‘It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 17’ REVIEW: A Five-Star Season for a Five-Star Man
‘It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 17’ REVIEW: A Five-Star Season for a Five-Star Man
The Gang in the Abbott Elementary crossover in Season 17 | Still courtesy of ABC/FX/Disney
Trigger warning: mentions of suicide and animal abuse
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (IASIP) has been my favorite show of all time for the past five years. It is a brilliant combination of dark taboo humor, biting relevant satire, and the best chemistry and character dynamics between the worst people in the world. But I'd be a dishonest fan if I pretended that the longest-running live-action American sitcom hasn't fired on all fronts in terms of consistently high-quality seasons.
Arguably, from around season 12 of the series, there was this simultaneous desire from the creators to reach higher ambitions beyond their basic cable roots, while having their comedic voice feel fractured and unfocused at times. From the incredibly messy lows of season 13’s lack of Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) to the fairly lofty Ireland arc in season 15, newer Sunny seasons felt more akin to a canvas that wanted to paint a landscape while leaving behind the portrait it mastered.
Then, in 2021, The Always Sunny Podcast was launched. But unlike other rewatch podcasts that shoot for mere nostalgic reminiscing for the show’s talents after its airing, the Sunny podcast is a revisiting of a show currently on-air between the show’s core creative forces. Howerton, Rob Mac, Charlie Day, and their producer, Megan Ganz, are all essentially watching the show’s early seasons as a refresher on what creative decisions made the show truly work. And there is not enough credit in the world to truly appreciate how this podcast lit a spark to all of them to truly lock in and ground Sunny back to its roots.
While 2023’s season 16 was definitely a return to form in terms of its writing, It's Always Sunny’s season 17 is one I can truly say The Gang went all in on bringing back the classic Sunny quality. With both its sharpest writing and structuring in years, this year's eight-episode run is Sunny at its most character-centric, hilarious, and relatively grounded. Still would've wanted more episodes, though.
Dennis and Mac (Glenn Howerton and Rob McElhenney) | Still courtesy of ABC/FX/Disney
One pattern that helps give this season both focus and creativity is having almost all the episodes read as direct references or satires of contemporary TV shows. This ranges from episodes lampooning the visual and structural language of The Bear, Succession, and The Rehearsal, to having the season be bookended by direct crossovers to real shows like Abbott Elementary and The Golden Bachelor.
From those broader strokes of parody comes the true magic of IASIP’s comedic sauce: the hyperspecific details of jokes that punctuate the ridiculousness. Whether it be Charlie insisting to everyone that they’d address him with “Yes, chef!” or Mac having his own insular definition of what a “raw dog” is, the Gang’s propensity to be locked in their own isolated world of delusion continually tickles me. Having Charlie and Rob be the primary credited writers for most of the season truly shows here.
The funniest among these parody episodes easily goes to the frenetically constructed but chaotically belly-bursting “Mac and Dennis Become EMTs,” the season’s third episode. With chili peppers as the thinly veiled metaphor for drugs, this episode is an escalating, messy ride where every Mac-rodose of peppers just leads to the perfect payoff for the returning Lawyer character (Brian Unger). You will never hear Gipsy Kings’ “Bamboléo” the same again.
Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) | Still courtesy of ABC/FX/Disney
However, my personal favorite episodes for this season are the ones that are slightly less focused on this parody-centric motif and are just simple, character-centered stories that call back to previous episodes that meaningfully add layers to The Gang at their most scummy or pathetic.
The two that immediately come to my mind are “The Gang Goes to a Dog Track” and “The Gang Gets Ready for Prime Time” — both of which are easily going to be instant Sunny classics to me.
In the “Dog Track” episode, we get a really sobering reminder of how truly vile and low Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito) can be as a person, especially to his own children, Dennis and Dee (Kaitlin Olson). In a soon-to-be-closed dog track, the classed-up siblings basically degrade themselves with humiliating bets from Frank to feed a new gambling addiction caused by Frank, and Charlie and Mac’s quest to find a man with a “raw dog” quality ends with that man killing himself. With that incredibly dark ending on top of the twist about Frank betting that his own children would “jerk off a dog,” this episode is easily one of the most messed-up but relentlessly gut-busting 20 minutes I watched in a long time watching IASIP.
The Gang in Season 17 | Still courtesy of ABC/FX/Disney
For The Rehearsal-esque parody of “The Gang Gets Ready for Prime Time,” it has similar comedic DNA to an older Sunny classic, “The Gang Desperately Tries to Win an Award.” It's the kind of “barely need to read between-the-lines” episode to see the overall point of an aging Gang eschewing the need to broaden and beautify any of their core humor and character to impress the wider viewing public. But what really helps distinguish the “Prime Time” episode on its own is the way it smartly implements its callbacks via a makeshift focus group rehearsal as a meta framing device to the show’s comedic style, the sheer longevity it has, and whether the creators and characters have gone stagnant.
But with the sheer circus show of a hairless Charlie, a baffled Artemis and Waitress, a hypermasculine gay Mac (with duster to boot), and a tryhard clownish Dee, comes a hysterical monologue from Dennis that perfectly encapsulates his fragile ego and pathetically petty pride. He recalls his own embarrassing stint on the “Family Fight” episode (IASIP’s version of Family Feud) from season 10, recontextualized as a traumatic experience that cracks his own perception as the most dignified and likable self. In his own mind, Dennis pleads to the focus group to see the Dennis he wants to be seen as. This particular episode is truly anchored by what’s easily the funniest performance of Howerton’s run as the character.
Frank Reynolds (Danny Devito) and Jesse Palmer (as himself) in IASIP Season 17 finale | Still courtesy of ABC/FX/Disney
But that was essentially part of the build to the cumulative finale of this season: “The Golden Bachelor Live.” Filmed in the exact style and set as the real Golden Bachelor show, Frank essentially grifts his way to a dating reality show to find women to sleep with. Chief among his targets was a young influencer named Cock Chewa (a Hawk Tuah Girl parody). Laughably dated reference aside, where it really turned an interesting leaf was the surprisingly heartwarming turn the finale took.
The first was the surprise appearance of Carol Kane, a great callback to her and DeVito’s co-starring days on Taxi. She plays Samantha, a potential new love interest to Frank, and has palpably the most matching chemistry for both personality and compatibility.
But the second was its own level of bittersweet, as this was the last filmed episode of the late Lynne Marie Stewart as Bonnie Kelly. As Bonnie, she was given the most appropriately Sunny send off she could've gotten: Frank calling her “a dirty slut,” and no one else “bones him up” like her. It’s genuinely the perfect send-off to one of the funniest performers in the show’s history.
A surprisingly wholesome end to a wonderfully offensive show that truly returned to form, I don't know how many incredible seasons this show will truly have left, but for now, they can get really weird with it.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is now available to stream on Disney+.
