As it turns out Dee is simply an extra, not an actress. Mac and Charlie show up on set to pitch their movie idea to Shyamalan, which features a muscular scientist (played by Dolph Lundgren) who can smell crime before it happens. Hence it is titled the Fifth Sense. The present their concept to Dennis, who Frank has recently decided is Hollywood material and is acting as his agent. Dennis likes the pitch. But he wants to add hundreds of graphic sex scenes. By the end of the episode everyone ends up back at square one. Shyamalan is not actually on set and the secondary unit is shooting the scene. So Mac and Dennis have nowhere to go with their script, Dee has no shot at being an actress, and Frank’s agent ambitions are worthless.

One of my favorite parts is when Dennis goes back to the pharmacy where this girl works and finds Mac and Frank there.  Apparently they operate on a system where they swoop in and act as the crying shoulder for girls that Dennis leaves behind. First Mac, then Frank. It is hilarious how willing they are to accept Dennis’ “seconds.”

I love how much Dennis and Mac do indeed behave as an old married couple for the rest of the episode. Mac nearly loses his mind when Dennis goes to the video store and does not return any of his calls. Infact, he calls the police to file a missing persons report. Dennis says he feels like they’ve reached a rut in their relationship and that he is no longer “flourishing.” So Mac goes to stay with Charlie, and Dennis goes over to Dee’s house to hang out.

Here again we have prime examples of selfishness running throughout the show. When Dennis comes over to Dee’s apartment, her cat is stuck inside the wall somewhere. Dennis says he’ll help her out of this “jam.” He suggests letting the cat die and decompose inside the while and burning scented candles until then. Proud of the “help” that he has provided Dee, Dennis says, “See, that’s what its like to have a sidekick.” I just find it ironic that Dennis dubs himself Dee’s sidekick when he does not help her out at all and really is just trying to get her to sit down and watch a movie with him.

Is it bad that Mac’s experiences at Charlie and Frank’s apartment reminds me too much of where and how me and my roomates live? Probably not. There is trash all over the apartment which Mac is picking up. Charlie tells him he leaves it on the ground, unbagged until it is time to take the trash out. All the while Frank is trimming his toe nails with a steak knife. I could not help but find this amusing because I happen to live in the nastiest house in Athens with the most stereotypical group of guys, at least as far as maintenance goes. This is probably why I don’t have a girl friend or a life…

The episode begins with the gang watching videos of Hulk Hogan wrestling on Dee’s laptop. During the fight, an instant message pops up from Soldier of Fortune. Apparently he is an American soldier stationed in Iraq that Dee has been chatting with. Dennis and Mac immediately begin to talk about how dissapointed the soldier is going to be when he gets back from Iraq and sees how “ugly” Dee is. (Personally, I’ve always thought she was kind of hot). This leads into a further discussion of how America was so patriotic in the eighties when “Hulk was doing his thing” and how they need to bring back a patriotic feel. Charlie proposes that they wrestle for the returning troops because wrestling celebrates America, celebrates the troops, “celebrates us.”  Thus bringing me back to the overall theme of Always Sunny in Philadelphia: selfishness.

When Dee’s army boy gets off the bus in a wheel chair, she immediately claims not to be Desert Rose, her alias on the chat room, even though she is holding a rose and is wearing a rose costume. Meanwhile, Frank uses the soldier to promote the wrestling match and presents him with a pair of jean shorts as a welcome home gift. Dennis, Charlie, and Mac all use the wrestling match as a means for them to get on stage dressed in bird suits and try to wrestle. These are just a few more instances of the gang’s selfishness that can be seen in the show.

I will say this episode had perhaps my favorite ending. Frank goes into the ring as the “Trash Man” and literally beats his opponent to death with a trash can. There is blood in the ring and Frank stands with arms raised and the crowd cheering. I laughed until I cried.

Dee and Charlie go to see the Attorney to seek legal council about Mac eating Dee’s contract and getting a patent for Charlie’s kitten mittens. I love how Charlie always attempts to utilize legal jargon in his conversations with the Attorney. This is a theme that can be seen through multiple episodes. Most recently in the Word Series defense when Charlie continuously requests that the judge “let the record show” or not show certain aspects of the case. For some reason, he considers himself to be a “man of the law” and have some knowledge about legal proceedings. Obviously he has no idea what he’s talking about.

While Dee and Charlie deal with the Attorney, Mac and Dennis begin to brainstorm for their own line of Paddy’s merchandise. Here again, we can witness the selfishness and contradictions inherent in the gang. Dennis and Mac both bashed Charlie’s kitten mittens idea, but their own merchandise has perhaps even less to do with the bar and is twice as vulgar. Dennis wants to sell thongs with the Paddy’s logo on them, because “what’s more sexual than a high waisted thong riding high up a woman’s backside? Nothing!” Mac’s concept is just as absurd, a towel which features a buttox on the back side and a choice between a huge penis or a very small one on the front side. This is a prime example of how members of the gang will always ridicule one another’s ideas only to reveal that their own concepts are twice as inappropriate. Frank’s idea for a gun that fires out shots of liquor might actually work in Paddy’s bar, but he doesn’t know how to make it work.

A final aspect of this episode that I would like to touch on is how each member of the gang hires a beautiful woman in order to help sell their idea. This is another example of how they always use other people to meet their own ends. In this instance Frank, Dee and Charlie, and Mac and Dennis all end up hiring a stripper, more or less, to come to the convention with them and help sell their concept. As Frank puts it, “You bring a woman with cans like that into the convention and you sell the idea in a second!”

Already I am seeing some themes starting to surface. As I’ve mentioned before, Dee always seems to be selling herself or trying to exploit herself in some way. She’s always hungry for attention. Hence, she wants to go on national t.v. and make out with a player. Mac and Dennis are like Poncho and Lefty, they’re always up to no good as a team. Charlie, as usual, is sort of on his own and is made subject to everyone elses’ disapproval. I love how Dee, Mac, and Dennis act as if the way they are going to interrupt the game is sophisticated and Charlie’s ”green man” idea is stupid.

When Frank forgets the tickets to the game, Dee and Mac accompany him to get them from his apartment while Dennis and Charlie head onto the game. Here we can see the general theme of selfishness that runs throughout the show. When they arrive at Frank’s apartment to find that it is being “bombed” with toxic gasses in order to destroy a bug infestation, Dee and Mac quickly urge him to go inside anyway. “It’s not that bad for you!” Dee says. The gang is always acting against each other for their best interest. Likewise, when Dennis and Charlie get a phone call that the others will be late they decide to sneak into the game without them. I think it’s ironic that they’re labeled “the gang” when they behave completely based on their individual interests.

I think I’ve mentioned before that there seems to be a hierarchy among the characters. In every episode it seems that one character is trying to outsmart, or get the best of, another character. I’ve decided that Charlie serves as the low man on the totum pole. Everyone in the show is a lot dumber than they make themselves out to be, but Charlie gets abused by everybody. One of my favorite parts of this episode was when Dennis and Mac came over to Charlie’s house to help him make a profile for a dating website. They find Charlie in his living room smoking a box full of wasps in order that he may kill them and get to their honey supply. After Dennis explain to Charlie that wasps do not make honey, they simply give up and begin taking pictures of Charlie for his profile. The problem is Charlie is covered in wasp stings and refuses to put make up on in order to hide them. He says he just wants to be himself, to which Mac replies: “Let’s pretend you’re not who you are and try to attract women.” I thought that was hilarious. Another part that made me laugh until my sides hurt was when Mac and Dennis were advising Charlie to lie to his date and tell her that he is a philanthropist. Charlie has trouble pronouncing the word, so Dennis and Mac go over it with him several times. By the time his date arrives, Charlie is nervous and tells her that he is a “full on rapist.” I cried I was laughing so hard.

Besides noticing that Charlie serves as the end of every joke, I realized that Dee is always trying to fulfill herself in every episode. She always takes on some absurd task because she wants to be the center of attention. In this episode she is trying to break up the engagement not because she knows that Charlie is madly in love with the waitress, but because she is jealous of the waitress. And she doesn’t want to have to do Charlie’s work at the bar if he gets depressed and “blows his brains out.” Once again, we see Charlie as the character that all the others seem to hate. Really you have three distinct groups using Charlie to meet their ends: Mac and Dennis, Dee, and then Frank (Danny Devito). These are just a couple of the things I’m starting to pick up on.

When I was watching last week’s episode with my roommate, he mentioned how the “gang” always ends up in tons of trouble at the end of every episode and some how, by the following episode, the slate is wiped clean. It’s as if the previous episode never happened. I realize Always Sunny In Philadelphia is not a dramatic series that is intended to build upon itself so this is not really an issue for me. But I thought it was an interesting observation to bring to the table. Maybe a little more continuity would help the show. Then again this is the first season I’ve watched all the way through, so perhaps there are storylines being carried on that I simply don’t know about.

Another issue I have with writing about the show is the fact that it comes across as mostly ad-libbed. It’s all very “Will Ferrell-esc,” which is another thing I happen to love about it as a viewer. But as someone writing critically about the show, it makes the task more difficult. It’s not that the writing of show is bad, it’s that sometimes I wonder if there’s any writing at all. It comes across as if they have a basic guideline for each show and then just let the actors make up their own dialogue. Again, I absolutely love this kind of comedy because it allows the actors to say the most absurd thing that comes to mind. I realize that some people really don’t like this kind of humor. But I’m somebody who thinks that Will Ferrell is the most hysterical person alive and I don’t think he’s ever followed a script in his life.

So that’s where I’m at with Always Sunny In Philadelphia right now. I love watching the show, but find it hard to write about. If anyone else is watching it and wants to chime in on some reoccurring themes they’re seeing or anything like that, feel free. I’m going to try and focus on more of those details in the weeks to come.