The gang shines once again. It’s almost too good to be true to say this, but the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” guys don’t drop the ball even as the FX sitcom approaches its 20th anniversary. Season 17’s batch of eight episodes are as outrageous, offensive, and culturally inappropriate as we’d like (and expect) them to be. They hit on several trendy and hot-button topics while also deepening the show’s own twisted and malicious universe through the gang’s weird obsessions. Today, I specifically want to focus on the third episode, titled “Mac and Dennis Become EMTs,” that both pays homage to and ridicules the network’s hit drama series, the fantastic “The Bear.”
It all starts with the peppers. As one of our favorite idiots, Mac (Rob Mac) points it out early on, “Peppers spice everything up.” They certainly do, as we see in the opening scene where two EMTs are trying to resuscitate an unconscious man in Paddy’s Pub after Frank (Danny DeVito) fed him one of his unbearably hot peppers. Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Mac are thrilled by watching the first responders work (seeing the action first-hand gives them a high) and decide to take a crash course to become like them.
Meanwhile, Dee (Kaitlin Olson) is doing a Postmates side gig, delivering food, which Frank takes advantage of to get himself a smash burger. That immediately lights a bulb in Charlie’s (Charlie Day) head, thinking he could make a burger like that (or an even better one) at home. From there, it doesn’t take long until he turns his apartment into an environment meant to resemble a fast-paced restaurant kitchen, and himself into a self-made (and delusional) “master chef” who’s macrodosing peppers to keep up with the imagined high stakes.
Yes, chef!
Once Dee encounters Charlie’s newfound passion for cooking, she immediately tries to exploit it for her own gain. She convinces the illiterate and trashy Charlie Allen White to turn the apartment into a “ghost kitchen” that makes the food she needs to deliver via Postmates, killing two birds with one stone (well, in this case, burgers with a brick that’s wrapped in aluminium foil). Charlie welcomes the idea but makes it a crucial point that she has to say “yes, chef,” “no, chef,” “corner, chef,” etc., to everything he does because “things just got to work that way” when the stakes are high.
I adore Christopher Storer’s “The Bear,” and this is the most hilarious parody/mockery of the series I’ve seen so far, clearly coming from a place of love. The duo of Charlie and Frank working tirelessly while sweating profusely because of the peppers they keep munching on is absolutely bananas. It’s the kind of laugh-out-loud moment that “Always Sunny” keeps delivering 20 years on. You’d think that the gang must be out of ideas at this point, yet they hit another bullseye. The episode completely goes through the roof when they throw in the Gypsy Kings’ spicy “Bamboleo” track as we watch a montage of Dennis and Mac impersonating EMTs, Dee chaotically speeding and hitting pedestrians with her bike, and the cooking duo getting high on their own supply. In the end, everything comes together seamlessly and ends catastrophically, in typical “Always Sunny” fashion — but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Your mileage may vary, but as a hardcore long-time fan of the sitcom, this episode has already become an instant classic for me. Not just because of “The Bear” homage, but also because it shows the gang is still capable of innovating and keeping things fresh, furthering the type of obscene and dark humor they become a champion at two decades ago. A fan-favorite character we haven’t seen in nine years also returns here and delivers spectacularly. In the end, it all comes full circle, proving that “Always Sunny” still has gas left in the tank and isn’t ready to call it quits just yet.
