Mac designs a performance to finally come out to his father, Luther, a terrifying ex-con whose eyes pop out of his head and who, at one point, tried to get Charlie and Mac to smuggle drugs through their butts into his prison. The episode ends with a moving five-minute dance routine between Mac and professional ballerina Kylie Shea. Mac collapses into her lap crying, and Shea says, “It’s okay,” rain falling around them. The camera cuts to an agog Frank, in tears, who whispers, “Oh my god. There’s no final punchline, no real joke, nothing to cut the tension or pull back from the brink of sincerity .
As they perform the song, Frank and Mac are appalled by Charlie’s lyrics and claim that the song is too disturbing for the band’s artistic direction. Charlie defends the song and sings more of it to convince them that they’re missing the meaning. After choosing a guitar based entirely on how he looks when he holds it, Mac is shocked to discover that Charlie can actually play keyboards.
The scene in which Mac, Charlie and Frank got a hotel room and trashed it to live the rock star lifestyle was pretty meh, and wasn’t helped by the not particularly funny reveal that Mac had used Frank’s credit card to get the room. And while some of Lil’ Kevin’s scenes were funny, others just didn’t strike the right offensively hysterical tone the show is so adept at. In retrospect, it’s hard to believe the gang hasn’t formed a band before now. When you’re talking style over substance, you’re talking rock and roll. Every episode could be called “The Gang Adopts The Shallow Veneer Of A Lifestyle.” Dennis tells Mac that Kevin is “totally retarded.” Band Practice resumes.
Rob Rosell
Charlie admits its a skill he’s had forever and he’s always wanted to be onstage. Of course, Charlie would prefer to be behind a curtain on stage, but Mac is already more inspired because someone in the band can actually play an instrument. Frank is about to be arrested for pounding the drums too loudly.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: Season 3: Episode 9
Still, it’s utterly unclear how an episode where one of the white main characters says a racial slur made it to series, never mind one that’s lasted four-fucking-teen seasons. I, just like Dennis and Charlie was convinced that the day man song they came up with was epic so when they started to perform it in public reality hit for me and them simultaneously. I couldn’t stop laughing and rewinded it like 10 times. The retard sub plot was great in its own right, After finising the series it was the first episode I wanted to rewatch and I did not even realise it was the nightman episode. Dennis and Mac use the guy’s death as an excuse to get close to the guy’s attractive granddaughter. Now, with Dee on a mission to prove her brother wrong, Mac has a pitch for the gang.
Both Frank and Mac are put off by Dennis’ glam rock swagger so they kick him out of the band. The band disagrees on the proper costumes to wear on stage. Frank prefers an early sixties Beatles approach that will instill trust in young women’s mothers. Both men wear their preferred costumes while they argue over the name of the band.
With a spring in his step, Charlie notifies the gang that he’s written a musical. Dennis and Mac quiz Charlie over his motivations, but the gang want to play the parts that Charlie has written for them purely out of their own vanity. It blows my mind that Sweet Dee is dating a retarded person isn’t constantly at the top of this list. One of the most accurate depictions of depravity that It’s Always Sunny has captured is how terrible people are often more preoccupied with being perceived as terrible rather than working on themselves.
He meant as an ode to “the night man filling me up and I become him”, but Mac correctly pointed out that it sounded like “a song where a guy breaks into your house and rapes you.” Charlie, meanwhile, is holed up in his apartment as he huffs spray paint from a sock and tries to perfect The Nightman. Dennis joins him and insists that they join forces. When Dennis drops the shades to Charlie’s window, inspiration strikes them both as they realize the titular “Nightman” in the song needs a “Dayman” to battle within the quickly appearing rock opera. The two of them enthusiastically put together the song for their own band. Meanwhile, Dennis shows Dee his elementary school year book where “Special K” appears to be drooling all over himself in his picture.
Dee dismisses the evidence because Kevin is only seven years-old in the picture. Dennis antagonizes Dee further when he says she can date whomever she pleases, but she should ask herself if she really likes Kevin or if she’s only gold digging a retard. Dee lets it slip that she’s picking Kevin up in an hour. This starts a sinister game in which Dennis keeps score in regards to Kevin’s normalcy versus Kevin’s mental retardation. The title of Charlie’s play is a reference to Eugene O’Neill’s classic play The Iceman Cometh. O’Neill’s play is described as being about “dead-end alcoholics who spend every possible moment seeking oblivion in one another’s company and trying to con or wheedle free drinks from Harry and the bartenders”, which is a good description of the gang.
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia: “Sweet Dee’s Dating A Retarded Person”
Mac’s apparent gayness is played for laughs, as if being in the closet or having sex with men is a punchline unto itself. It’s clear that the show is trying to make Mac’s hypocrisy the butt of the joke — he’s wildly anti-gay while also constantly Jack’d humping his male friends — but it doesn’t land quite right, considering how gross his friends find his sexuality. When Mac starts dating a transgender woman, the gang call her a slur instead of her name and joke about her genitals.
Discussion of the show, pictures from the show and anything else. One of the best episodes of the show for me, and the first one i saw that had me in tears of laughter. It is revealed that Dennis and Dee went to a place called “Waldron” for elementary school. Rob McElhenney went to Waldron Mercy Academy, a private Catholic school in Philadelphia. The assistant in the music store sells the guitar to Mac as having a “graphite reinforced, 35-inch scale neck.” This is an impossibility given that even baritone guitars have only 27-inch scale necks.
Made the mistake of posting the last lines as a funny Facebook status once. Had three people, including my mom, ask me if I was okay/planning on hurting myself. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 90% with an average score of 8 out of 10 based on 20 reviews. The website’s critical consensus reads, “It’s Always Sunny solidifies into a broader comedy during its third season, with the Gang coming into their own worst selves and the fictionalized Philadelphia they inhabit taking on a kooky life of its own.”
