This week, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” kicked off the first half of a two-part finale with “The Gang Goes to Hell.”
The opening of the episode shows the gang in white robes appearing to justify themselves to God for their role in the sinking of a cruise ship. Considering producers’ plans for a 12th season, this is presumably some kind of dream sequence, but it is a nice play on the numerous episodes in which the gang tells some outlandish story to an increasingly annoyed authority figure — though we don’t see any reaction from the off-screen figure.
Mac (Rob McElhenney) has been mainly a secondary character this season, but here he takes the lead for the first time as he prompts the gang to go on a cruise created by an evangelical church in which alcohol is prohibited. As Mac experiences a crisis of faith — his outlandish personal brand of Catholicism doesn’t mesh with the evangelicals’ positive outlook — the rest of the gang tries to use the opportunity to tone down their debauchery, each trying to avoid their respective deadly sins.
While this gives the episode a lot to work with, the deadly sins feel like oversimplifications. Dennis (Glenn Howerton) especially — as the most prideful, wrathful and lustful character — is pigeonholed into lust, so that Dee (Kaitlin Olson) can show wrath. Frank (Danny DeVito) and Charlie’s (Charlie Day) designation seems especially lazy as they are lumped together as gluttony.
However, even if the character associations are simplistic, they pay off in consistently funny moments throughout the episode. Predictably, each attempt to tone down their vices leads every character to explosively revert. Dennis’s story continues his character’s tendency to rely on previous moments as the show rehashes his famous “implication” speech from “The Gang Buys a Boat.” The nautical setting certainly justifies a callback, but “the implication” seems a bit overused, even if it is funny overall.
Dennis’s creepy side is as present as ever as he tries to put his theory in action, which is complemented well by an ominous storm in the background. The use of an old joke isn’t necessarily egregious in this case, as the episode has plenty of its own material, but it continues to draw attention to the show’s age.
The biggest moment feels like a long time coming as Mac comes out of the closet — an act which is coupled with a renunciation of his faith. The show has been more open about Mac’s homosexuality in recent seasons and has even played on him coming out, so this seems like a natural development.
Given its placement in the first half of a two-part episode, however, there is a good chance Mac is due for a relapse into delusion in the second half, and this shift in status quo will likely be temporary. Nonetheless, this is a good time to address the issue with some finality, even if Mac is likely to come out of the finale as deluded and hypocritical as ever.
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