The Sunny Gang’s stellar 14th season closes with abortion, an existential crisis, and laser tag
TV Reviews Recap
“But this is different. This affects me!”
Episode 9: “A Woman’s Right To Chop”
That’s the essence of Sunny social satire, as Mac—embroiled in a thinly veiled anti-abortion crusade spurred by an all-male objection to a new neighborhood salon’s short women’s haircuts—confronts the beleaguered veterinarian refusing to perform a life-saving abortion on Mac’s impossibly long-lived dog, Poppins. That’s right, Poppins is a female (but not really, as it turns out), and the battery-eating, loose-eyeballed, vicious little beast is somehow knocked up at what is, by any conservative estimate, the dog-age of 210 or so. That “miracle,” as the vet (Andree Vermeulen) pronounces it with obvious ambivalence, is complicated by the fact that the female Poppins can in no way survive birthing a litter of puppies at this point in its cockroach-esque survivor’s existence.
And so Mac, who snapped immediately into full-bore Catholic dogma mode (“Killing babies is wrong Dee, and God forbids it!”) the moment Dee made the case that if women want to get “short, ugly, lesbian haircuts”, that’s their business, veers right back into self-interest mode once it’s his (pardon) bitch on the table. “Well, you gotta kill those babies then!” Mac explodes once the vet explains that she doesn’t perform that particular service. Later, as Charlie unsuccessfully calls around to every vet in town, Mac tries to soft-pedal their pitch, telling Charlie to soften their request from “Kill the dog-puppies” to the more clinical pro-choice terminology “terminate… the embryos.”
As happened the first time the Gang tackled the abortion issue, the joke is twofold. First, it’s on the Gang—in this case specifically but not only the guys—whose knee-jerk opposition to abortion/short haircuts is immediately revealed to be a product of unexamined male self-interest. Or part-examined anyway, as “A Woman’s Right To Chop” isn’t exactly subtle about revealing the guys’ motivations here. It’s a quibble, but Sunny’s “issue” episodes work best when the actors and writers (the excellent Dannah Phirman and Danielle Schneider in this case) aren’t winking at us quite so brazenly to signal the joke. The upside after all this time is that everyone involved is so effortlessly good at supplying their characters with tellingly specific types of awfulness that the winking is pretty funny nonetheless.
Dennis is the self-important would-be alpha, his patronizing misogyny couched in pseudo-scholarship about the natural roles of men and women, hunter-gatherers vs. nurturing breeders, and so forth. (You can pretty much insert a “Well, actually…” before every line he says to Dee here.) Mac, out and sort-of proud as he might be at this point, is all ’bout that old time religion, especially when he can use the bible as a cudgel to beat Dee with once she tries to present a counter-argument. Charlie’s the wild card, as usual, his uniquely insane outsider’s perspective equal parts Charlie-logic (he mainly objected because he thought the women’s pixie cuts were “a little comedy hat”), and go-along Dee-bashing, with just enough hint of his own horrifically neglected past seeping in around the edges to suggest a more visceral reaction to the issue of motherhood. (Still, Charlie never seems to connect the issue of abortion with his own circumstance of being Frank and Bonnie’s abortion that lived.) As for Frank, the episode provides a singularly loony backstory to inform Frank’s revulsion, as he confesses to Dee that he, too, once gave up his hair (gloriously ridiculous in photograph) for money, and it haunts him to this day in truly grotesque (even for Frank) gastrointestinal distress. Taking Dee to see the car salesman (Phil Idrissi) who Frank claims now wears Frank’s mane as his toupee, Frank feelingly (for Frank, anyway) appeals to his daughter not to get the spite haircut she’s planning. Citing his own lifetime of guilt—for giving his hair up for adoption? Hair surrogacy?—and his lifetime habit of buying lots of cars from the grateful but uncomprehending salesman out of regret, Frank rounds out the guys’ takes on the (again, so thinly veiled) issue with appropriate baldness.
But the parallel joke, as ever, is on us for ever thinking that this Gang (or this show) would provide a coherent, lockdown answer concerning a seemingly intractable American social issue. That is seriously not their department, the Gang’s function as the worst possible representations of the American national character functioning to undermine the blinkered, self-involved, hypocritical position of, in this case, the anti-choice faction without coming anywhere close to providing a counter-argument. For the pro-choice side, we get Dee, whose standard position as the Gang’s punching bag and designated second-class citizen sees her leaping into the fray, catchphrases at the ready, but utterly unable or unwilling to overcome her own complicity in the Gang’s ultimately soulless selfishness of purpose.
As when Dee positioned herself confidently on the right side of the Me Too issue last season, the inherent rightness of her stance does nothing here to hide that Dee is Dee. She’s one of the Gang, and the Gang is the goddamned pits, so Dee’s quest to give herself a short haircut she doesn’t want (“I don’t have the face or the body to support a haircut like that!,” she storms at Dennis and Frank as they harass women entering the new salon) functions less as a brave stand for women’s bodily autonomy and more a misguided rush to self-interestedly bolster a misunderstood point. The shakiness of the whole haircut=abortion gag is summed up in Dee’s interpretation of the women’s choice to get short hair, “They’re clearly bored and lonely and need to do something extreme to make them feel special!” Again, not the same issue at all, really, a fundamental bad-faith position that the episode never fully comes to term with on a satirical level.
In the end, the repercussions come fast, furious, and farcical. The real (male) Poppins pops by the underpass dog-abortion parlor (a blanket on some cardboard) of Chad Coleman’s returning and always-welcome Z. (He breeds fighting dogs, so Frank thought this would be right up his alley, so to speak.) Sniffing around the equally decrepit female dog Mac and Charlie assume only he could have impregnated, Poppins provides the perfect riposte to Mac’s high-minded speech about how men—though they may stray, as is their natural right—always come back to “take care of his fam-… nope, there he goes.” (Poppins simply runs off with the pregnant, doomed dog’s blanket.) Dennis, storming into the salon with his own high-minded speech about ruining women’s lives all ready to rip, is taken aback by the owner’s unexpected tears. (It’s her dog who’s pregnant, and missing.) As Dennis attempts to get his judgmental mojo back, he can’t help but get derailed by the uniquely (to Dennis) eroticism of a crying woman. (“I can switch gears, though—this can be an arousing thing,” he stammers unsuccessfully.) And while his final decision to hold Dee’s hair appointment hostage for the return of the woman’s dog sees him swerving into men’s rights territory (Since Dee’s his twin, it’s his hair, too, genetically), the poor woman just want’s her dog back, and the crazy man out of her place of business.
Then there’s Dee, who, desperate to win the argument no matter what the cost, bursts into the bar with her horrible “back-alley” self-haircut (“The scissors were dirty and they weren’t even sharp!,” she moans), much to the guys’ horror. That horror, while more about the hair (which—yeesh), does reveal that, for all their machinations, dognapping, extortion, speechifying, and rhetoric, the guys really don’t give a shit about any of it. “We were used to being in charge,” says Mac offhandedly, while Dennis admits, “We’re never going to able to stop them,” shrugging. Right before Dee’s entrance, Dennis had seemed up for the battle to continue, demanding, “We can’t rest until every woman is free from the choice of ruining their lives forever,” and suggesting “Shame is a great motivator.” But, confronted with what a woman he (for the sake of appearances) loves, he caves in the sort of indifference born of ginned-up outrage over something far too complicated to figure out. It’s of a piece with Sunny’s satirical strategy, only, this time, the shrug of it all extends too far into the episode itself.
Episode grade: B
Episode 10: “Waiting For Big Mo”
And that brings us to the season 14 finale. Sure, FXX is calling this a one-hour finale, but these are completely separate episodes, so the ending of this laser tag-themed bottle episode gets the true final word on what’s been a truly fine (and record-breaking) season. The set-up is as simple as they come, with the Gang engaging in what we learn for the first time is their big annual team blowout at the local Family Fun Zone laser tag emporium. With their green team’s leaderboard status updated throughout, we see that Mac, Dee, Dennis, and Charlie are on the verge of winning, their only obstacle seemingly an unseen nemesis nicknamed Big Mo, who Dennis and Charlie assume is probably just some little overweight kid, sugar consumption being what it is in America and all.
And Dennis is all in, playing field general with the disproportionate zeal (and vaguely offensive “cool black guy dialect”) of someone desperate to prove something. He’s got Dee and Mac illegally sniping from the facility’s air ducts for points, and sniping at each other, thanks to some deviously effective mental manipulation on his part. He’s got Frank making “pew-pew” noises with an inactive sensor vest and laser gun, drawing fire while illegally not registering the thousands of times he’s being zapped. And he’s got himself and Charlie holding down the fort—and the episode’s lone set, labeled “Green Base.” Sure, they’re not having any fun whatsoever camping out and playing to win, but, as Dennis puts it with mounting, desperate importunity, “This isn’t about having fun. This is about staying alive and winning!”
The whole episode spins around that theme, as Dennis tries to keep his teammates from either striking out on their own, or abandoning a good thing that works in order to, as Dee says excitedly upon abandoning the ducts, “finding all kinds of corners of this place that we’ve never explored before!” Yeah, you see where they’re going here, as Sunny turns the finale of its 14th lucrative season into a referendum on longevity, playing it safe, and its own history, all in the guise of a neon-hued laser tag escapade. Like “A Woman’s Right To Chop,” the balance isn’t quite there in this one (written by David “Cricket” Hornsby”), but familiarity with the Gang provides plenty of direct laughs (Charlie’s obsession with riddles, Dennis’ mind games with Mac), and a few more knowing nods to us, who are ready to catch every reference to the show’s malignly brilliant inner clockworks.
The show has gone big in its last two season finales. Dennis’ (and Glenn Howerton’s) departure (to North Dakota/A.P. Bio) threw Sunny’s prospects into jeopardy. And Mac’s revelatory coming-out did the same. Not necessarily the show’s prospects for another season, as, in Dennis-speak, Sunny’s safely raking in the Fun Zone dolla dolla bills y’all, and had already been renewed in each case. But certainly in the comic balance the show had been so remarkably assured in maintaining for so long. Here, Howerton being given the rah-rah speeches against “giving up everything we’ve built, everything we’ve worked so hard for” rings with the presumed guilt of the prodigal, Dennis’ warning to the others about “seeing what’s out there” ringing with hard-won experience. (And the playful ribbing of the behind-the-scenes Gang he briefly left.)
Frank, too, gets his moment of clarity, the realization that he’s been used as the Gang’s “fun monster,” running around like an idiot and spreading fake pedophile rumors to the fathers in line for chicken wings, giving Danny DeVito his own chance to spotlight how Frank’s broad, gross-out role has functioned over the years. “I’m not part of the team?” Frank asks in a somber little voice upon learning he’s been the useful butt of a joke, and DeVito, too, finds just the right, improbably soulful note in Frank’s disillusionment. (Dennis’ attempt to cheer him up by defining his role as the Gang’s Cookie Monster doesn’t cut it.)
“Waiting For Big Mo” draws out its extended self-referential gag throughout the whole 21 minutes, Dennis and Charlie never leaving the Green Base (sort of like Paddy’s—you get it), while the others dart in and out to further the comic dissection. It’s a funny (and presumably money-saving) idea, and if the whole laser-tag thing reminds us of Community, that can’t be an accident. That late, lamented sitcom’s knowing deconstruction of its own form and penchant for high-concept theme episodes is an essential component of Sunny’s DNA. It’s also something of an enervating conceit, though, with the premise removing us from the action at hand as we listen up for the references. As noted above, Sunny’s satire is more potent when it’s more sly about it.
Still, for Sunny to address its longevity, its future, and its history in such an ultimately offhanded way is the perfect punchline to the episode-long goof. Dennis, informed by Frank that the Fun Zone’s real owner (as opposed to fun bucks mascot Rutherford B. Fun) killed himself after a lifetime of overextended ambition and neglect of his loved ones, seemingly abandons his fast-talking attempts to keep the Gang rolling safely and lucratively along. “It all means nothing if you’re not enjoying it,” he muses, finally, adding the capper, “If something deep down inside is telling you to move on, then maybe that’s what we should do.” (With the one glowing set and the existentialist waffling, the episode plays like Cube meets Waiting For Godot.) As the Gang resignedly files out of their Green Base, Dennis—over sad strings—intones, “Time to end the game.” And then all five—Dennis, Sweet Dee, Charlie, Mac, and Frank—file out silently, their double-edged words reverberating to close out one of the best, longest-lived sitcoms ever on a note of unaccustomed finality.
Psych! They appear at every door to Green Base, surrounding the entering bespectacled Big Mo (he’s about 12), with Mac promising gleefully, evilly, “We’re never leaving, you little piece of shit!,” before they all laser-blast a child into oblivion. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Episode grade: B+
Season grade: B+
Stray observations
- I love Chad Coleman’s Z, his guileless grubbiness emerging, in performance, as something both pure and horrifying.
- Frank eventually hooks Dee and Z up, since, in addition to dog-abortions, Z is also Frank’s wig guy. It’s border collie.
- Dennis, at the root of it: “These are young, sexually viable women, and they are making themselves no longer attractive to me.”
- That is some primo Mac slow-thinking in the vet’s office. “Poppins is gonna be a father!” “A mother.” “What?”
- Same goes for Z, who gamely tries to wrap his head around what he’s being asked to do, eventually offering to scrounge around in the trash cans to find an Allen wrench.
- Mac, explaining to the vet why he’d never dared check out Poppins’ undercarriage at any point, points to Charlie losing a thumbnail when he went in for a belly-rub that one time. “Oh, he’s a monster,” Mac beams.
- The fact that no Philly vet is doing dog-abortions is a pointed stab at the increasingly unavailability of a legal procedure in certain areas of the country. But—vets, help me out here—does that sort of un-Hippocratic moralism extend to the veterinary profession?
- Charlie, solicitously offering the belching Frank some cat food to settle his “valves,” asks, “Are you drinking enough beer, bud?” He really isn’t.
- Dennis, keying into Mac’s insecurities for maximum laser tag berserker rage, tells him angrily, “I’ve been warning you about your lack of elbow-mass for weeks!”
- Dennis, once more for the people in the back: “The goal is to play the game and grind it out until the end, then at the end you can go crazy!” Mac: “At the end of what?”
- A closeup of Dennis’ phone backs up Frank’s tale that Fun Zone owner Larry P. Takeshi left his suicide note on a Fun Zone dolla dolla bill, reading, “It all meant nothing.” “We can assume this is referring to him devoting the majority of his life to money,” the entry concludes, tramping the grave down by noting that nobody attended his funeral. That’s right, Howerton, you’re not going anywhere.
- And that’s a wrap on The A.V. Club’s reviews of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia season 14. It’s been, as ever, an honor and a pleasure, you knuckleknobs. Now get some sleep.
45 Comments
Not in a million years would I have expected IASIP to end this season with a bizarro fusion of Waiting for Godot (took me WAY too long to get that joke) and Starship Troopers (which is what my mind first went to), but I am HERE for it. Obviously nowhere near as ambitious (and borderline profound) as last year’s, but absolutely perfect in its own right – did a stellar job highlighting the core aspects of the main 5. Amazing that they managed to make yet another perfect intro episode this far into the series (alongside Jersey Shore, Family Fight, and Flowers for Charlie).
I love the fact that he can write ‘stellar 14th season’. Personally, I found this season right up there with Season 10 when it comes to late-series Sunny.
I was getting really worried during the end of the finale that they were setting the show up for an ending.That aside, I thought the finale was pretty meh. Not many laughs except for the very end.The second-to-last episode was pretty solid though—-and Dee’s short haircut made her look like Mac’s mom, lol.
Waiting for Big Mo definitely felt self indulgent in a way that Waiting for Godot does not. Great comedians love to be in Godot — done right, it’s almost like The Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy. Big Mo felt pretty flat to me.I liked Chop a lot better, which had lots of funny bits connected in clever ways. I think it suffered a bit because most of the one time actresses weren’t very good at reacting to the main players, although the veterinarian was perfect.
She played the very very deadpan Doctor on Angie Tribeca. I really like her delivery.
Big Mo felt a lot like the Noir episode for me – I was more entertained by the fact that they were doing something so high concept and weird than the actual execution of it. That said, if It’s Always Sunny is going to ride out their old age doing gonzo concept episodes as they’ve been doing for the past few seasons, I’m along for the ride.
did mac use his special face changing ninja powers?did dee burn down king’s landing?you know, cos BITCHES NE CRAYZEE?did dennis inherit the iron throne and PRESERVE THE RAPE CULTURE OF WESTROS, i mean PHILLY(theyre both pretty rape-y)
I liked Big Mo more than the other experimental (Noir) episode because I was consistently laughing and all five characters were used better. It’s still one of the weaker episodes of a really great season.A Woman’s Right To Chop was absolutely fantastic though.
I’m always nervous as to how these new seasons will end up. I’m a big fan of ranking episodes and seasons, and I’m happy that the last few seasons haven’t been the worst (still belongs to season 1, which had some great ideas but wasn’t quite at Sunny-level). Season 14 has been the most consistently funny since probably Season 9. Even the episodes I didn’t like as much- The Gang Chokes and Waiting For Big Mo- were not, in any way, duds. The experimental episode worked very well, the self-referential and heavy-handed symbolic episodes worked very well, and I can see some of these being in the mix of classic Sunny episodes. I’m very proud to have watched, and kept up with, this show for the last 10 years and hope that there are more years to come! Til next season!I’d echo the season’s grade with an 86/100, so pretty much a B+.
There’s something very sad and very Mac about giving the world’s worst dog an adorable name.
You take that back! Poppins is a god. A golden god.
A STARTER DOG?! THIS DOG IS A FINISHER DOG!
HE IS UNTETHERED AND HIS RAGE KNOWS NO BOUNDS!
Also pathetic and weirdly endearing is how Mac clearly doesn’t even know very much about Poppins or what he really looks like.
To be fair, Mac hadn’t seen Poppins in 8 years.
A woman does not have more right to choose more than the person growing inside of her. The government can protect that person and tell you what to do with your body. For instance, it is illegal to sell your body for sex. It is illegal to sell your baby in utero. It is illegal to sell you body parts such of livers and kidneys and bone marrow. It is illegal in some states not to get vaccinated. It is illegal to commit suicide. It is illegal to not wear clothes in public. Etc. The only solution is to not get pregnant in the first place. If you are raped or don’t want the baby the government should pay to deliver the baby and take it from you at birth. And in cases were it would be dangerous to the woman’s health the baby should be removed from the woman with her uterus, so she is never in danger again. Abortion is used by whores to lazy to use contraception.
Probably could have picked a better episode to go out on but overall, the season itself was pretty solid. 14 seasons in and they’ve still got it. There’s no doubt Sunny is a 1st ballot Hall of Famer for TV shows
I agree it was a solid season. The writing and direction felt a lot tighter this year than in some of the later seasons.I was a little disappointed by the relative lack of ongoing characters — by my recollection, one appearance by the Waitress, two by Cricket, Z in this episode, and the episode focused on the Waiter. But none of the parents, no McPoyles, no Pondy, and few if any of the other weirdos in their orbit.
I thought it was a good choice to have Mac completely out but otherwise unchanged. In fact, none of the characters had any developments whatsoever, even temporarily — there was nothing to match Dennis getting married, Charlie finally sleeping wih the waitress, or Dee having a baby.
Dee started out fairly blah but the writing for her got a lot better. I thought Charlie was consistently strong this year. Dennis and Frank are definitely struggling with age the most.
We haven’t had an appearance from Liam or Ryan McPoyle since Season 9 weirdly enough. They both were missing in the McPoyle vs Ponderosa trial episode. Jimmi Simpson has started to get bigger in recent years and is in a ton of things so I imagine he’s either too busy or wants to get away from that ridicu
Might be hard to get Pondy now that he’s a family man on Young Sheldon…
With the one glowing set and the existentialist waffling, the episode plays like Cube meets Waiting For Godot
Given how Sunny goes out every season, I was more expecting this to play out like a Black Mirror dream episode or something. “It feels like we’ve been in here for years!” got me thinking it was a dream of a simulation of some sort.
I feel like some of the writers the last three years have decided to turn the guys into unfunny caricatures. They say the kind of things people post on Twitter when they’re making a joke about something a toxic male would probably say. Is this all Ganz? I feel like that’s all Ganz ever does. She just beats that one note into submission.The laser tag episode was so much better because even though most of David “Cricket” Hornsby’s episodes have that meta quality to them, he at least remembers to put actual jokes in there, and not just “highlight the guys internalized misogyny” or whatever else gets you an automatic good grade here.
This season was bad. Not as bad as last season, but still not good. I don’t think I laughed all season until the final episode. Someone asked me why I still watch. Mostly because I’ve seen the show since the beginning and I don’t want to dislike it, I just do.
The main cast blurting out boilerplate vox-pop opinions has been a staple of It’s Always Sunny’s scripts since its very first season.
Says a lot that you instantly blame the woman
I see you’re still here doing that thing you do. And I’ll suggest a woman all I want, if I feel like I have a good reason, like say, I was a fan of her writing in the past.David Hornsby has written some clunkers in his day too, and Mac Finds His Pride was written by Glenn and Charlie, and that was a terrible finale last year.Are you sated now that I’ve pointed out men as well?You know what’s funny is I defended you a few times way back when because this place can be a whiny echo chamber, but yeah, I hate women.I also hated last season of Doctor Who too. Chibnall ruined that show with his writing staff. No issues with Jodie. Maybe don’t lean so heavy on default, trite takes because you’re so desperate to get stars from strangers. Say a lot about you.
You sure are a guy on the internet
Holy shit, you really came here just to make a comment about how an icky girl ruined everything with her icky girl takes. You are literally what Sunny is making fun of.
The AV Club recently did their list of the top 100 shows of the 2010s, and Sunny was put at #36. I understand it’s all subjective, but I feel like the show’s longevity is the main reason it should be ranked a little higher. How many shows have made it to their FOURTEENTH season and still produce quality episodes every year without wearing out their welcome? There’s South Park, but Sunny is all the more remarkable for being live-action.
“How many shows have made it to their FOURTEENTH season and still produce quality episodes every year without wearing out their welcome?” NONE of themEVERY show that’s gone beyond ten seasonsSUCKS
Cheers, Fraiser, and MASH all had some great episodes after their tenth season but you could tell they were running out of steam. There’s still a lot of juice left in Sunny though.
That’s because network sitcoms have stronger guidelines they must follow that basic cable IASIP doesn’t have to worry about. Network sitcoms also have to create 22 episodes a season which is much harder to do than Sunny’s 10-14 episodes schedule. I love Sunny’s longevity although I see lately that it’s starting to get long in the tooth but what classic shows like Newhart & Seinfeld were able to accomplish with the restrictions placed on them is what makes them so legendary.
The show still has it. Dennis harping on Mac’s lack of “elbow mass” reminds me of the time he gave Mac “size pills” to make him lose weight (mexican ephedera). Good times.Not sure why but the idea of the Gang doing Watchmen just popped into my head. Make it happen!
did mac use his special face changing ninja powers?did dee burn down king’s landing?you know, cos BITCHES BE CRAYZEE? did dennis inherit the iron throne and PRESERVE THE RAPE CULTURE OF WESTROS, i mean PHILLY(theyre both pretty rape-y)
lous character.I thought Dennis and Dee were the funniest this season. The Dee punching bag stuff is getting stale and feels below Kaitlin’s talent level at times, but she absolutely made the most of whatever role she had this season. Her line deliveries are so good and she was amazing in the Global Warming episode. Glenn is also great and while they had him with Mac way too much this season, he had some of the funniest scenes. I thought Charlie’s performance has sort of felt phoned in the last few seasons, but he still had some amazing moments . Danny is still hilarious and had some really funny lines, but he’s clearly taking it easier and has a smaller role than usual. I didn’t find Mac funny this season and he kind of dragged down the quality of a few episodes. Gang Texts, Gang Gets Romantic, and The Gang Chokes would’ve been even funnier if they dialed back the stale joke of Mac obsessing over Dennis.I do think this season was the funniest and most well written since Season 10, but if they want to continue at a high level they might want to slightly progress the characters more and have more development to them. Going back to Charlie/Waitress hooking up/her possibly carrying his baby and what happened with Dennis and his family would be smart because there’s still loose ends and storyline potential. Mac really needs a character shakeup which I thought they were going to do after last season’s finale. He can still be Mac, but having him try to date would’ve been funnier than going back to the tired Mac is obsessed and subservient to Dennis or Mac is obnoxiously religious character traits. Dee also can still be a punching bag, but giving her a story line or more to do would be great. Kaitlin imo might be the best comedic performer on the show in terms of how many types and varieties of comedy she can do. But, just having her get insulted then being sad or angry or ignored in nearly half the episodes is a massive waste of her talent. She should have good material every episode, not be relegated to Meg Griffin. Frank is Frank. No need to change anything there.
After about 9-10 seasons of this great show Mrs. F. and I were tiring of it. Thought it had lost its way. But the last few seasons have been killing it. I’m sad this season is already over.
It’s been years since I’ve watched this show regularly. But I do love it.When I read the title of the article all I could think was: “How is Mac going to get an abortion?”
I do love the show, and it’s been off my radar for some years now, but they DID do an abortion episode a long time ago. Dennis and Mac figure out the best way to meet women is at an anti-abortion rally. Mac dates one girl, and when she tells him she’s pregnant, he immediately says “Oh you got to get rid of it”. As it turns out she was testing his true belief, and was not pregnant.I have a lot of episodes to catch up on…
Wasn’t the mascot “Rutherford B. Crazy”, as a joke on Rutherford B. Hayes? Kids love jokes about obscure 19th-century presidents.
does that sort of un-Hippocratic moralism extend to the veterinary profession? Not the best choice of words, as the classic Hippocratic oath prohibits performing abortions.
Both Mac and Dee were on fire in the Chop episode, and Dee’s delivery of the bridge troll line at Frank after he showed her his old photo had me howling for a good five minutes. An old insult, but still effective. And Mac and Charlie bouncing off each other at the vet’s and under the bridge (?) was comedy gold.Meanwhile, the season finale was really Charlie’s. The running joke about riddles was instant classic sort of stuff. Despite all that, Howerton/Dennis is still my favorite episode to episode, but everyone on this show has such a command over their characters it’s just a joy to watch.
The show has gotten less nuanced with its social commentary but overall the last couple of seasons have brought back the funny – amazing considering how long it’s been on that they still find new things to mine with these characters.
It’s about the small things. Dennis smashing a glass against the wall in the opener was just great. Only he could get so enraged that that seems like a normal response to a lady walking into the bar lol.
A woman does not have more right to choose more than the person growing inside of her. The government can protect that person and tell you what to do with your body. For instance, it is illegal to sell your body for sex. It is illegal to sell your baby in utero. It is illegal to sell you body parts such of livers and kidneys and bone marrow. It is illegal in some states not to get vaccinated. It is illegal to commit suicide. It is illegal to not wear clothes in public. Etc. The only solution is to not get pregnant in the first place. If you are raped or don’t want the baby the government should pay to deliver the baby and take it from you at birth. And in cases were it would be dangerous to the woman’s health the baby should be removed from the woman with her uterus, so she is never in danger again. Abortion is used by whores to lazy to use contraception.
I’m furious at how perfect laser tag is for the subject of a Sunny episode, thinly-veiled meditation on the show’s own longevity or not. Wish I had thought of it myself. Just the right mix of petty competition, arrested development, vaguely squalid surroundings in that amusement park way. Strict rules to skewer, defy, or rigidly stick to, some degree of visual flash, and that overall sense of fun. I’d be interested to see a more straightforward laser tag episode in more of the Community paintball mode (as mentioned in the review, definitely the first show I thought of!). Probably not in the cards, but I can dream.
Sunny may not have its peak form or superior consistency anymore, but it’s still a great show to tune into every week. Looking forward to more seasons with the Gang. I was surprised at how mournful the pseudo-series finale fake out felt – made me realize that I’m not ready for this show to be done with.
As bad as Dee’s was, it was still better than Penny’s chop-job on The Big Bang Theory.
I just finished watching this season on Hulu and, I have to admit, Dennis’s last speech had me pulling up my phone to check if this was actually the last season, then they came back. Haha.Solid season all around, agree with the other comments that “right to chop” had more laugh out loud material.