It’s the penultimate episode of the thirteenth season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the follow-up to last week’s “Charlie’s Home Alone”. This episode follows Mac, Dee, Frank and everyone from Uncle Jack to Bill Ponderosa – whose lives they’ve helped ruin – travel to and attend the Super Bowl for the biggest game Philadelphia will ever see.
In a strange move, the episode begins the same way as last week by recapping Mac’s conversation with Charlie, which means we get another chance to hear Mac’s amazing profession of love for Tony Romo and how he bleeds green now that Romo’s retired making this somewhat unnecessary flashback worth its place in the episode. “GO BIRDS GO!”
Instead of cutting outside Paddy’s to see Charlie putting up his sign, we’re shown what Pondy, Uncle Jack, Rickety Cricket and The Waitress are doing, giving us some great examples of how they’re incredibly strange people. This episode was really enjoyable and would have been even more so had Dennis and Charlie been at the game, but I liked how these characters who’ve been missing this season were given a full episode alongside Mac, Dee and Frank. What I loved most about their involvement was the contrast between Mac hating what they represent and Frank loving how they represent the working class of Philadelphia. It all leads to one of the best moments of the episode where Mac has a revelation, agreeing with Frank and praising our secondary characters. Well, until it’s revealed Tom Brady has the ball with 50 seconds of the game remaining and he screams at them ranting how they’re all pieces of shit.
It was also refreshing to watch an episode with Mac where everything he does isn’t a reflection of his sexuality. Of course, it’s referenced a bit when he talks to model Rex from episodes such as “America’s Next Top Paddy’s Billboard Model” and “Ass Kickers United: Mac and Charlie Join a Cult”, who he’s brought to the game to add some class, but there’s much more to him in this one than simply being gay. In particular we see his leadership in Dennis’ absence shown and how he’s not the leader-type in his inability to control what the secondary characters do.
There’s more good stuff in this one such as Dee having pink-eye and, given The Gang’s history of mocking her appearances, completely rejecting all of Mac’s genuine concern. I thought the scene where she proves she doesn’t have pink eye by rubbing her infected eye and touching her other eye was incredibly funny, but I wasn’t a lover of the scene where she blindly wanders through the stadium in the same manner as Mr Magoo would. I also enjoyed Frank’s plot-point of having a kidney stone and it being revealed that him urinating is the answer to the Philly Eagles scoring a touchdown – the sight of Danny DeVito straining and making strange noises trying to urinate is a truly remarkable way of building tension.
We also got a resolution to The Waiter from Guiginos’ comment in “The Gang Beats Boggs: Ladies Reboot“ about waiting on The Gang at the Super Bowl as to his horror he must serve them in their exclusive box, having not escaped them after moving to Minnesota. We get another nice callback to the Boggs Ladies Reboot in how neither Mac, Dee or Frank recognise him and Frank making him fall over by tying his shoelaces together is a nice reference to “The Gang Dines Out”. As far as references to previous episodes in the show go, this was probably the only one this episode needed, as I found Rex’s multiple references to Invigaron, the pyramid scheme from “Mac and Dennis Buy a Timeshare” to be a bit forced, similarly to Charlie’s reference to Milk Steak in last week’s episode.
Speaking of Charlie, I really liked how his story from last week’s episode was fully explained and wrapped up, from the full reveal of Cricket stealing his Green Man suit to the ending where he voluntarily steps back into a bear trap to help The Eagles win the Super Bowl. Seeing him scream in joy and in tremendous pain at the result while the instrumental of “Going the Distance” from the Rocky soundtrack plays was hilarious.
As this and last week’s episode are clearly special ones, it was cool that the opening and closing graphics of the show were changed for the occasion. Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” (one of the few songs about Philadelphia according to Mac) playing instead of the Always Sunny theme was a good way of giving this one a big time feel, as was the decision to end the episode with shots of Eagles fans – including footage of Rob McElhenney at the game – and the people Philadelphia in general celebrating the win. This ending montage may be the first time that the show has truly epitomised it being sunny in Philadelphia.
Rating: 7.25/10
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