The 10 most outrageous moments from It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
The A.V. Club breaks down some of the wildest moments of the FXX comedy, which kicks off its 15th season on December 1
TV Features Charlie Kelly
If provocative comedy was an Olympic sporting event, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia would get extra credit for degree of difficulty. The series gleefully, and with deceptive skill, cannonballs into the fetid community pool that is Paddy’s Pub, the decrepit and improbably still solvent Philly bar from which Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Charlie (Charlie Day), Mac (Rob McElhenney), and Frank (Danny DeVito) venture forth and inevitably return. And, sure, the Gang is heading for a COVID-fleeing jaunt to Ireland for much of season 15, but—as they’ve demonstrated so ably since debuting in 2005—you can take the Gang out of Paddy’s, but their collective stink never quite washes off.
And hallelujah for that. The genius of It’s Always Sunny is its steadfast focus on how its five main characters embody the worst of us (as a country, as a species), and how they will never, ever better themselves. What saves this marathon of willful and actual ignorance, thoughtlessness, and often predatory self-obsession from mere braying nihilism is how carefully each outrage perpetrated by the Gang is plucked from squalor with a shockingly nimble delicacy—then honed, shaped, and ultimately deployed to refract our collective failings into grotesque (and hilarious) shapes. The Gang is us, whether we want to acknowledge their disreputable kinship or not.
As with any ambitious balance beam routine, it doesn’t always stick the landing, but It’s Always Sunny almost never uses outrage or shock as ends in themselves. Each episode’s conflict, scheme, or straight-up felonious affront to Philly society is merely catalyst for the Gang’s ever-simmering pressure cooker to start whistling. You never want to find yourself in the Gang’s blast zone, but you can take some comfort in knowing that their crimes are going to take them down as well.
Choosing just 10 of the most outrageous moments in It’s Always Sunny history is something of a fool’s errand. But, as the Gang continues to show us, a dedicated fool (or five) can do a lot of damage.
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This really should be enshrined as an example of perfect comedy. That whole sequence never ceases to be hilarious.
“So there is a man in that couch?”“There is no man! Say something about Frank Reynolds! Say them loud and make sure they are horrible horrible things!”
Genuinely shocked this wasn’t the top, the bottom, and entire middle of the list
Juuust missed the cut.
I’m surprised Season 12’s ‘Hero or Hate Crime’ didn’t take a slot in this list.
Watching that episode when it aired felt like how I imagine Carlin’s 7 words you can’t say on TV felt to audiences that saw it.
I hope this show is on for another 15 seasons. Take 30 years to make them if they want. I also hope slideshows die a quick death, they’re an awful user experience.
That “Mac Finds His Pride” didn’t win an Emmy (wasn’t nominated, IIRC) is proof positive that the Emmys ain’t shit.
Kaitlin Olsen should have multiple Emmys just for being the epitome of class and elegance as Sweet Dee
Nah, the Emmys don’t like dumb birds very much.
I’d have gone with the open-mic dry heaves, but that gif works just as well!
Such class. Such… grace.
She is absolutely fearless, to me the best sitcom actress alive
Julia Louis Dreyfus would like a word.But yeah, top 5 for sure.
I’m aware of her work
She did a headfirst dive into a shallow pool an episode of The Mick—-i’m not sure whether that’s guts or just insane, lol.
my favorite Olsen
Incredibly hard to watch this scene after finding out that she actually injured herself doing this. You can tell from Waitress and Artemis’s reaction that this wasn’t planned at all.
Did she? Makes sense. Whenever I watch this episode I always wonder aloud how the f*ck she did that. Clearly wasn’t a stunt double. Just CLONK and puts a big ol dent in the car.
The problem was too many black guys in the bar. For whatever reason, black bars don’t win awards.
I will never stop laughing at the lusty way Danny DeVito says “whoor.”
I believe it’s spelled “HOOR”?
Hoo-er
HAW.
As spelled in Brooklynese. lol!
RIP Dumpster Baby2007-too soon
Hard to argue this list. The two that come to mind are the first episode, where it’s implied that Dennis is raped and it’s played as a joke. And the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition episode where they kidnap and psychologically torture a family before demolishing their house–although, they give the family the mansion Dennis and Dee’s mom left them, so that’s kind of nice.
The Christmas special where Charlie savagely beats up a mall Santa while demanding to know if he f***ed Charlie’s mom comes to mind
Yeah, maybe that didn’t make the cut because it’s somewhat sympathetic and not something THEY did, moreso Charlie’s mom
The Extreme Makeover ep was too sadistic to be funny, IMO. I skip that one (plus the Liberty Bell and Frank’s Brother) during re-watches.
I feel similarly about “Cricket’s Story” (“Cricket’s Tale”? I don’t remember). I feel like that’s an example where the cruelty is just for the sake of cruelty, without any larger satire or point. Also skip the Liberty Bell for just being not very interesting or funny. It seems like so much of the effort went into the production, that the writing suffered. I know that I’m totally in the minority, but I mostly enjoy “Frank’s Brother,” at least the first act with everyone acting like Frank is a young kid.
I don’t particularly like ACT, but it doesn’t bother me in the way that EM does. I think the entire point of Cricket is to give him the worst character arc in the history of television. To paraphrase Artie from The Larry Sanders Show, in each appearance Cricket “hits rock bottom, then falls through that to a new low I know nothing about”. And somehow he’s OK with it, so I am too.
I think what makes that episode is the actual effort that seems to go into the little girl’s taco bed. Like, they ruin the house but they manage that one, horrible thing.
That dance routine is where the show lost me. The whole season had been pretty meh up until then, especially the gender swapped Wade Boggs episode, but that dance routine sealed it for me. Haven’t watched it since.
How sad for you.
Eh, it was a whole season of not much funny and the season before hadn’t been super great either, so I’m not sad about dropping it at all. Once a show starts gender swapping its best episodes and the gender swapped episodes are substantially worse than the originals it stops being worth watching.
I can’t think of any shows that had as many solid seasons as It’s Always Sunny, there’s absolutely no shame in falling off after 10 or so awesome seasons. I don’t watch many TV shows, if a comedy stops being funny I stop watching it.
You’re missing out, there’s still a few all-time great episodes every season. I mean watch what you want but if you’re going to make some grand declaration that the show is finished and no longer funny you should expect some pushback.
I’m sorry I should have said ‘If the majority of episodes of a season of a comedy don’t really make me laugh at all, I will stop watching it.’Because funny is subjective and I can’t tell you what to find funny, I can just tell you what I think is funny or not.
Kind of a bummer, man. I thought Sunny doing something as heartfelt as the dance routine was refreshing, and the Boggs ep was a very smart riot. To each his own.
I thought the dance routine was boring and the Boggs episode was a pale imitation of the first one. Gender swapping can be perfectly fine but if you’re going to be as lazy about it as Sunny was then I’m not here for it.
ok
cool story bro
It’s worth noting that the season with the dance routine (season 13) was missing a really core component from the beginning – Glenn Howerton (Dennis). He acted in 4 or 5 of the episodes but he wasn’t in the writers room at all and I don’t think he had a hand in the production either. He’s fully and completely back (in front of *and* behind the camera) for season 14 and I think there’s a noticeable bump in quality as a result, even though I also very much enjoyed season 13 anyway.
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I legitimately didn’t know FXX was still a channel.
It shows this, Archer, and reruns of this and Archer.
Solis list, but Mac’s demonstration of how he works the door in “Time’s Up For The Gang” probably made me laugh louder and longer than anything else I’ve ever seen on TV.
Ocular patdown ftw!
“I felt teeny-tiny like Thumbalina”
>Still, trafficking as these linked episodes do in both Nazi regalia and the dying Pop-Pop’s vituperative racism is queasy stuff, with only the Gang’s collective no-win fates assuring viewers that Nazism doesn’t pay.This is kind of a weird sentence. Is that the only thing telling viewers that Nazis are bad?
Very season two. I feel like Season 5 and onward, Dennis and Dee would still not like Nazis, but not for any shred of humanity, just because it’s embarrassing and gauche. Really interested to see what they do with Jan 6 and QAnon this season.
Here to make sure PTSDee is on this list, and glad to see it is!
“Jersey Shore” has two moments that had me gasping. The bums under the pier, and Dee’s braids getting caught in the ride’s gears.
“The beach is full of syringes! why’s that?”Probably my favorite episode. I love Charlie and the sun tan lotion too. That’s a real thing now, fake sun tan lotion bottles that are really flasks.
Canned Wine is now a thing too!
Well it’s not a new thing (dates back the 30’s) and it was Francis Ford Coppola’s winery that actual started it’s resurgence a year before IASIP began.
PTSDee is in season 12, you’ve got the season and the episode reversed
In the end, it’s Frank, of all people, who gasps out an awed, “Oh my God. I get it. I get it.” In that moment, we are Frank, and Frank is us. You never know just how or when It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is going to sucker-punch you, and leave you gasping.Yeah I don’t, thought the dance stuff was utter crap, completely out of character, and hardly a fitting way of maybe exploring how the gang’s homophobia may have harmed Mac alongside his own internal repression.
In the end, I doubt the dance will change the characters much and it certainly isn’t deep or meaningful. What it is instead is something completely unexpected and daring (it goes on a looong time with no jokes) and that’s to be applauded. In its own way, it’s anarchic and that fits the show.
We already know that’s the case, don’t we? Mac Finds His Pride was a whole season ago.
Honestly, I would have put the Ass-Pounder 4000 on here before the dance routine—which I agree didn’t feel like Sunny handling things at all.
I remember reading the review for ‘Mac Finds His Pride’ before I saw the episode (or maybe I just looked at the letter grade) and thinking ‘Are you kidding me? This is supposed to be what gave this episode an A?’. I liked Frank’s “I get it!”, but otherwise it was a big fat zilch for me. It wasn’t funny, and I just don’t care for interpretive dance so it was just wasted time.The Ass-Pounder 4000, however, made me laugh hard enough that my stomach felt like I’d just spent five minutes doing crunches. The reveal was masterful.
The bike itself and the reveal was great, but that episode too felt kinda forced and was not as snappy as it could have been.Still I think the Ass-Pounder 4000 is a more apt Sunny handling of Mac’s closeted denial.
The point wasn’t to explore the gang’s homophobia (though the B-plot of the episode was the rest of the gang trying to use Mac as a token gay guy in their pride float), it was to explore Mac’s character – he’s an idiot, but the hardest and most interesting part of him coming to terms with himself as a gay man is how it works with his strong Catholic upbringing. He knew for decades that God hated homosexuality and wasn’t sure how to reconcile his love of God with his new identity. I’ll admit that the full dance number is a little much for the character, but as a show I think it works beautifully as a way for him to realize that God loves and protects him no matter what.Also, there have been multiple times when the show appeared to have a character doing something legitimately impressive only to then they pull it back at the last second (Charlie in “Flowers for Charlie”, Dee in “The Gang Broke Dee”, everyone in “The High School Reunion”). That no such joke was made with Mac’s dance, that it all actually happened and that it actually moved Frank was, I think, another example of Sunny doing the unexpected to keep you on your toes. And it’s part of why I still love the show going into season 15.
Small correction, PTSDee is season 12, episode 7
I can’t hear the word “implications” without thinking about Dennis.
I don’t have anything to contribute other than what I feel like is the biggest travesty of the entire series. Pepe Silvia is my favorite Always Sunny joke and it bothers me that most people don’t get it. Everyone forgets that Charlie is semi-literate at best, so of course he’s got boxes of stuff for Pepe Silvia, since they live in Pennsylvania.
But doesn’t Mac say that all those people exist (as well as the fact that Pennsylvania would be abbreviated as PA on an address)?
And this is why this show remains one of my favorite.
Hey remember the time AV Club commenters cyber-bullied a writer out of a job because they didn’t like her IASIP reviews? That was weird and unfortunate. On the other hand, she gave The Gang Dines Out a C-!
‘It’s Always Sunny’ has been a staple of my life since 2007-ish when I got S1&2 on DVD (because Danny DeVito was on the cover and in a new TV show!). I’ve loved it ever since and it is one of my all time comedies. That said, the scene that resonates for me most of the whole series at this point is Mac’s Dance at the end of S13. I was going through a breakup at the end of 2018, and this scene was a source of comfort when going through that particularly painful period. It is a moment of profound sincerity when I really needed it and I absolutely love how they executed it.Also, I would have The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention on the list, if not just for Snail ‘mashing’ her Uncle under the table, before Charlie salting her or Frank gargling wine. Pure poetry.
I will never not laugh at “Where’s the goddamn fire?!”
There needs to be a Always Sunny / Letterkenny crossover episode where we find out that Dee had a threesome with Ginger and Boots.
So long as she does use her horrible canadian accent
Was hoping to see Dennis and Dee getting addicted to crack, just so they could get welfare payments, on this list.
What about Dee actually becoming an ostrich? That was by far the most outrageous scene they ever did.
Never watched a single episode of this but I did watch that dance and it was pretty epic.
The “Gang Turns Black” is absolutely the worst episode of the entire series. Just bad and clumsy and tasteless. Also subtract points for being a musical. It’s still a problem now, but for a while, it was almost required that every show have a musical episode. I know it’s comedy and all, but flirting with racism in a show is tricky. They missed by a mile on this one.
“Mac Finds His Pride” was shockingly good, because the twist was sincerity. You expect the gang to do something awful, and they fooled us all by doing the opposite of what we expected.
Agree on both parts
This is a show whose very first episode was titled ‘The Gang Gets Racist’ and featured a hard-r n-bomb.
TGTB was below average, but far from the worst. It was all just a dream is a terrible plot hack, but it had some funny dialog and I was amused to see how easily Charlie slipped into the role of a child. That’s more than I can say for Charlie’s Home Alone / The Gang Wins the Big Game, for example.
I mean, after an entire episode of a race-bending Wiz knockoff, was there any other way to end it other than “it was all a dream”?
Hmm. Good point.
I was 100% waiting for Mac’s dance routine to be a fake-out, like the radio slapshot contest or the high school reunion dance routine, where it hard-cuts back to “reality” where Mac is making an ass of himself. But they didn’t do that. I wasn’t prepared for something to make me feel real emotions.
GOD DAMMIT DUTCHHow many errands do you have our people RUNNIN for the DA?!?!?
Yo, where my Senators at?
RUM HAM! I’M SORRY!
IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOOOOOU!
I can’t even read this on my phone now. I don’t know what the esteemed management here is going for, but the page keeps jumping up and down (in the original post and comments, and even during typing my comment), even so far as putting everything visible off screen. (And one time deleting my comment before I published it). Is that what you’re going for here? If you don’t want us to engage or even read it, why bother posting?
CharDeeMacDennis and Frank’s Little Beauties.
Don’t go diddling kids, it’s no good diddling kids…
Frank’s Little Beauties should 100% be on this list.
My vote has to be “The Gang Spies Like U.S.” is the fifth episode of the tenth season. Frank calls Charlie and tells him the only recent search history is for “Asians” and “cream pie” and they assume Dennis and Mac are planning to go into the dessert business with the owner of the fish factory. He proposes they three go into business together to sell the cream pies to children.andTimes Up for the Gang. Paddy’s has been put on a list of bars that are sexually hostile to women, so the gang must attend a sexual-harassment seminar in order to get off the list
I must be honest that “Charlie and Dee Find Love” is one of the few episodes I can’t rewatch. I think it is very well made ep and definitely “outrageous,” so not saying it doesn’t belong on this list, but I think it’s very concept just misses the mark. I can howl with laughter at any of the various, malicious cruelties committed by the Reynolds clan, but for whatever reason I can’t accept Charlie being that purposefully, calculatingly callous as he is in this episode.