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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a sitcom on FX, starring (and created by) Rob McElhenny, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day. It's about four friends (the fourth friend played by Kaitlin Olson) who run an Irish bar in Philadelphia. The series deals with serious topics such as abortion rights, gun control, racism, and gay rights, but in humorous ways. The show debuted in August 2005.

According to Rob McElhenney, word of mouth on the show had been good during the first season, a factor leading to FX renewing it for a second season, which premiered on June 29, 2006. Danny DeVito joined the cast for the second season, playing the father of Dennis and Dee.

The first season finale aired on September 13, 2005. Reruns of edited versions of first season episodes began airing on FX's parent network FOX in 2006. In the UK and Ireland, the channel Bravo broadcasted the 1st series in early 2006, but there are no details as of yet regarding Season 2.

The show has drawn considerable critical acclaim, with some reviewers describing it as a darker version of Seinfeld.

Contents

Episodes

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Season 1

101 - The Gang Gets Racist

Sweet Dee brings her new boyfriend from acting class, Terrell, who is African American, to the bar, to meet the gang. It is revealed that Terrell promotes bars for a living, and he tells the guys that he can get hundreds of people to come to events. Mac, Charlie and Dennis hire him to increase the bar’s business. Terrell then turns Paddy’s Irish Pub into a very popular gay bar; Sweet Dee and Mac oppose this development, but Dennis and Charlie want Paddy's to remain a gay bar. However, both soon change their minds after unfortunate social encounters.

102 - Charlie Wants an Abortion

A woman Charlie dated in the past arrives to claim her child is his. The woman forces Charlie to babysit the unruly child for her, which prompts Charlie to comment that he wish he could have done the "right thing" ten years ago: which was to make his ex-girlfriend get an abortion. This sparks a debate with the pro-life Mac, who then goes to an anti-abortion organization to get more information. There he meets attractive pro-life protester Megan, who Mac tries to impress by acting like a rabid "pro-life" activist. Dennis then goes to the pro-choice rally to meet women, but is unsuccessful and sparks a riot when he tries to cross a fence to go from the Pro-Choice side of the protest to the pro-life side, on the belief that there were more attractive, single women on the pro-life side. After seducing Megan into having sex with him, Mac is shocked when Megan tells him that she's pregnant. Mac responds by demanding Megan have an abortion, which causes her to reveal that she was lying about being pregnant and that her lie was part of a test to see if Mac had been lying to her into order to get her to have sex with him.

Meanwhile, Charlie struggles with his unruly son. After attempting to pass his son off as a young kid Charlie was mentoring as part of the "Big Brother" program, Charlie discovers that his ex-girlfriend had lied to him and was using Charlie to try and make the child's real father (who was denying the child was his) jealous. The episode ends with Charlie attempting to get the child's father to acknowledge his son only to be verbally abused by the deadbeat dad.

103 - Underage Drinking: A National Concern

After a profitable night at the bar populated by underage drinkers, the guys decide to lower the drinking age at Paddy’s Irish Pub to provide teenagers with a safe place to experiment, while also earning some money. Sweet Dee then meets Trey, a popular high school jock, and tries to fulfill her dream of dating a popular guy and going to prom in high school. Dennis is blackmailed by Trey’s ex-girlfriend into taking her to prom. Meanwhile, Charlie and Mac go to a party hosted by one of their new customers, Sarah. Sarah asks Charlie to prom, and feeling left out, Mac decides to go stag. It is then revealed that Trey and his ex-girlfriend were using Sweet Dee and Dennis, and end up getting back together. Only Charlie ends up going to prom.

104 - Charlie Has Cancer

While stopping by Charlie's apartement, Dennis learns Charlie has cancer and soon informs the others. The rest of the gang attempts to help Charlie depart the world at peace by getting him laid. Upon hearing this idea, Sweet Dee bows out and calls Mac and Dennis's plan stupid. While attempting to pick up a girl for Charlie in the bar, Mac starts courting Carmen, a pre-op (M to F) transsexual, and Dennis attempts to get Sweet Dee to talk to the waitress at the coffee shop. After Dee backs out to an attempt to get her acting partner Artemis to help her the bar because no one else will, Dennis goes to the coffee bar waitress only for her to have sex with him after telling her that Charlie has cancer. In a last ditch effort to get the waitress to sleep with Charlie, Mac and Dennis decide to offer the waitress 250 dollars to have sex with Charlie and she accepts. Later, Mac has a nice time on the town with Carmen, while Charlie goes shopping with the unenthusiastic waitress, who doesn't sleep with him. During their date, Mac punches out Carmen when she comes at him from behind and he has to flee from two guys who think that he's committed a hate crime. Then, a lively Charlie finally confesses that he lied to Dennis about having cancer so he would tell the waitress, only to learn she had been paid for services never performed.

105 - Gun Fever

After having their safe stolen, the gang has to decide how to better protect Paddy's from later break-ins. Mac believes that there is only one good solution: buying a gun for the bar. Dennis agrees but Charlie and Dee do not. After buying a gun and setting up a shooting range in the basement, Mac and Dennis later find that their new gun is missing; Charlie stole the gun to get his angry landlord off his back. After becoming a low-budget Hardy Boys, Mac and Dennis find Colin, Sweet Dee's suspicious new boyfriend, at Fingers, a competing bar, and set him up to rob the bar that night. After giving Colin all of the information, Dee, Mac, and Dennis set up at the bar to catch Colin in the act. The gang sees a shadow enter the bar and, thinking that it's Colin, shoots him, only to find out that it was Charlie stealing money from the bar to pay his rent. While they are at the hospital tending to Charlie, Mac and Dennis's suspicions are confirmed: Colin is the thief, and is robbing the bar yet again.

106 - The Gang Finds a Dead Guy

Upon opening the bar one Friday, Mac and Dee find a guy "sleeping" in the bar. Being overwhelmed by the stench of the body, Mac pokes the man with a pool cue only to find out that he's dead. The dead guy's granddaughter Rebecca Keane (Lindsey McKeon) was notified by the police of his death and comes to the bar to see where he spent his last night. Mac and Dennis get flustered over Rebecca and then agree to have a battle to see who can pick up the girl, which involves lying about knowing her grandfather because the gang had not seen him once before he died in the bar. Impacted by the death, Dee wants to go see her grandfather at his nursing home before it's too late but ask Charlie to accompany her because she's disgusted by old people, in particular their hands. When Dee and Charlie go to visit Dee's grandfather, he confuses Charlie with Dennis, calls him short, and enlists him to get his military uniform. Unbeknown to Charlie, Dennis's grandfather's military uniform is a Nazi uniform. Charlie lets Mac know and they attempt to sell the medals and uniform to a museum only to have the curator be visibly disgusted at their proposition and threaten to call the police. Since they can't sell the gear, Charlie and Mac decide to burn it behind the bar. When Dennis comes back to the bar to rub his conquest of Rebecca in Mac's face, Mac tells Dennis that his grandfather is a Nazi with the picture to prove it.

107 - Charlie Got Molested

While hanging around in the bar, Mac comes across an article in the paper about his and Charlie's old gym teacher Coach Murray (Dennis Haskins) being sued for sexually abusing two students in the mid 1980's. Due to Charlie's hesitation to discuss the issue, the gang assumes that Charlie was also molested by the gym teacher as well. Further complicating things is Mac's reaction to the scandal: Mac is upset because the coach didn't deem him "cute" enough to be molested by him and visits the coach, intending on seducing him into having sex with him. Mac's scheme though is rejected and he's thrown out of the Coach's home.

Charlie meanwhile deduces the identities of the accusers as being the McBoyle twins and confronts them. Charlie accuses the twins of falsely accusing the coach of being a pedophile and is repulsed when they not only admit to Charlie that he's right but that they got their idea from Charlie. A year earlier, Charlie hung out with the twins and during a drunken rant, came up with the notion that several of their classmates should accuse their former gym teacher of molesting them as part of a scheme to extort money from their former school as part of a bogus lawsuit. The twins demand that Charlie come forward as a third accuser and threaten to accuse him of being the ringleader of their scheme if he tries to expose them.

Meanwhile Dee and Dennis, in a vain attempt to use their psychology classes from college, plan an intervention for Charlie at Charlie's mom's house where he must acknowledge that he was "molested" by Coach Cooper in front of his friends and family. Upon taking a ride with the McBoyle twins to file charges against Coach Cooper, Charlie doublecrosses them and exposes their scheme to the police. Meanwhile Mac apologizes for trying to get his former coach to have sex with him, which he accepts though he still thinks that Mac is screwed up in the head for his attempt at seduction.

Season 2

201 - Charlie Gets Crippled

The gang is hanging around the bar one day and Dee and Dennis are more frantic than usual because their estranged father Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito) is coming back to town and they want to avoid him. After locking up the bar, the gang decides to go to a strip club while Charlie opts to go home. After Mac, Dennis, and Dee pile into Dennis's Range Rover, Frank appears in front of the car and scares Dennis who goes into reverse and hits Charlie, breaking both of his legs and putting him in a wheelchair. After taking Charlie to the ER, the gang plus Frank goes back to Paddy's where Frank explains to Dee and Dennis that he is divorcing their mother and giving all of his money to charity, invoking rage from Dee and Dennis. Upon hearing this news, Dee and Dennis go to get as much stuff (plasma tv's, jewelry, etc.) as they can from their parents' house before Frank gives it away. In an attempt to drown his sorrows, Charlie gets wasted at the bar with Frank and Mac and the three of them go to the strip club where the strippers flock to Charlie because he's in a wheelchair, giving him a free lapdance. After picking up a couple girls at the strip club, Frank, Charlie, and Mac return to Charlie's apartment where Frank entertains the girls and leaves Charlie sleeping in the hallway.

The next day, Frank decides to move in with Charlie, while the rest of the gang feign physical disabilities at the mall to pick up dates. Dee successfully picks up a guy in the mall while wearing a neck brace and her Scoliosis back brace (that is alluded to in "Underage Drinking: A National Concern"), while Dennis and Mac ruin their cover. When Charlie attempts to pick up girls again at the strip club, he is not as successful, so he decides to dress like a handicapped war vet, a costume which is instead exploited by Frank. The next time that Charlie goes to the strip club to use his war vet story, Charlie sees Frank in an electric scooter with women all around. This upsets Charlie and the two fight in front of the strip club after being thrown out. Dee and her new male companion see Frank and Charlie fighting in front of the club. Frank looks at Dee, takes one of her crutches away and shows that she is faking her disability, to the bewilderment of her companion. While they are bickering in front of the club, a drunk Dennis and Mac are making their way to the strip club in Dennis's Range Rover with a sleeping Dennis behind the wheel and Dennis runs into Charlie, Frank, Dee, and the male companion in front of the strip club, injuring them all.

202 - The Gang Goes Jihad

The gang is sitting around inside the bar when they recieve a visitor, a man from Israel who recently bought the lot next door. He informs the group they have to vacate the bar in one week because his property line extends halfway into the bar. The gang then seeks legal recourse but find legal channels fruitless.Meanwhile Frank goes to his soon to be ex wife's house to return some of her things and enters the house to find her with the Israeli man who she is apparently seeing. He leaves, annoyed, and hatches a plot to get back at her. He enlists Dee to help kidnap his wife's beloved dog and smuggle it back to Dee's apartment.

The guys come up with multiple plots to get their bar back, consisting of juvenile pranks. When exiting the bar, they realize they've been encircled by a chain link fence and cannot get out. Meanwhile Frank and Dee recieve a visitor at the apartment: the Israeli man has come for the dog. He bemoans to Frank about how the guys are troubling him and the fact that his building has a gas leak. Frank decides to make the man a business proposition. The guys start escalating their plans. Mac and Dennis dress up like Middle Eastern terrorists and make (incoherent) threats. Upon reviewing the tape, they realize it is unusable. Out of ideas, they go outside and stare at the building, after Charlie pockets the tape he feels is his directorial masterpiece. Outside, they decide to go with the original plan of leaving a flaming bag of dog poop at the door. Charlie lights the bag and leaves it by the door when he realizes there's no one there to step on it. Unknowing of the gas leak, he throws the bag through the window and returns to the gang hiding behind a car, only to see the building explode.

The next day Dee, Charlie, Mac, and Dennis are gathered in the bar when Frank tells them he is the new owner of the adjacent lot and he will let them have their bar back if they make him one of the gang. Just then the authorities show up asking for the owners, presenting a copy of the "Jihad Tape"

203 - Dennis and Dee Go On Welfare

With Frank now owning the bar, Dennis and Dee grow frustrated with his managerial style. Considering their low salaries at the bar, Dennis and Dee decide to go off on their own and follow their dreams of being a veterinarian (Dennis) and an actor (Dee). This leaves Mac, Charlie, and Frank with an interesting dilemma. Dennis and Dee discover that they're eligible for welfare and begin exploiting the public servive, and at the bar, Mac and Charlie realize they'll need cheap labour to avoid doing the work Frank is demanding; both groups end up going to the welfare office. Mac and Charlie enroll Paddy's in the Work for Welfare program and Dennis and Dee attempt to sign up for welfare, making the claim that Dennis is a recovering crackhead taking care of his mentally handicapped sister. The social worker at the office tells them that they require the medical paperwork to prove their claims. With blood tests scheduled for the next day, Dennis and Dee have to verify their claims, so they go and buy Crack.

While Dennis and Dee are working on their crack claims for welfare, Frank is setting up a bank account in Charlie's name in which he'll keep all his money, out of his wife's reach. After Frank begins to grind upon their nerves by always trying to hang out with them, Mac and Charlie decide to take a "little money" from the account that Frank has set up and have some fun on the town. This leads to Mac and Charlie hiring hookers and a limousine and buying tuxedos. The paths of the gang cross when Mac and Charlie pass Dennis and Dee sitting on the street, reeling from their crack addiction. Dennis and Dee approach the limo and ask for some money, but Mac and Charlie roll up the window and drive off. Mac and Charlie also realize they are out of money when they attempt to pay the hookers and find the account frozen. With the hookers calling their pimps, Mac and Charlie do the reasonable thing and sprint back to the bar where they run into Dennis and Dee who want their jobs back. Frank finds the gang hanging out in the alley behind the bar, brings Dennis and Dee back on because Frank fired the Welfare workers after they depressed him, but they have to be the bar wenches (like Charlie was) for being crackheads. For stealing his money, Frank believes that Charlie has a lot of balls and promotes him to manager as a reward. And Mac gets nothing because he's a follower.

204 - Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom

The episode begins with Mac going to pick up Frank's toupee from Barbara, Dennis' Mom and Frank's wife. After retrieving it, Mac is confronted by Dennis' naked Mom, ready to go. While cleaning the bar bathroom together, Dennis announces to Dee that he has a plan: he has a date with the coffee shop waitress Charlie likes and will have sex with her unless Charlie says he doesn't have to do grunt work ("Charlie work") anymore. After Dennis informs Charlie of the deal he leaves with the waitress. Mac then shows up at Charlie's office and tells him Dennis' mom wants to have sex with him. Charlie encourages him to go for it, and begins a plan to get back at Dennis. Dee then enters the office and asks for her bartender job back, and Charlie enlists her services.Just as Dennis is about to enter the waitress' apartment his cell phone goes off and he leaves abruptly, much to the waitress' dismay and confusion, to meet Charlie. Dennis returns to Paddy's and Charlie says leeringly, "I know something you don't know".

The next day, Mac is being overly emotional with Dennis' Mom, Barbara, after they've slept together and she kicks him out, giving him a goodbye kiss. Outside, Charlie has brought Dennis to witness the affair, and tells a vengeful Dennis that in order to get back at Mac he must sleep with Mac's mom. However, he is not able to seduce her, which infuriates him, as she is not particularly attractive. Dee, under Charlie's orders, is outside with the waitress in her car, showing the waitress that Dennis is a creep. After Dennis leaves the scene, Dee receives a call from Charlie, and she reluctantly goes into phase two of Charlie's plan.

Later, an enamoured Mac tries to call Barbara from his apartment, but as he's leaving a message Frank knocks on the door. At first he thinks Frank found out about him and Barbara, but he just wants to pick up younger chicks after being disappointed by an old flame. When they go out Frank tries to pick up women, and blames Mac when he can't get any girls; when Mac doubts his methods (mainly a "move" and money), Frank informs him that they were used to seduce Barbara. Dee, still carrying out Charlie's plan, goes to Dennis' apartment and tells him Charlie is going to make her have sex with him to become the bartender again, which bothers not because Charlie's going to have sex with his sister but because everyone but him is getting laid. Dee tells him that he must sleep with Charlie's Mom to get even. Dennis fails again at least gets into the house, which appears to the waitress in Dee's car that he is having sex with Charlie's Mom. Dee tells her that the only way to get revenge is to have sex with Charlie, and the waitress breaks down in tears. Dennis goes through a another breakdown when Charlie's Mom tells him she doesn't find him attractive. Mac shows up at Barbara's house with $443, and she tells him she only slept with him so she could piss off Frank. As Mac walks away Dennis meets him, and the two start to fight. Charlie then gets Dee to go to phase three, dressing him up for his date with the waitress. He then relieves her of all "Charlie work". As he goes into the bar, Mac and Dennis are sitting at a table. The waitress shows up with Frank and screams at Dennis, telling him she had sex with his father because he was old and ugly and after Dennis told her he loved her he had sex with old people so that's what she did. The episode ends with Charlie crying.

205 - $100 Dollar Baby

Frank takes Dee to a local gym to train her in boxing. There, he runs into an old enemy. Mac and Dennis try to make money by getting Charlie into a underground street fighting club.

206 - The Gang Gives Back

The gang must do community service after being arrested for arson (in episode 202). Frank tries harder to connect with Dennis.

207 - The Gang Exploits a Miracle

The gang, in order to make some quick cash, exploit the similarities between a water stain in the bars' restroom and the Virgin Mary. Charlie takes on the role of an evangelical preacher.

Trivia

External links

 

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