This is where it’s all been leading. The penultimate and final episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s” record-breaking fifteenth season have been released, and they are doozies.
The final two episodes of “Always Sunny” season 15 bring to a conclusion the themes of exploring the past and the gang’s complete inability to mature. In the first, “Dee Sinks in a Bog,” Dee (Kaitlin Olson) comes into an old enemy from her past who makes things very difficult for her. Charlie’s (Charlie Day) two dads battle for his love. The numerous issues of this season are addressed in the second episode, “The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain,” in the fashion of “Sunny”: with a lot of yelling. This is one of their most complicated seasons yet because both are rife with revelations that make the remaining episodes of the season even funnier.
This is the first time an overarching plot has lasted longer than two episodes, yet references to earlier episodes and inside jokes are nothing new for the series. Let’s discuss how the Ireland arc of “Sunny” ends, and then I’ll suggest two more library episodes to help you digest this fantastic piece of television. This week, those suggestions will be slightly different since I’ll suggest another two-parter to go with this two-parter since it’s really one large story. Jabronis, buckle up; the conclusion is near.
There will be spoilers for “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” season 15.
The Gang Searches for Meaning
The group had somewhat dispersed when we last saw them because they had been irritated with one another while on their Irish vacation. Charlie (Rob McElhenney) has finally met his biological father, Shelley Kelly (Colm Meaney), and wants to get to know him better. Mac (Rob McElhenney) has gone to attempt and enter a seminary and become a Catholic priest. Frank (Danny DeVito) and Dennis (Glenn Howerton) are left alone in the run-down castle Dennis rented because Dee has a hot date with a doctor.
Frank enlists Dennis’ assistance in an effort to break up Charlie and Shelley, which brings the two together more than ever. One of the few times the gang members have ever expressed genuine affection for one another, Dennis even gives Frank a quick kiss on the head. Dennis expresses gratitude to Frank for helping him become the person he is, albeit given how evil they both are, it’s not exactly a positive thing. Given that all three of the persons Frank believed to be his children were actually someone else’s, it’s kind of sweet in a perverse sense.
When things take a dark turn, Mac believes that he and his new clergy companion are growing closer. McElhenney disclosed on “The Always Sunny Podcast” that the storyline of an early episode (“Charlie Got Molested”), which involved a paedophile priest, had to be changed. After 15 years, they’ve finally returned to the idea after changing the priest to a teacher. Brother Gus (Mark Prendergast), who Mac initially believes to be another gay man, turns out to be a paedophile. Mac’s last chance to establish his identity has been ruined. While searching for peat moss to burn in the castle to mask the odours left by Dennis’ illness in the last episode, Dee becomes caught in a bog. When the waitress (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) stops by, she offers to help, but only if Dee can identify her. Dee can’t, of course, and eventually guesses the answer while uttering random names. Dee abandons the Waitress to her destiny after she gets caught in the swamp.
Frank and Dennis devise a complex scheme to throw Charlie and Shelley a “banquet of humiliation,” but Frank blows it up by putting crap in Shelley’s soup. Frank is made to eat one of the “special meatballs” by Charlie when he calls his bluff. When Charlie is unable to, he informs them that he will remain in Ireland to produce cheese with his father before they depart from the castle. Shelley thinks Dee, who is coated in dirt, is the banshee who appears to all Kelly men just before they pass away. Dee stops them. For the gang, who have never been split up nearly this much, things are looking bleak.
The Gang Almost Breaks Up
It appears that the gang may have broken apart permanently in the wake of the horrifying events of the previous evening. Amazingly, they all show up when Charlie invites them all on a “hike” with his dad. Frank has even brought extra supplies to try to win Charlie over, though it should be noted that he also has a backup bottle of urine just in case. However, when Charlie announces that Shelley Kelly has passed away and that he has enlisted the group to help carry his father up the mountain as part of a Kelly family tradition for a funeral, things soon alter.
Some shocking details about the journey are made known as they climb the mountain: Frank received mild COVID from Dennis and gave it to Shelley, who died struggling for oxygen. Mac actuallyisIrish and the gang bribed his mother to lie to him about it. Dennis definitely killed Dee’s date when he showed up and Dee was stuck in the bog. Gang members leave one by one and return to Patty’s Pub to wait for their trip back to Philadelphia after becoming enraged with one another. Finally, only Charlie and Frank remain, and Charlie requests that Frank leave him alone.
The group is discussing how they would never talk to one another again when the Waitress, who has managed to escape from the muck, smothers them back at Patty’s. The gang attacks her, yelling about their American freedom to be as loud as they want and their shared enemy. “The waitress responds, “You are not in America! ” Frank has the ideal reply, “We are America, love! And we travel with our country with us! Because we adore her, and when you adore someone, you can never bear to part ways!” This prompts the gang to return for Charlie while speeding across the picturesque Irish mountainside in an enormous American pickup truck.
One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the history of the series is what follows next. Charlie breaks down and starts crying as he drags his dead, unemployed father’s body through the rain. He shouts out in pain, “You were meant to carry me,” and falls to the ground in the muck. He mourns the father he never truly had, the young child he once was, and what might have been. Day gave a moving performance. The one person who somehow manages to save the entire group from being utterly terrible, Charlie has always been the gang’s heart and soul. He clearly suffers, and being left behind would be wrong. Fortunately, he hasn’t been, and Frank and the others show up to assist him in finishing what they started. The gang needs and loves one another despite the fact that they aren’t particularly good at being friends or even nice people. The conclusion of the finale is a fantastic reminder that they deserve each other.
Chaser: The Gang Goes to Hell
With “The Gang Goes to Hell” parts 1 and 2, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” also concluded its eleventh season. In “The Gang Goes to Hell,” Mac books the gang on a Caribbean cruise in an effort to get them away from Philadelphia and away from their bad habits. Instead, the excursion only serves to reinforce their negative habits. Dennis makes unwanted moves on a young woman while trying to control his passion. Dee punches a magician in the face after failing to control her rage. When Mac finally accepts that he is gay, he complicates his search for faith rather than simplifying it. Charlie and Frank, too? They say they’ll attempt to act less bizarre, but instead they end up drinking boat gasoline.
The second episode’s last scene, where it appears like the gang would drown, is where “The Gang Goes to Hell” truly shines. Due to their misbehaviour, they are all confined to the brig while the ship is sinking. They are first angry at one another, but eventually come to terms with the fact that at least they will perish together. As they all descend together while holding hands, they appear to be at peace for the first time probably ever. They then engage in combat to escape as the hatch opens. After the moment passes, they resume acting in the same abhorrent manner as before. Even though Frank, Mac, Charlie, Dee, and Dennis will argue from time to time, they will always stand together to fight a common enemy—even one as certain as death.
“The Gang Goes to Hell” demonstrates, much like this week’s two episodes, that the gang cannot change and that they must instead compel the outside world to change. “It’s Always Sunny” can leave Philadelphia, but wherever they go, they’ll bring Philadelphia with them.
The Gang Together, Strong
Whether you want to call it co-dependence or love, the gang’s interconnectedness has evolved into the season’s main theme. After Season 14’s “Waiting for Big Mo,” a parody of Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece “Waiting for Godot,” many viewers questioned whether the creators of the show were still interested in continuing the show. It was a fantastic allegory for the journey the show and its writers had taken that the characters in the final episode of the season wondered if playing laser tag was still enjoyable.
They’re letting the audience know with “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” season 15 that they’ll be around for as long as it’s enjoyable to collaborate, which may be forever. After all, in addition to co-creating “Sunny,” McElhenney, Day, and Howerton also broadcast a weekly podcast about the show, and McElhenney and Day also collaborate with Megan Ganz, another co-creator of “Sunny,” on the Apple+ series “Mythic Quest. Although the podcast claims there is also lots of arguing, it is evident that this group enjoys spending time together as much as the gang does.
There are many sitcoms about horrible people acting badly, from “Seinfeld” and “Friends” to more controversial material like “Workaholics,” but “It’s Always Sunny” has remained relevant and funny for 15 seasons because of the passion that goes into making it. They treat these characters like real individuals and give their stories much more thought than the majority of viewers would ever realise. The writers make us care just as much about these characters as they do by giving them pathos. I’m looking forward to continuing to watch the gang battle the outside world (and one another) for many years to come because FXX has renewed the series until season 18.
