It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

“It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” a sitcom on FX, has gained a notorious reputation in its five years of being on the air as one of the most crass, immature, and hilarious shows on television. The four main characters, Dennis, Mac, Dee, and Charlie, run Paddy’s Pub, a dive bar in South Philadelphia. In the episode, “Paddy’s Pub: The Worst Bar in Philadelphia,” Fisher Stevens plays Lyle Korman, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer who gives the bar a scathing review. This prompts the owners to try to persuade Korman to write a new review of their bar. Charlie, whose illiteracy and paint huffing habits make him all the more loveable, ends up kidnapping Korman and holding him hostage in the bar. “The Gang,” as they’re referred to in the show, spends the rest of the episode plotting a way to release Korman without him going to the police.
One of the strongest qualities of the episode, like all other “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” episodes, is that you really don’t need a back-story to be able to follow the plot. Now, that may speak to the shallow nature of the characters, but more likely it exhibits the writer’s lack of desire for a conventional show. Within minutes of the opening credits, you can see exactly what kind of people Dennis, Mac, Dee, and Charlie are.
The biggest flaw of the episode, though, is the conspicuous absence of Frank, Dennis and Dee’s biological father, played by Danny DeVito. He is nowhere to found throughout the episode and his absence is never even addressed. But when Frank is present, his off-color comments, constant reminiscing, and cluelessness of anything post-1969 make his character the one that stands out among the rest. Though Frank is never the main character in any episode, his coarse and tasteless views make the rest of the characters, who are by no means saints, look like boy scouts.
Another unusual turn in this episode occurs when The Gang actually listens, or is forced to listen, to Charlie’s dimwitted ideas. It was his plan to kidnap Korman, hold him at Paddy’s until he wrote a more favorable review, and, ultimately, try to give him amnesia by breaking a bottle over his head. In most cases, The Gang’s plans are at least somewhat sensible, and they almost seem ingenious when compared to Charlie’s. But his outrageous schemes and total disregard for common sense and others’ safety reminds the audience that this show’s purpose is to make people laugh.
While this episode stuck to the show’s main formula, it still was able to be fresh. The witty writers and their vulgar-for-cable script look like geniuses when the lines are caught on camera because of the great chemistry between the actors. “Paddy’s Pub: The Worst Bar In Philadelphia” exhibits outrageous scheming, shockingly shallow reasoning by the characters, and plenty of entertaining plot twists, all things that make the show unlike any other on television.