Does anyone here watch It's Always Sunny?

*Very mild spoilers may follow*

Wow. I just watched the season 13 finale and what the hell was that? I'm not saying that this show hasn't had some semi-serious moments (that were almost always still treated as being comical), but this was weird as hell. They were playing that last scene completely straight and heavy-handed. Are they seriously going to try to pretend like these characters deserve that kind of serious treatment?

Frank ran a goddamn sweat shop where people died because of the horrible conditions, then he put those people in the soup and fed them to other sweatshop workers. Just a few episodes before this, Mac brutally beat up a bunch of kids (possibly beating them to death). And then there's Rickety Cricket who appears in this episode very briefly. Though Cricket isn't entirely blameless in what happened to him, his shocking transformation/degradation was at nearly all times due heavily to the gang's involvement. And sometimes it wasn't even just setting up the stage for Cricket to make bad choices, sometimes it was much more direct. Like falsely accusing Cricket of trying to rape a mob boss's wife, resulting in him getting his legs broken. Or locking him in a burning apartment causing his face to become horribly burned and scarred. I don't recall at any point Mac or Frank or any of the rest of the gang having sympathy for any of the people that they've hurt. Or recognizing that they actually DO hurt everyone that they touch. And they certainly don't have any remorse.

This episode annoyed the hell out of me. Not mainly because it was tonally inconsistent with the rest of the series. Not even mainly because it wasn't all that funny. More specifically, it annoyed me because for the very first time it felt like the writers were asking me to be genuinely moved by a serious moment of healing for one of the characters. And that moment of healing hasn't been earned AT ALL. He's still a remorseless piece of s*** who hurts everyone around him for his own personal gain and doesn't ever feel the least bit bad about it. He doesn't DESERVE that kind of serious moment of healing. Until these characters actually stop being such huge pieces of crap, or at the very least acknowledge how they have and continue to hurt others, then they deserve to suffer.

Anyway, did anyone else here watch the episode? If so, what did you think? At first I was kind of on board with it (both for actually being risky enough to try something completely different, and for actually being kind of beautiful and moving). But then I rewatched it and thought it over again, and this actually bothers me more than about anything I've ever seen on the show. These characters are monsters. If anything, they've become bigger monsters over the years and have shown absolutely no sign of becoming better people who acknowledge how they hurt others and strive to stop doing that. So why the hell should I as a viewer have such serious considerations for their plight and their feelings when they haven't made ANY effort to do the same?

Is that a tv show?

@heirren: So, the proper answer here would be, "No, I don't watch it."

@heirren: Please don't call out porn sites by name on here. Keep it PG13.

-Byshop

Yeah, I did watch it on Wednesday, and very much like you, I was in total shock on how the episode ended. I even re-watched it a few times because I was still stunned. but in the end, I'm gonna let it cook and say that overall it was a very good episode, probably one of the better ones this season (Time's Up for the Gang was the best one for me, with this second. Episodes 7-9 were the weak ones this season).

Your points are valid--these are truly horrible people with little to no chance of finding any sort redemption. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're not human. I think maybe Mac is such a horrible person throughout the years because of him repressing his sexuality, which could have lead to his warped takes on Christianity as well as his ongoing struggle for approval from Mrs. Mac and Luther, which he never got.

Even Dennis--arguably the worst of them all--has a brief touch of humanity. At the final minutes of the season 12 finale, after spending almost the whole episode scheming to ditch the woman he got pregnant after a one night stand, he has a moment of clarity and realizes that he doesn't want his son to "grow up with some a-hole dad who's never around," and leaves Paddy's to go be a father. Granted he's back in some episodes on season 13, so who knows if it's a permanent change with him.

I think after 13 seasons, the fact the writers are trying to do something so different is interesting. The cast members are no longer young people, and to see them continuing to embrace their horrible behavior is going to go from funny to sad at some point. Maybe there's some room for growth/change for Charlie and Dee. Or, I could just be reading too much into this show.

@Byshop:

Apologies.

I just finished watching season 12. The Freaky Friday/Quantum Leap episode was freaking brilliant.

Loved the ending. I don't feel it was that much out of touch for Mac, he has never been that bad if we do compare him with Frank or Dennis. Still felt like season 13 went a little too deep in the current social issues, as opposed to the previous seasons were mostly non-sense but thoughtful subjects.

Rob's dedication to this show is still incredible, going from fat mac to ripped mac, then that dancing finale.

https://www.vulture.com/2018/11/its-always-sunny-mac-dance-season-13-finale.html

Oh, I definitely think that it's probably the "best" episode of the season. it's DEFINITELY good from a technical and emotional standpoint. And if nothing else, I think it was the "best" episode of the season purely in terms of pure interest. I mean, even if I ultimately end up hating the episode, at least I had to think about whether or not I liked it. it was interesting, i can say that. Which isn't something I can really say for most of the rest of this season (which for the most part I just found sub-par).

I could actually appreciate the writers doing something different, if I thought they had the balls to actually stick to it. I mean, it's funny that you mention the end of Season 12. That was potentially a game-changer. That (and "The Gang Tends Bar") were about arguably the WORST one of the gang finally getting sick of that s*** and leaving. THAT was the precedent for character growth that had the potential for making this latest episode have weight. And what did they do with that? Immediately have Dennis come back in the very next episode. No explanations, no sign of growth. In my opinion, that washes away all of the good will I had from the character growth, because the writers immediately try to revert everything back to normal just for laughs.

Ultimately how I view this episode is going to depend on what the writers do going forward. If they have the balls to actually make him a better human being, someone who actually has a positive influence on the gang and hopefully helps to prevent them from being quite so awful, then okay. That might work. But that's problematic. Because while some of Mac's horrible behavior can be explained by his crappy parents and his crappy religious upbringing, coming to terms with who he is isn't going to automatically make him less stupid or more considerate of the people around him. He''s still a total asshole. If they somehow make him NOT an asshole in the next season, that won't be true to the character. And if they keep him as the same kind of asshole, that'll devalue THIS episode. Because the takeaway will still be that we took this character's feelings THIS seriously even after he has continually f***ed people over with no remorse, and that he immediately goes back to f***ing people over with no remorse.

I agree that there should be some room for growth. Hell, I expected that to be evident throughout THIS season after the Season 12 finale. But then this season just ended up mostly being the same s***. I mean, this kind of thing is hard to do half-way and still feel genuine. If they're going to do the kinds of episodes as Season 13 finale, then they need to ACTUALLY have the characters step the hell up and REALLY change for the better. The problem is that that changes the entire freaking nature of the show, and I'm not convinced that they're willing to do that. Especially after that kind of change was already set up a full season ago and they totally wasted the opportunity.

Wait are there new episodes coming out still?

I need to catch up! I've seen all the ones they had uploaded on Netflix, at least. Freaking hilarious, love that show. I love it when they think they are getting sick and they quarantine themselves/others, but it turns out they're just going through alcohol withdrawal.

@MrGeezer: I'm definitely looking forward to next season as well, and hoping to see actual character growth as well. Maybe they might change for the better, but I still expect them to be assholes...just to maybe a lesser degree.

Season 13 just wrapped up this past Wednesday, and the show is coming back for season 14.

yeah last season I watched must have been 7 or something like that.

Still worth checking out. After 13 years on the air, there's a lot more hits than misses, and it's still one of the funniest shows on TV.

Kind of fell off a few years ago. Last I remember was the high school reunion with the big dance number. We just finished Boardwalk Empire and on last season of Sopranos so Sunny will be a nice change to get back into after all the violence and serious nature of the other two shows.

I'd just like to point out that while I have sort of grown to like every member of The Gang, that I hate every single one of them. I'm not even against positive growth for them. I mean, I like them so I really kind of want them to get better. But at the end of the day, I still hate them. Because they're f***ing awful.

Positive growth has been done before on the show. If anything, I think that Mac had a good amount of positive growth (that was consistent with the rest of the series) in the episode where he finally came out of the closet (for good) over a $2 scratch-off lottery ticket. He admits he's gay, says that he fully knows it, and not ONE of those pieces of s*** friends made fun of him or insulted him about it. And Dennis (arguably the worst one here) was happy for Mac. I don't recall the exact quote, but it was something like, "good, I'm happy for him. But I still hate him. But not because he's gay, because he's Mac." Which I actually think was really an HONEST statement coming from Dennis.

And that's the weird thing here. Yeah, I can accept that part of Mac's overall crappiness was due to his identity issues. And yes, that's a serious topic. But, like, EVERYONE HERE was a victim of those kinds of forces that were beyond their control. These people are ALL horrible people in large part due to things that were beyond their control. For example, Dennis (who is probably one of the worst people in the group) is ACTUALLY mentally ill. Untreated mental illness is a serious and TRAGIC issue today. And it's sad as f*** that maybe he wouldn't have turned out as awful he is if he wasn't raised by his parents who were both total pieces of s***.

But hey...the writers had their "serious" Dennis moment back in Season 12 and then undid it next Season in order to get more jokes. That's a big problem. These characters are all massive pieces of s***, but it has also been well and thoroughly established through HUMOROUS character development that the way they turned out isn't entirely their fault. Yes, that is absolutely tragic and makes it harder for me to REALLY hate them. Because in a way, they're all victims too.

The problem is that a shitty person with a bad past is still a shitty person. Yes, it's absolutely sad and tragic that Mac became the way he did because of his upbringing. But as much as a victim as he is, he's still leaving tons of victims in his wake. And those victims didn't deserve that stuff any more than Mac did. It's weird as hell asking viewers to take Mac's struggle THAT seriously when his character growth really benefits HIMSELF and not the people who he has hurt. By extension, I'm sure that Luther MacDonald is a victim of circumstance too. But I'd be pretty f***ing annoyed if the writers took an episode devoted SERIOUSLY to Luther's painful upbringing and struggles with prison life. Pain rolls downhill. And as serious as Luther's plight might be, it'd be weird as f*** trying to treat his plight that seriously after he's been continually shown to be so shitty to his own son.

While the major characters in this series are massive pieces of crap, hardly anyone is so just because they're just plain bad. They're all victims who continue to create more victims. That's been happening for the entirety of the series and up to now has always been addressed and yet still played in a humorous manner. If getting SERIOUS late during the show's run is what the writer;s want to do, then fine. But it's hard to do that without changing the entire show. Because every goddamn character on this show fits into that mold. If It's Always Sunny CONSISTENTLY handled that stuff in a dead-serious manner it seems like it would be depressing as hell. Like Frank said to Dee last season, "keep it light, you b****!" The show has already been addressing SERIOUS topics, but the humor is a manner of "keeping it light." To switch to dead-serious this late in the series means a serious non-humorous treatment of The Gang's victims and that is dark as hell. Doing that (and sticking to it) would take serious balls, but it would also be a completely different show and viewers would be totally justified in thinking, "what the hell was that?"

I didn't even know it was still running. I did watch it quite some time ago and loved it. Completely insane.