.) While engaged in her favorite Saturday afternoon pastime, trying on expensive wedding dresses at a local boutique, Dee encounters her old boyfriend, Brad Fisher from high school and is totally smitten. Noticing he’s decidedly less pizza-faced than he was before she dumped him, Dee finds out he’s engaged…. And engaged to none other than The Waitress.
Bursting with the news, Dee hightails it to Paddy’s where Charlie is attempting to play Winnie the Pooh with a hornet’s nest that’s somehow been built in the corner of the bar’s ceiling. As Charlie attacks the nest with a broom and the hornets attack Charlie, Dee takes time out to spill the beans to Dennis and Mac.
In perhaps the best (and raunchiest) episode of the season yet, the gang stages an intervention for Frank who not only has peaked at a level of debauchery, but revels in it.
The gang finds themselves en route to what Frank calls an outdoor function, crammed in a car with Frank drinking boxed wine out of a soda can. The outdoor affair turns out to be the funeral of Frank’s dead ex-wife’s sister’s husband. Frank, wearing a wine-stained shirt and slurringly drunk, states his intentions to “bang” Dennis and Dee’s Aunt Donna. The entire scene is pure, outrageous gold! Just when you think It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has hit a level of jaw dropping, shock-tastically crude comedy, they go and outdo themselves.
