It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: My Favorites, pt. 2

Continuing with my favorite 15 episodes from last time. We've been in A+ territory from the first, but we move into A++ this time around.

10.

Season 5, episode 7. (2009)

Dee thinks the returning veteran she's been online dating is a quadriplegic and pushes him off on Artemis. Meanwhile, when the Gang's plan to book Da Maniac (Roddy Piper) for their patriotic-themed wrestling event goes awry, they take to the mat themselves as the Birds of War. Frank's wrestling character, The Trashman, makes a timely appearance.

This is a start-to-finish masterpiece. Let's break this into four parts:

(1) The stuff with Dee, Artemis, and the soldier is all great. Why is it always funny when anyone calls Dee a bitch? Extra points, though, when it's Artemis.

No link alas.

(2) Tough to screencap the Trashman but oh man. Frank's idea for his wrestling persona is fantastic. ("I come out, I throw trash all over the ring, then I start eating garbage.") This has had a long shelf life in our household as each of my wife's and my kids has gone through a brief obsessed-with-garbage phase, so we've dubbed each of them "the trashman" several times. (We don't actually let them eat garbage - babies just do a bunch of gross crap. And when you catch them in the act of it, it helps to be able to say "THE TRASH-MAN!" a la Frank Reynolds.) Anyway, the ending to this episode - with the Trashman almost killing Cricket's Taliban character, and the crowd going wild and Hulk Hogan's theme song playing over the end credits - is one of my favorite things ever.

(3) Everything about the Birds of War - from their evolution from Charlie and Mac's backyard wrestling days as the Pigeon Boys, to the Gang working out their theme song ("The new second verse is ridiculous." "The 2nd verse is necessary to clarify who we are!"), to the ridiculous costumes, to Charlie's trying to turn them into a "Chicken Boys" direction, to this magnet I have in my office:

All awesome.
"BUT THE MUSCLES OF MEN!"

(4) Da Maniac is a great character (loosely based on Mickey Rourke's character from The Wrestler) and memorably brought to life by Roddy Piper. They manage to sketch out the depth of his craziness with only a handful of details, my favorite being the bucket of chestnuts in the back of his station wagon ("Does he forage his own food?") He returns - also memorably - in "Dennis and Mac Buy a Timeshare."

9.

Season 5, episode 10. (2009)

Dennis reveals the insane system he uses to make any woman become obsessed with him. When no one else can make it work, he takes over and orchestrates a can't-lose scenario at the local carnival for everyone.

Dennis's evolution as a sociopath gets better and ever more detailed as the series progresses. Season 5's "The D.E.N.N.I.S. System" comes one year after the first true glimpse we had of this side of Dennis (coming up in spot #7 so I won't say anything). And raises the stakes considerably. 

Caylee (the pharmacist who serves as Dennis's real-world example as he explains the system to the Gang) is played by Glenn Reynolds' real-life wife Jill Latiano.

("Watchin' every motion in my foolish lover's gaze...")

The Waitress is also in this one, so one of the more anti-romance episodes in television Always Sunny history also has all but one of the leads (DeVito's) real-world spouses starring in it. Too bad they couldn't have found somewhere for Rhea Pearlman.

Speaking of DeVito, early in the episode Frank reveals he has his own system: he buys Magnum condoms in front of the girl he's trying to bang. Dennis tries to dissuade him of this, but Frank holds on to it. At episode's end when Frank attempts to improvise by posing as Dr. "Mantis Toboggan" (the fake doctor Dennis has been using to write the prescriptions for his fictional grandmother, played by series semi-regular Gladys (RIP Mae LaBorde) he scrambles it all together. ("You got the AIDS big-time! Oh - whoops, I dropped my monster condom which I use for my magnum dong...!") DeVito's line delivery is so perfect. Actually I'm mashing two bits together in that quote, oops. First part cued up here, second here.

8.

Season 6, episode 9.

Dee takes a job teaching drama at a local high school and Charlie takes a job as its janitor. Mac and Charlie argue over the proper use of blackface in film and decide Dee's job is the perfect opportunity for fresh eyes on their amateur-made movie of Lethal Weapon 5, starring themselves, which features both blackface and blackvoice, to figure out which is more offensive to the youths of today.

We'll get to Lethal Weapon 5,  but I need to spend a little time with Charlie's day job as the janitor. Or "the Professor," as he's dubbed himself or the kids have dubbed him - way likelier he's dubbed himself that. He meets Richie when he's being bullied in the bathroom by other students. (A lengthy excerpt, but I can't help myself.)

"Kid, what's going on with the clown makeup, though? You're sticking out like a sore thumb."
"That's 'cause I'm a Juggalo. I.C.P.! Insane Clown Posse, yo."
"I don't know what that - You have a posse? Well, good. Stick with your insane clown people, and you won't get jumped."

(Later, in the principal's office.)

"Uh, Principal MacIntyre, I recently started mentoring one of the kids here."
"Really? That's odd, because you're a... janitor."
"Yeah. But Richie here is a hell of a kid, and he's struggling. You see, he's what's called a juggler?"
"Juggalo, bro."
"It's sort of a clown posse. I figured you and I were getting tight enough that I could maybe come in here and ask that he be allowed to wear his makeup in school."
"Well, it's school policy that no one should paint their face. So that's the rule, and that's the end of that."
"Tell you what. I'll take him to the locker room, lather him up real good. I'll strip all these silly-ass clothes off him, and I'll clean him sparkling clean. Brand-new kid for you. Bring him back up."
"No, no, no. Please don't bathe the students."
"You're right. He's a big man. He can bathe himself, can't you, Rich?"
"Yeah, dawg."
"He's bathing himself, and I'm watching. Let's go, Richie. You're getting cleaned up."

Dave Foley doesn't have much to do as the Principal except play the straight man to the craziness unfolding around him. Which he does pitch-perfectly. He's in 3 Always Sunny episodes in all, the one preceding this one and Season 9's "Gun Fever: Still Too Hot."

As for this one...

I don't think I can adequately describe how much of an astounding surprise this was the night it originally aired. I watched it with my wife, and neither of us had any idea something like this was going to unfold when we sat down that evening.

Dee brings her drama class to Paddy's Pub for a special viewing of Dennis and Mac's Lethal Weapon 5. The plot: Riggs (Mac) goes into the office of his partner Murtaugh (Dennis) with a cake to celebrate his retirement. 

The celebration is interrupted by their captain (Charlie Kelly) who tells them that someone else has died due to tainted tap water. When Murtaugh tells him that he's retired, the captain informs him that the victim was Murtaugh's wife. *

They go to see the Indian whose tribe owns the water rights to half of Los Angeles, Chief Lazarus (Frank). He denies knowing anything about the tainted water supply, and when Riggs and Murtaugh leave the scene cuts to an excruciatingly long sex scene between the Chief and his assistant. 

Riggs (now played by Dennis) is tied to a pipe behind a building, where one of the Chief's goons (Charlie) shocks him with a stun gun. Inside the building, Murtaugh (now played by Mac, in blackface) is tied up, and the Chief tells him of his plans to force the city of LA to pay him an exorbitant price for clean water.

 

Murtaugh tells him to go suck an egg. Riggs arrives and kills Charlie. He and Murtaugh chase Lazarus outside where the Chief is electrocuted in part due to his own tainted tap water. Riggs and Murtaugh salute their dead wives in the graveyard in the rain.  

The end.

* Holy crap, Charlie's tortured line delivery is so perfect in this bit.


Here's some bits from the Always Sunny wiki I thought worth sharing:

- The Extended Cut on the DVD set has a director's commentary by Mac, Dennis, and Charlie delivered in character. In the commentary, Mac and Dennis state that Charlie "wormed his way" into the movie, and Charlie believes them when they claim that they actually did film the opening shots of L.A. in a helicopter. He also fails to recognize Paddy's Pub multiple times even though its appearance is barely changed. 

- Frank's love scenes resemble those in Tommy Wiseau's The Room.

- The music over the closing credits is a version of the song "Runaway Train" by Elton John with Eric Clapton, which was used in the movie Lethal Weapon 3.” The very Charlie-fied lyrics are: “There’s a horny dwarf / Sittin’ on my porch / Gonna beat me up tonight / There’s a broken wind / That’s blowin’ me / But my pants are on too tight...” That someone (presumably Charlie) recorded the above garbled words over a perfect sounding karaoke track of the song for the credits is just one of the many surprising delights of this whole sordid affair. Genius. Season 9's sequel ("The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6") is pretty great as well, but the original reigns supreme.

7.

Season 7, episode 3. (2011)

Frank buys the rights to stage a beauty pageant in the bar but doesn't realize it's for children. Paranoid he will be perceived as a pedophile, his every attempt to to put the moms and supervisors at ease backfires spectacularly. The gang inserts themselves into the pageantry.

This skewers just about every aspect of the whole children's pageantry world you could think of. Highlights include: Dee's need to destroy both the bratty front-runner among the kids as well as all the contestants' high maintenance mothers, Frank's complete meltdown, 

"Magic's in the air-r-r..." and most definitely, Mac, Dennis, and Charlie's techno performance of "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

I tried to embed that a few times, but it keeps giving me problems, so a link will have to do. Earlier in the episode, they see the lone boy among the contestants and imagine he's been forced into it, until it becomes clear to them not only has he very much not been coerced into competing but that he's "born to pageant." They take him under their demented wing ("let the boy win for once!") and the link above is the result.

Genius.

6.

Season 7, episode 2. (2011)

Dennis and Dee want to relive their carefree childhood vacation memories and bring the gang to the Jersey Shore.

Goddamnit, this episode makes me laugh. I wish I'd made it. Kudos, Matt Shakman and Dave and John Chermin. And of course the performers. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Always Sunny is the most consistently well-written and well-performed show still in original production. The quality from all sides is so consistent. Season 7 especially is just crazy ridiculous good. Possibly a high point, yet several of the episodes still to come in this Furious Fifteen countdown are from later seasons. Ridiculous.

Once the gang gets separated, their individual stories play out in segments until the ending montage set to the Go-Go's "Vacation." This montage is one of my favorite things. I say that a lot in this blog, but that makes sense, as I prefer blogging mostly about my favorite things. 

Frank and Mac and their rum ham drift out to sea in a liferaft before getting rescued by a party boat of JS guidos.

Dennis and Dee's attempt to recreate the magic ends in a nightmare of meth-fueled terror.

Charlie, meanwhile, has never seen the ocean before and is blown away by everything he sees. (Except for the two homeless dudes banging under the boardwalk.) He tries to copy Dennis and Dee's trick of drinking out of his sunblock, but he doesn't empty the sunblock, so he's blotto on a mixture of SoCo and Coppertone. Suddenly he runs into the Waitress, who for the first time in the series is nice to him. 

They spend a magical night together with the beach all to themselves (as it's closed due to a chemical spill.) 

The next morning, of course, the Waitress is back to her normal self and horrified at blacking out and waking up next to Charlie. ("Last night, I lived one of my actual nightmares.") Charlie chalks it up to summer love. 

Part genre deconstruction, part tragedy, all comedy.

Finally, I forgot all about this last one until just before press time and had to make room for it.

5.5

Season 9, episode 6. (2013)

While the gang is inside shopping at a convenience store, a robber comes in and holds up the cashier. Undetected in one of the aisles, each imagines his or her life from the moment after they act to save the day.

Each of the fantasies is pretty pitch-perfect to the character. Mac imagines himself in some escalating kung-fu ninja scenario that ends with him sitting at the right hand of God (played by Justin Lopez). Frank imagines himself helping himself to the disgusting convenience store hot dogs. Dee joins the robber in a crime spree before parlaying the experience into an acting career, marrying Josh Groban and Brad Pitt in quick succession. 

Each of these segments is great fun (particularly Dee's) but my two favorites are Dennis's and Charlie's. First up: Dennis imagines himself getting shot and learning to walk again under the inspirational eye of Jackie Denardo (Jessica Collins, formerly of Tru Calling) of the Channel Five News Weather Team. (Last seen in season 7's "Storm of the Century.") When she is struck by a car and the doctors must remove her breasts to save her life, Dennis smothers her with a pillow. 

As the fantasy fades, Dennis seems genuinely confused by where his mind took him on this one.

I love this for a couple of reasons. (1) The whole thing is accompanied by "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves. (Like I said last time, anytime the show goes outside the Heinz Kiessling orchestration, it's always perfectly chosen. I don't know if they've ever failed to choose the perfect accompanying song.) It fades out after Jackie's accident and fades back in as he's smothering her with the pillow. (2) Glenn Howerton's line delivery here reminds me so much of my dearly departed brother Klum's exaggerated drunk mumbling voice that I laugh and tear up at the same time.

"Theforecast...callsfor...sunshine..."

I understand if this can't really be a reason you love this sequence, but hey, while we're here. You certainly don't need to have known Klum to appreciate the ridiculous dynamics in play here. And (3) When Dennis's idea of himself clashes with reality, it's always a high point of the series. Glenn Howerton is Shatner-to-Kirk-level good as Dennis Reynolds. We saw him completely stumble when he met Jackie Denardo in person (see again "Storm of the Century") but his brain has been working on it a couple of seasons and this is how it all plays out.

Lastly, Charlie imagines the robbery leading to (of course) the Waitress recognizing his true value at last. They marry, have kids, grow old, and die.

Kinda tough to make out, but the story being read Charlie and his litter of kids with the Waitress looks like a children's version of "The Nightman Cometh," Hoo boy!

Well, the Waitress dies. Widower Charlie, caretaker of the house they built together, is lifted into the heavens Up-style.

This last one really puts a lump in your throat, ridiculously enough. But it's also such a perfect idealized projection from Charlie's mind - as is Dennis's. The whole show thrives on its protagonists remaining stubbornly, almost superhumanly incapable of rising above their co-dependence. While each fantasy plays out a story of individual heroism, what they each play out is their own imagined role in the gang. Only Frank, weirdly enough, seems well-adjusted enough to project an actual version of himself into the imagined future.

At episode's end, they grab as much food as they can carry and bolt out of the store, leaving the cashier to fend for himself.

~
Tune in tomorrow for the Top 5 of Dog Star Omnibus's

Furious Fifteen of Always Sunny Funnies!