TheSeinfeldwriting team apparently had a strict rule: “No hugging, no lessons.” Now, take that same rule and have it huff some paint, get blacked out on poorly poured booze, inject it with bootleg collagen you bought in Mexico and you have the wonderfully depraved debauchery ofIt’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
A pitch-black comedy set in the divest dive bar in the City of Brotherly Love, the brainchild ofRob McElhenneyandGlenn Howertonhas, for 12 seasons now (and counting!), documented the on-going schemes of five of the worst people you’ll ever meet: Psychotic possible serial killer Dennis (Howerton). Delusional wannabe actress/current bird woman Dee (Kaitlin Olson). Repressed homosexual karate schlub Mac (McElhenney). High-pitched paint-drinking rat-killer Charlie (Charlie Day). And the bank-roll for it all, proper father turned dumpster monster Frank (Danny DeVito). The beauty ofAlways Sunnyis not in rooting for these characters; it’s in marveling in the ways they ruin lives and destroy relationships without learning a goddamn thing.
And, whether we like to admit it or not, we occasionally wish wewereThe Gang. Who hasn’t wondered about a life where there’s no consequences for your actions, a cartoonish existence of cruelty that resets itself with every new last call at the bar?
Well, that last part actually depends on how open you are to getting addicted to crack.
Either way! Grab your finest rum ham, get the green man suit out of the closet, and say hi to Mac while you’re in there: These are the top 50 episodes ofIt’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,ranked.
50) Season 11, Episode 5: Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs
“I don’t care if you’re old, seize the gap!”
As a current city-dweller who grew up in the suburbs, I can confirm that this late-era classic absolutelynailsthe mind-numbing, insanity-inducing minutiae of living just outside a metropolis. Everything about Mac and Dennis’ slow descent into suburban madness is on-point. The commute filled with drivers who never learned to merge. That one chatty neighbor who is inexplicably always watering his front lawn. That one goddamn beeping noise that doesn’t seem to have a source.Always Sunnyhas always been surprisingly good at being a horror show and madcap comedy at the same time, and the dog-murdering, fire iron-swinging blow-up at this episode’s climax is so well-earned. “News flash, asshole!”
49) Season 9, Episode 9: The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6
“We’re showing you a testosterone-driven, male-skewing action-melodrama.”
“The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6”—the sequel of sorts to the epic Lethal Weapon 5 featured at the end of Season 6’s “Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth”—is almost prophetic. Who knew that the story of a few tone-deaf idiots trying to find funding for their terrible remake of a major franchise would bethisrelevant in 2018? But you’d have to hope that even a fan re-do ofThe Last Jediwouldn’t include this much blackface. Or actor-swapping. Or extended sex scenes featuring the ungodly sound of Frank Reynolds’ love-making. (Leave in the manly shower wrestling though, that could be fun.) If anything,Lethal Weapon 6is proof that when this group of quitters actually put their minds toward something, the result is going to be offensive to pretty much everyone.
48) Season 6, Episode 8: The Gang Gets a New Member
“I’ll degrade myself. I’ll make a genuine ass out of myself.”
Two words:Butt Dance. Alright, a few more words:Jason Sudeikis is fantastic here as the straight-man who Mac and Dennis vote to replace Charlie. Because not only is he there to react to the gang’s absurdity, but casually points out—as a normal person would do—that life does not have tobethis way. Most friendships don’t begin with Gregorian chant-rap, roundhouse kick-based rituals. Dennis doesn’thaveto dictate what the rest of the gang orders at lunch (“I can have fries?!”). The crew resists this, naturally, because if it’s one thing they—and the show, in a lot of ways—resists, it’s change. But by the time they attempt to reconcile with Charlie, he’s already elbow-deep in the career he was probably born to do—high-school janitor—and power-washes his way into a genuine cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Dee almost kills a childhood hero during a musical production ofFrankenstein, as one does.
47) Season 8, Episode 1: Pop Pop - The Final Solution
“I do not like this painting, Charlie. Its smug aura mocks me.”
The eighth season premiere is an intelligent, insanely detailed bit of storytelling for an episode that also includes the theory Hitler was driven mad by a dog painting. The painting in question began as a piece of background set dressing all the way back in thesecond seasonthat the cast removed forbeing too distracting(and, presumably, its smug aura). Combine that trivia with Pop Pop’s box of Nazi memorabilia from Season 1’s “The Gang Finds a Dead Guy” and a flashback filmed with an older camera to make it look like 2007 and voila, you have “Pop Pop: The Final Solution.” Charlie’s nitrous-induced Bond villain threats to burn the painting—”Ryan Gosling play you?Ridiculous”—is one of roughly 100 unhinged monologues that should have gotten Charlie Day an Emmy nod.
46) Season 11, Episode 7: McPoyle vs. Ponderosa - The Trial of the Century
“As the great Johnny Cochran once said, ‘If the glove doesn’t fit, give up.’”
Getting someone who is unfamiliar withAlways Sunnyto watch this episode would be likeasking someone who had never heard of dinosaurs to watchJurassic Park. “The Trial of the Century”—which covers the fallout from Season 8’s equally batshit “Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre”—is kind of like theSeinfeldfinale on heroin; it’s a parade of some ofAlways Sunny’s most memorable characters through a courtroom that serves less as a cogent story and more as a cracked-out love-letter to anyone who stayed on this insane ride for 11 seasons. I will never,evernot laugh at Uncle Jack Kelly (Andrew Friedman) sprinting across the courtroom, cradling his fake hands and repeatedly screaming, “Nobody look!” But this ensemble episode is stolen—like a man’s eye from his head, you could say—by Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro as the grotesque McPoyle patriarch, Pappy McPoyle.
45) Season 8, Episode 8: Charlie Rules the World
“Rule the world, huh? Yeah, if that happens, I’ll blow myself.”
In a lot of ways,Always Sunnyis more a show about nothing thanSeinfeld, becauseAlways Sunnysimply resets itself as the credits role on the gang’s latest atrocity. Or, as Dennis says at the conclusion of this episode, “Sometimes, things just sort of have to end.” “Charlie Rules the World” is an amazing study of nothingness; the gang becomes obsessed with an online RPG, each becoming a god of their own virtual fiefdom (Dennis, being a golden god, eventually gets a blowjob from his own British doppelganger). But none of it matters. The power means nothing in the real world, where throwing a box of spiders at someone doesn’t earn you points, it earns you a drink thrown in your face. By episode’s end, you’ll be feeling apathetic enough to accept that this is all just the dream of a giant space turtle floating through nothingness.Always Sunnyis a deep show, maaaan.
44) Season 5, Episode 4: The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention
“I don’t know how many years on this Earth I got left. I’m going to get real weird with it.”
With all due respect to Walter White, the greatest character transformation in television history is Frank Reynold’s descent from ernest, well-meaning father to dumpster-banging alcoholic deviant. This comes to a head—and,shudder, a hand—in “The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention,” in which Frank’s joint-rolling, bone-roasting shenanigans become too much for even the gang to handle. Of course, an intervention onSunnyends with an addiction counselor walking in on a red-toothed canned wine party (a great idea, for the record), but Danny DeVito as a totally unhinged Frank is the demented centerpiece here. The man is an Oscar-nominated actor who I will never stop picturing with beer foaming out of his mouth and onto his chest.
43) Season 1, Episode 1: The Gang Gets Racist
“Looking for a new hot spot to spot that stud? Well Paddy’s Irish Pub will plug that hole.”
Nothing quite sums upAlways Sunny’s wholethingbetter than the fact thevery first episodeis titled “The Gang Gets Racist.” Just…blam, right out the gate, this is what you’re in for, motherfuckers. Now, the episode itself does carry that Season 1 weirdness, where the core cast are all clearly—in a general sense—terrible people, but not the uniquely-defined monsters they would become. But it’s a still a shockingly confident sign of the absurdity still to come: While attempting to convince Dee’s new boyfriend they arenotracist, the gang embark on an increasingly racist attempt to change up Paddy’s clientele, which naturally transforms the establishment into a gay bar (“Lotta’ dudes.”). “The Gang Gets Racist” is one of the only episodes to end on a freeze frame, and boy is it an uncomfortable one.
42) Season 7, Episode 11: Thunder Gun Express
“I hear the guy hangs dong and I’m very interested in seeing that.”
What would you do to watch Thunder Gun Express, a film that not only features the liberal hanging of dong but is about a “warrior from a post-apocalyptic underground society who has to travel back in time to save his lover from an evil robot army”? This episode posits there isn’t anything the gang wouldn’t do to beat the traffic (thanks, Obama) and make it to Philly’s TLA on time. Steal a ferry boat. Crash a motorcycle. Swim through actual sewer waves. The only thing more impressive than the speed with which the gang beats the24-style ticking clock is Dennis’ improvised D.E.N.N.I.S. System’ing—muchmore on that in a bit—of a woman he fender-bendered with his car. In the end, the gang makes their show, but a bomb call courtesy of an incarcerated Frank turns out to be the ultimate Thunder Gun’ing of them all.
41) Season 4, Episode 1: Mac and Dennis - Manhunters
“That’s not the first time you’ve described your life in the way of John Rambo’s life.”
Mac and Dennis decide to hunt the most dangerous prey of them all:man. Or, well, Cricket, who is missing a few vital parts at this point but is still technically a human being. Still, “Mac and Dennis: Manhunters” can be boiled down to two of the most iconic images inAlways Sunny’s entire run. The first, Cricket scrambling up a fire escape like a combination of Neo from the Matrix and a startled raccoon. The second—and bless Danny DeVito and his balls-to-the-wall effort for this show—Frank emerging from a pile of garbage in full Rambo regalia. DeVito’s delivery of “They. Drew. First. Blughddd.” is a flawless work of art.
