Author: tommyjoyce7

Well, that sucked. The Eagles had plenty of opportunities to beat the Saints in New Orleans, but didn’t capitalize and wound up fizzling out after the first quarter. I was really trying to enjoy the ride while it was still going on, but now that the season is over there are a few harsh realities that Eagles fans need to face.

The futures of several key players from the past few seasons are up in the air as of now. Specifically:

–Carson Wentz/Nick Foles. The Eagles have a big decision to make when it comes to their quarterback of the future. They can go with Wentz, who has played at an MVP level when healthy, or Foles, who guided the team to its only Super Bowl championship and seems to provide a spark to the whole team when he starts. If you ask me, the team should stick with Wentz. While I’m eternally grateful to Foles for leading the Eagles to their first-ever Super Bowl, I don’t think he’s the Eagles’ long-term answer.

–Darren Sproles. There were reports that Sproles wanted to retire after last season, but he made the decision to return after missing most of  the year with a torn ACL and broken arm. This year, he again missed a big chunk of the season due to injury, so it remains to be seen whether he’ll return or not.

–Brandon Graham. Graham’s contract is up, and it’s widely assumed that he’ll be too expensive on the free agent market for the Eagles to resign him. This is a big blow for the Eagles’ defensive line, as Graham was a key contributor to both last year’s run to the Super Bowl and this year’s furious late-season rally.

–Chris Long. Long is also a free agent after this season. There have been rumors that he’s considering retirement, but if he decides to keep playing, I don’t think his price tag would be too much for the Eagles to pay.

–Jason Kelce. Stories came out last week that Kelce would retire after this season. After Sunday’s game, Kelce said he was “season to season” and would make a decision regarding his future this offseason. Kelce is one of the best centers in the NFL, so if he decides to step away from football, it would be a huge blow to the Eagles.

–Jason Peters. Peters is another key contributor on the offensive line that is heavily mulling retirement. Although he still performs at a high level, Peters is coming up on his age-37 season and there have been rumors that he was considering retirement after the past few seasons.

–Golden Tate. Tate was a mid-season acquisition this year and is widely considered to be a rental player. He will probably be too expensive for the Eagles to resign in free agency.

–Brandon Brooks. During yesterday’s loss, Brooks went down with a lower leg injury that Ian Rapaport reported was serious and season-ending. Brooks confirmed that report after the game when he tweeted that he tore his Achilles. Achilles injuries typically take at least six months to heal, so hopefully Brooks can recover in time for next year and continue to perform at a high level.

I would love to see any/all of these guys back in midnight green next year, but the truth is that all of their futures are in the air. There’s nothing to do now except sit back and wait (and tweet at all of these players and beg them to come back).

Merry Christmas, people! I’ve been trying to diversify my Netflix watchlist recently to include more than the three sitcoms I watch on a loop, a few romantic comedies, and the four Marvel movies that Netflix has available. I had been seeing a lot of ads for The Christmas Chronicles on social media and Netflix was showing the trailer on its homepage, so I decided to give it a shot. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was about to embark on one of the strangest cinematic journeys of my life.

This movie was like if you took certain elements from a bunch of famous Christmas movies, put them in a blender, poured in a healthy scoop of absurdity, and sprinkled in the fact that Santa is basically a God who can fly and make anything appear out of thin air. It was like Christmas on acid. It was like the creators of this movie went to Netflix, said, “hey, what if we make a regular Christmas movie?” and Netflix was like “Eh, boring, no thanks,” so the creators decided to just make it as ridiculous as possible, and Netflix was like “YES YES PLEASE YES.”

When I first started watching this movie, I was turned off by all of the ridiculousness. It felt like a weird knockoff blend of Elf and The Santa Clause. I wasn’t really sure if the movie was self-aware, and I think one of the worst things a movie can do is lack self-awareness. However, there was a turning point where I realized that the movie was in on the joke: a jailhouse blues rock scene, with Santa as the lead singer and a bunch of convicts as his band.

How do we get to that point, you ask? Well, the two main characters of the movie, Teddy and Kate, sneak onto Santa’s sleigh and surprise him to the point where Santa crashes the sleigh in the middle of Chicago and loses his hat, bag, and reindeer. Santa is played by Kurt Russell, who is annoyed that Santa is portrayed as a fat, jolly guy instead of looking like Kurt Russell with a beard. Without all of the stuff they lost in the crash, Christmas will be lost, and the world will go back into the Dark Ages. That’s not an exaggeration either; Santa explicitly says that would happen.

(Side note: Teddy and Kate are a pair of squabbling siblings from Lowell, Massachusetts. Their dad recently died in a fire, which is discussed almost constantly throughout the movie. Teddy plays the role of teenage brother who’s too cool for Christmas, while Kate is the younger sister who believes in Santa. Teddy is also getting into some bad habits like STEALING CARS with his friends. This movie decided there was no way to portray him as a troubled teenager than by having him jimmy locks and hotwire cars at the local deli.)

Anyway, Santa, Teddy, and Kate decide to steal a car from a local bar’s valet, which leads to a car chase with the police. At this point, Santa sends Kate off to run through Chicago, a city where she’s never been before (and a city that Santa makes fun of for its high crime rate), to find his reindeer. As Santa is being arrested, Kate comes back with the reindeer and she and Teddy escape. Santa is interrogated by his arresting officer and decides to taunt the guy with jokes about his ex-wife. He’s put into a holding cell with the E Street Band’s Steven Van Zant, magically pulls instruments out for all of the convicts, and gives everyone musical ability for a minutes-long blues rock number, all in the name of increasing Christmas spirit. I’m not kidding at all. I thought this would serve as a distraction for Santa to bust out of jail, but he literally just did it to boost Christmas spirit.

(SPOILER ALERT) Because of this boost, the gang is able to save Christmas and everyone lives happily ever after (at least until Teddy gets sentenced to several years in prison for grand theft auto, but the movie ends before we get to see that happen).

The jailhouse rock scene told me that the movie was aware of its own absurdity, and they really decided to lean into it. This made me enjoy it a whole lot more. That’s not to say I don’t have my gripes with this movie: it often felt like it couldn’t decide between being a children’s movie or a movie made more for adults, and it sometimes seemed like Kate’s character was only there to fall out of or into things (see: Santa’s sleigh/reindeer/bag). Also, I don’t want to spoil the end for anyone who hasn’t seen this movie yet, but let’s just say there’s a fairly large plot hole at the end that kind of negates a good deal of the movie and cheapened the film for me.

I have so many more thoughts about this movie, but I’m approaching 900 words, so I’ll cut myself off here. In short: The Christmas Chronicles is an enjoyable watch, but not exactly a cinematic masterpiece. It’s a good movie to throw on for some background noise while you’re doing a task like decorating for the holidays, or to watch with your friends and point out all of the weird things going on. On a five-star scale, I give it a two; on a letter-grade scale, I give it a C+.

So I was scrolling the ol’ Twitter timeline this week when this tweet popped up:

It’s a very funny tweet, and it’s certainly true. While Mike has a winning personality, he’s short, frail, and has one giant eye that is easy to attack (and as Dwight Schrute taught us, the eyes are the groin of the head). It also got me thinking: which Pixar characters could I  beat up/kill in combat? Let’s go movie by movie and discuss.

(Things to consider while reading: I am about 5’11”, weigh 170 lbs, I’m not in great shape but I’ve watched a lot of action movies so I feel confident in attempting a bunch of sweet moves)

Toy Story/Toy Story 2/Toy Story 3

A majority of the characters in Toy Story are toys (Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Mr. Potato Head, Rex, Ham, Slinky, etc.). I suppose if they banded together to form some sort of Mighty Morphin toy formation it would be a close fight, but I think at the end of the day I could just kick them all aside. Also, Andy is a child for the first two movies, so I could definitely beat him up. Result: Tommy wins against all characters

Monsters Inc./ Monsters U

Ahh, the movie that started this debate. As stated above, Mike would be fairly easy to kill in combat because of his many weak spots, but from there, things get a little dicy. Sully is huge so he could probably just bum rush me and win that way, and that snake Randall can make himself invisible. I think I would take several Ls here. Result: Tommy gets his ass kicked by some monsters

Cars/Cars 2/Cars 3

This one, believe it or not, is kind of a toss up if you ask me. Yes, Lightning McQueen and company have the advantage in size and speed, but they’re not nimble by any stretch of the imagination and they have a few glaring weaknesses. Like Mike, they have huge, vulnerable eyes, and if I were somehow able to deflate just one of each of their tires, they would be out of commission. Also, if I could somehow get to a higher ground or take the fight to the water, I would have a good chance of winning the fight. Result: Cars are definitely the favorite, but there’s a chance Tommy could figure out how to exploit a weakness and win

Up

Up is a heartwarming movie, but I could definitely beat up the human characters. Mr. Frederickson is old and feeble, and Russell is a chubby 9 year old. The only person(?) I’m worried about in this movie is Kevin the bird, because big birds like that can kick some ass. One time, the country of Australia waged war on a bunch of Emus and lost. Seriously. Result: Tommy beats up the humans, but Kevin the bird gets his revenge

Finding Nemo/Finding Dory

This is an easy one. All I need is a large net to catch the fish (as long as they don’t just swim down with a bunch of other fish) and then I can just let them sit on dry land for 10 minutes. Result: Tommy reverse drowns some exotic sea creatures

The Incredibles/The Incredibles 2

This is like a choose-your-own-adventure of ways for me to get my ass kicked. Do I want the old fashioned way of just a strong guy punching me a bunch of times? Do I want to be strangled by an elastic woman? Do I want a psychic teen to put a force field around me until I suffocate/starve? Do I want a super fast 11 year old to run around me throwing quick punches until I pass out? Do I want a demon baby to light me on fire? Do I want a cool (no pun intended) black guy to freeze me to death? Hell, even Edna Mode could smack me around with a newspaper. Result: Tommy gets his ass kicked six ways from Sunday

Ratatouille

Remy is a rat. Set up a trap with some cheese and he’s dead. Linguini is a wimp who takes orders from a rodent. This would be a breeze. Result: Tommy wins easily

Wall-E

I feel like I could just tip Wall-E over, so he’d be no problem. Also, the humans in this movie are too fat to even move, so I could beat all of them pretty easily. However, EVE is plucky and would find out some way to beat me up, and AUTO could somehow manipulate my surroundings to trap me in a room or something. Result: Tommy beats Wall-E and the humans, but EVE gets her revenge

Brave

Brave is a movie about a bunch of Scottish warriors and a girl with serious archery skills. Just like The Incredibles, there might not be a single character in this movie that I can beat. Result: Tommy loses handily

So there you have it. In case you ever wondered how I would fare against a bunch of animated characters from children’s movies, there are your answers.

Our beloved Philadelphia 76ers begin their season this evening in Boston, tipping off at 8:00 p.m. against the Celtics, who eliminated the Sixers in 5 games in last season’s Eastern Conference Semifinals. These Sixers have the loftiest expectations the team has faced in a long time now. The over/under for their win total this season is set at 54.5, tied for second-highest in the Eastern Conference, and there has been talk about Joel Embiid as a dark horse MVP Candidate. So without further ado, here’s what we can realistically expect from the Philadelphia 76ers this season:

Individual Performances

The Sixers’ success last year came on the backs of a number of great individual performances. Embiid cemented himself as a legitimate top-3 center while proving that he could stay healthy for a majority of the season. Ben Simmons won Rookie of the Year with a season for the ages (and yes, he was absolutely a rookie and if you think otherwise you’re wrong). Robert Covington was named to the NBA All-Defense First Team. Plenty of other players made significant contributions, whether it was JJ Redick helping as a desperately-needed jump shooter, Dario Saric doing any number of things well, or TJ McConnell providing a spark off the bench. So what can we expect from this year’s team?

-I think Embiid and Simmons will both have even better years this year than last year. After having to focus last offseason on recovering from injuries, both players had a chance to fully commit themselves to developing different aspects of their game. This year, it wouldn’t be crazy to see Embiid average 25 points and 10 rebounds per game (he finished last year averaging 23 and 11) while Simmons will again flirt with averaging a triple double (he finished last year with 15.8 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 8.2 assists per game).

-After performing poorly at the start of last season and then missing a majority of it due to injury, expect to see Markelle Fultz bounce back to some degree. Fultz was the most highly-touted prospect of the 2017 NBA Draft, which is why the Sixers traded up to take him with the first overall pick. He had some issues both mentally and physically, but spent the offseason working with renowned shooting coach Drew Hanlen. I expect Fultz to turn into the playmaker the Sixers thought he was going to be when they first drafted him.

-Covington did not do too well in last years’ playoff series vs. the Celtics, and he has heard about it all summer long. I expect him to use the criticisms toward him as motivation, and I don’t think it’s far-fetched to see Cov as a Defensive Player of the Year Candidate.

Wins/Losses

If everything goes according to plan, I expect the Sixers to easily pass the 54.5 win mark set by Vegas. The problem is that things rarely go exactly according to plan. Embiid is injury-prone, and we really don’t know exactly how far Fultz has come (his gym footage from the summer looks good and the preseason was promising, but we still don’t know how well he’ll perform in real game action). The Celtics were the first team to effectively stop Simmons in the playoffs last year, and other teams might follow their blueprint. However, if things do go at least semi-according to plan, Things can go a lot of different ways, but I say the Sixers juuuuust barely make the over at 56 wins.

Playoff Seeding/Performance

As of now, it looks like the top three teams in the East are going to be the Sixers, the Celtics, and the Toronto Raptors. The Celtics are the favorites to win the conference after coming within a game of making the Finals last year without Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward (who are both now back from injury), and the Raptors added Kawhi Leonard, who finished in the top three in MVP voting in consecutive years before missing most of last year with the Spurs. I think the Sixers will end up with the second seed behind the Celtics and ahead of the Raptors. This would set up a second-round playoff series between the Sixers and the Raptors, which I think the Sixers would win in six games. I think the Sixers’ season ends in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Celtics. It would be tough to end the season against Boston for the second straight year, but the Celtics are too deep and the Sixers don’t quite have what it takes to beat them in a playoff series yet. There are a ton of big-name free agents in the 2019 offseason, which is where the Sixers could find their edge over the Celtics, but for now, Boston is too talented and deep.

Trust the Process. #HereTheyCome

Big Mouth’s second season debuted last Friday, continuing the stories of Andrew, Nick, Jessi, Jay, and their high school classmates. I was a huge fan of the show from the first time I watched it. It’s disgusting, yet sweet; it’s serious, yet funny; it’s outlandish, yet real. It’s a show about a bunch of 13 year old kids going through puberty, but it manages to resonate with adults. Show creators Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg (childhood friends whom the show is loosely based on) do a great job of covering a lot of ground in ten episodes.

Upon watching the show’s second season, I had a ton of unorganized thoughts/observations/reactions. I can’t seem to come up with a coherent way to write them, so I’m just gonna list them all in no particular order:

-I’ll start with the most obvious one: this season was much darker in tone than the first. We meet the Shame Wizard, who, as his name would imply, makes the kids feel shameful about the bad/gross things they do. We also see Jessi nearly fall into the hands of the Depression Kitty, and Missy has a recurring vision in her mirror that makes her feel self-conscious. Could Big Mouth be following the same route as BoJack Horseman, another Netflix animated sitcom that started out generally light but gradually became darker?

-There was a looooooooooot of nudity in this season, even by Big Mouth standards. The standout example of this comes in the season’s second episode, What Is It About Boobs? In this episode, we meet Gina, a girl in the kids’ class who develops a little bit earlier than the other girls in class. The other girls in class become self-conscious about their bodies, and Missy’s mom ends up taking Missy and Jessi to a women’s spa, where we see an entire musical number about women loving their bodies. We also see Nick and his dad expose themselves, as well as a good deal of Coach Steve’s man boobs.

-We barely saw The Ghost of Duke Ellington in this season after Duke was a frequent character in the first season. I can think of several reasons for this. Many people felt as though Duke slowed down a lot of storylines in the first season, so it would make sense for Kroll and Goldberg to write less of him in this one. Also, with Nick finally getting his own Hormone Monster, we didn’t need Duke as the confidant that gives the viewer a window into Nick’s inner thoughts.

-Nick goes through several Hormone Monsters in this season. He starts off with Coach Steve’s old Hormone Monster (who retires after Steve loses his virginity), then gets a new Hormone Monster named Tyler. Tyler first appears by coming out of Nick’s wardrobe, which I thought would mean that Nick was going to be gay. I turned out to be wrong about that theory (for now), but at the end of the season Connie (the Hormone Monstress) is reassigned as Nick’s Hormone Monster. Does this mean Nick is transgender? Does it just mean he’ll be in touch with his feminine side? Does it mean anything at all? Am I just wildly speculating? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!

-The show gets more in-depth regarding several characters, including Coach Steve, Matthew, Lola, and the kids’ parents. It was cool to see more about these characters’ motivations and where they come from. (Side note: I loved the interactions between Andrew’s dad and Lola during Andrew and Lola’s brief relationship. Mr. Glouberman is up there with Creed Bratton and Jean-Ralphio Saperstein for me in terms of laughs per appearance.) (Other side note: the cast of this show is so good. There are too many people to list out, but look at the cast here.)

-It was funny to see the show become meta at some points, like when Nick basically turns into a real-life advertisement for Netflix during one of his conversations with Gina and the scene is abruptly cut short when he starts talking about sharing passwords.

Overall, this was a very solid season of TV. I personally enjoyed the first season better, but the second season was a nice follow-up and there’s definitely room for further development moving forward. I would give this season an 8.2/10, where the first was something like an 8.9.

Oh yeah, and one more thing…the original music in this season was good, but nothing compares to the Queen-style song from when Andrew thought he was gay in season one:

When I first had the idea to do an Always Sunny post, I was going to do my Top 25 episodes, but I couldn’t narrow it down that far. Then I was going to power rank every season of the show, and even that was too tough for me. For one thing, my personal preferences in terms of the show basically change every day, and for the other, it’s so tough to choose one great episode or season over another.

For more than a decade now, Always Sunny has consistently delivered laugh-out-loud funny television with a serious lack of critical recognition. They’ve developed an incredible lead cast as well as the best group of recurring side characters this side of Seinfeld. Given all of the recent developments in both the show (Dennis’ departure at the end of last season) and in real life (the Eagles winning the Super Bowl), I’m very excited to see what the show’s 13th season has to hold. So, without further ado, here’s a comprehensive breakdown of all twelve seasons of Always Sunny:

Season 1

Highlights: “Underage Drinking: A National Concern,” “Gun Fever,” “Charlie Has Cancer”

The show’s first season set the tone for the rest of the series. It showed off Rob McIlhenney, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day’s twisted sense of humor, and laid the groundwork for just how selfish and manipulative The Gang truly could be. It’s very funny, but as with most sitcoms, the show was still trying to figure a few things out, and Danny DeVito’s absence is definitely noticeable when you go back and rewatch this season.

In this season, we see Paddy’s turn into a gay bar, a bunch of high schoolers go to Paddy’s for some underage drinking, Charlie lying about having cancer so he can have a better shot with The Waitress, and we’re introduced to the McPoyles as they blackmail Charlie into winning a sexual abuse lawsuit against their elementary school gym teacher. After writing that out, it’s hard to believe that this show only gets more sick, twisted, and ridiculous.

Season 2

Highlights: “Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare,” “Mac Bangs Dennis’ Mom,” “Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody’s Ass,” “The Gang Goes Jihad”

Season 2 featured the introduction of Frank Reynolds, who would go on to become one of the show’s most important characters. As a matter of fact, FX told McIlhenney, Howerton, and Day that if they didn’t add a more famous actor to The Gang, the show would get canned. DeVito ended up being a valuable addition who has given the show some of its best moments.

As for the season itself, we see The Gang continue their downward spiral from the first season, except with the wealthy Frank behind them bankrolling all of their exploits. In this season, we see the gang make an al-Qaeda style tape threatening the new owner of their building, Dennis and Dee quitting their jobs at Paddy’s to go on welfare, Mac banging Dennis’ mom, and Dennis and Mac entering Charlie into an underground street fighting ring. This is also the season in which we first see just how illiterate Charlie is during Dennis’ campaign speech in The Gang Runs for Office:

This is also the season in which we first meet Rickety Cricket (The Gang Exploits a Miracle), whose life falls apart immediately after reuniting with Dee. Overall, it’s a very solid, very funny season that’s not as outlandish as some of the later seasons are.

Season 3

Highlights: “The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby,” “The Gang Gets Invincible,” “The Gang Gets Held Hostage,” “Mac is a Serial Killer,” “The Gang Gets Whacked,” “The Gang Dances Their Asses Off”

Season 3 is the longest season of the show, and it’s also when Always Sunny really started to hit its stride. The season begins with Dennis, Dee, and Mac finding a baby in the Paddy’s Pub dumpster, and it only gets crazier from there. This season, we see The Gang try out for the Eagles (it goes pretty much exactly how you would expect):

They also get held hostage in the bar by the McPoyles, convince Dee that the up-and-coming rapper she’s dating has a mental disability, carry out an investigation to see whether or not Mac is a serial killer (he’s not, he’s just having an affair with Carmen, the transgender Paddy’s patron we meet in the first season), and accidentally get tied up with the mafia after finding some of their nose clams:

In the season finale, Charlie accidentally puts Paddy’s up as a prize in a local radio show dance contest (“Your illiteracy has screwed us again!”), wrapping up the season in which we really get an idea of how borderline sociopathic the gang truly is.

Season 4

Highlights: “Mac’s Banging the Waitress,” “Mac and Charlie Die,” “Who Pooped the Bed?” “The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell,” “The Nightman Cometh”

The fourth season picks up right where the third leaves off. The run that the show goes on in this season is nothing short of impressive: Mac tries to sleep with The Waitress because he thinks Charlie destroyed one of his Project Badass tapes, Mac and Charlie fake their own deaths because they’re scared that Mac’s dad is going to kill them, they spend an episode trying to figure out whether it was Frank or Charlie who pooped in their shared bed, they kidnap a newspaper columnist who called Paddy’s “the worst bar in Philadelphia,” Dennis tries to get his erotic memoirs published, Dee has a heart attack, the guys try to get Paddy’s turned into an historical landmark, and The Gang kidnaps and then accidentally destroys the home of a local Hispanic family.

The pièce de résistance, however, comes in the season finale. Charlie, in a last-ditch attempt to get The Waitress to love him, writes a musical based on his Nightman character from Season 3. As you might expect, not everything goes exactly the way Charlie planned. Mac and Dennis get competitive over who is the better singer/showman, Dee has problems with some of the song lyrics (to be fair, they make it seem like she’s reeeeeeally into underage guys), and Frank doesn’t do much to stop the people from thinking that the Nightman is just some guy who pays for the opportunity to rape a young boy:

It turns out that the whole musical was just a front so that Charlie could propose to The Waitress with the musical number from above. Just a brilliant episode to top off a brilliant season of TV.

Season 5

Highlights: “The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention,” “The World Series Defense,” “Paddy’s Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens,” “Mac and Dennis Break Up,” “The D.E.N.N.I.S. System,” “The Gang Reignites the Rivalry”

Season 5 continues the heyday of Always Sunny. It features several of my favorite episodes of the series (the highlights from this season are so, so good). Here, we see Frank try to become “as depraved as possible” (and we’re introduced to Gail the Snail, Dennis and Dee’s garbage pail cousin), Charlie’s reaction to the news that the waitress is engaged (the scene where Dennis and Mac try to create a dating profile for Charlie is an all-timer), The Gang trying to create Paddy’s merchandise to sell at the bar, Mac and Dennis deciding to go on a break after Dee call out for being completely dependent on each other, and The Gang reigniting their flip cup rivalry with another local bar.

Season 5 also contains a few of the most rewatchable clips in the show. The most obvious one comes in The World Series Defense, when Dee reads Mac’s love letter to Chase Utley aloud in court:

We’re also introduced to the D.E.N.N.I.S. System, Dennis’ comprehensive approach to seduction that he has perfected over the years:

Overall, this is just an excellent season, no matter which way you put it.

Season 6

Highlights: “Mac Fights Gay Marriage,” “Dennis Gets Divorced,” “Who Got Dee Pregnant?” “The Gang Gets a New Member,” “Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth,” “A Very Sunny Christmas”

Always Sunny’s sixth season is the first time we really see the show experiment with storylines that run through multiple episodes (Mac Fights Gay Marriage into Dennis Gets Divorced; The Gang Gets a New Member into Dee Reynolds: Shaping America’s Youth). It’s the only time other than two-part episodes like The Gang Gets Whacked and Mac and Charlie Die that we see the show do so, and they do it very well. All four of these episodes are great on their own, but in pairs, they’re truly hilarious.

In this season, we also see the gang buy a P-Diddy esque shrimping boat, the guys try to figure out who got Dee pregnant at Paddy’s annual Halloween party (with some help from Artemis and the McPoyles), Charlie take a mental health/spa/spaghetti day while The Gang tries to put together a surprise birthday party for him, Dennis and Charlie meet Chase Utley and Ryan Howard while Dee, Mac, and Frank are stranded in the woods, Dee gives birth to Carmen and her husband’s baby, and the show’s only-ever Christmas episode. All told, it’s arguably one of the best seasons of the show.

Season 7

Highlights: “CharDee MacDennis: The Game of Games,” “The Gang Gets Trapped,” “How Mac Got Fat,” “Thunder Gun Express,” “The High School Reunion”

The seventh season is when the show really starts to develop the weird sense of humor that has become its calling card in the more recent seasons. For one thing, Mac is suddenly fat in this season and it isn’t explained at all until the tenth episode of the season. We also see Frank almost marry his favorite prostitute, The Gang goes to the Jersey Shore out of nostalgia and ends up with a…different kind of beach experience, and The Gang preparing for an incoming hurricane that local news stations are calling “The Storm of the Century.”

My personal favorites from this season come when we are introduced to The Gang’s homemade board game, CharDee MacDennis (a violent drinking game that mashes up the rules of every famous board game), when we see The Gang try to escape from a house they broke into to retrieve an “ancient artifact” (a vase from the 18th century recently sold at a museum auction), the story of Mac’s sudden weight gain, The Gang’s attempt to fight through traffic to see the blockbuster movie Thunder Gun Express, and The Gang’s high school reunion. For me this season starts out strong, gets a little slow in the middle, and then gets back on track and finishes strong at the end.

Season 8

Highlights: “The Gang Gets Analyzed,” “The Gang Dines Out,” “Reynolds vs. Reynolds: The Cereal Defense”

Season 8 is one of the weaker seasons of the show for me. Its highlights are very good, and it has a few solid episodes, but when compared to other seasons of the show, it doesn’t particularly stand out.

Standout episodes include The Gang interfering with Maureen Ponderosa’s wedding to Liam McPoyle (Dennis wants to make sure that the wedding happens so he can stop paying alimony while Frank and Dee agree to help Ryan McPoyle break it up), The Gang seeing a therapist as a group to decide who should wash the dishes after a group dinner, The Gang spending a night out at Guigino’s, the nicest restaurant in Philadelphia, and a full-on trial held in the bar after Frank rear-ends Dennis on the way to work. It’s an okay season, but kind of weak by Always Sunny standards.

Season 9

Highlights: “The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award,” “Mac Day,” “The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6”

Season 9 is on a similar level to the eighth season for me. It has its high points, but overall, it’s a fairly forgettable season when compared to the rest of the show. The high points include the guys convincing Dee that she’s finally made it big as a standup comedian, a look at “Mac Day,” a day in which everyone has to do everything that Mac wants to do without complaining at all, The Gang getting caught in a convenience store during a robbery and imagining how they would go about saving the day, and The Gang making and pitching their homemade Lethal Weapon 6 to different investors.

My favorite episode of this season is The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award. This episode is a thinly-veiled metaphor for Always Sunny itself never gaining any real critical claim, despite years of commercial success and a die-hard fan base. In the episode, The Gang tries everything to win an award for Paddy’s: They go to another award-winning bar to see what it is that they do right (bright colors, will-they-won’t-they tension between two bartenders, one black guy in the mix to prove that it’s diverse enough), Charlie writes a song, and they even try to emulate a burlesque bar to see if they can win an award for being edgy. Eventually, they get tired of acting like they’re something they’re not, and they yell and spit at the awards committee (see above).

Season 10

Highlights: “The Gang Beats Boggs,” “Charlie Work,” “The Gang Spies Like U.S.,” “The Gang Goes on Family Fight”

The show’s tenth season is a lot stronger than the two that immediately preceded it. It’s still only ten episodes long, but the quality of the episodes is up a lot from the eighth and ninth season. In the season premiere, we see The Gang try to beat Wade Boggs’ drinking record of 70 beers on a cross-country flight, everyone attempting to online date, Dennis and Mac sending Dee across the street to spy on a neighboring fish factory so they can watch online porn, Mac setting out to prove that his dad is innocent in a murder trial, and The Gang going on a Family Feud-style game show.

The two best episodes of the season are the fifth and sixth, Charlie Work and The Gang Misses the Boat. In Charlie Work, Charlie tries to get the bar to pass health inspection while everyone else tries to carry out a crazy chicken and airline miles scheme. The episode features one of the best-directed scenes of the whole series, a longshot of Charlie scrambling to make sure everything can operate smoothly.

The Gang Misses the Boat is another metaphorical episode. In it, Dennis realizes just how weird The Gang has become (“Dee is in a Goddamn costume every other day! I think we have more costumes in the bar than we do kegs!”), and so he tries to sell his Land Rover and start anew. As you might expect, it doesn’t go as planned:

Meanwhile, Mac tries to reestablish himself as a party boy (which ultimately ends up providing more evidence that he’s actually gay), Frank accidentally ruins some new bar owners’ lives, and Charlie and Dee realize that the rest of The Gang really affects the way they think. (Charlie also admits that he eats the beak when he eats chicken). The Gang ends up agreeing that they should just go back to the way things were before the breakup.

Season 11

Highlights: “CharDee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo,” “The Gang Hits the Slopes,” “McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century,” “Charlie Catches a Leprechaun,” “The Gang Goes to Hell”

The show’s eleventh season carries the momentum over from its tenth. It starts out with the second round of CharDee MacDennis we’ve seen onscreen, and includes gems like an 80s ski movie parody (where we also see a ridiculous sex scene between Charlie and Tatiana, Frank’s prostitute), an entire episode from Frank’s point of view (not a ridiculously funny episode, but I like it because they’re trying to keep things fresh), the series’ first St. Patrick’s Day episode (where Charlie sets a glue trap to catch a leprechaun), and end with The Gang nearly dying after boarding a doomed Christian cruise ship.

The season’s best episode is its seventh, McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of the Century. Any time we see The Gang in a courtroom setting, it’s great, and here we see Charlie at his most lawyerish. The trial is regarding the incident at Maureen Ponderosa’s would-be wedding to Liam McPoyle at which Bill Ponderosa spiked the bowl of milk with bath salts. Charlie and his Uncle Jack are defending Bill, while the lawyer that The Gang has terrorized for years is defending the McPoyles. As you might expect, there is a serious lack of order in the court, and we end up with a lot of moments like the one in the video above.

Season 12

 

Highlights: “The Gang Goes to a Water Park,” “Making Dennis Reynolds a Murderer,” “Hero or Hate Crime?” “PTSDee,” “A Cricket’s Tale”

Season 12 is a good-but-not-great season. It has a lot of funny moments, but not a ton of standout stuff. The season premiere is a musical episode in which a strange accident makes The Gang look black to everyone but themselves. There’s also funny episodes about The Gang’s exploits at a water park, Frank’s shell beverage company accidentally becoming the officially sponsor of Boko Haram, and Dee’s habit of unwittingly ruining the lives of every man she dates.

The big highlights of this season for me come from the episodes Making Dennis Reynolds a Murderer and A Cricket’s Tale. Similarly to Being Frank, they’re episodes that show that the show is still willing to try new things. The former episode is a parody of Making a Murderer, showing a documentary made by Mac that connects Dennis to the suspicious death of Maureen Ponderosa. The latter is an episode that follows Rickety Cricket for a day in his life. It’s about as hectic as you would expect it to be, with Cricket nearly saving his family’s company, but ends with the revelation that Cricket has been hallucinating on PCP the whole time.

Oh yeah, in the season finale, it’s revealed that Dennis has been hiding a secret family, and at the end, he decides to leave The Gang behind to be with his son and the child’s mother:

We haven’t really been given a straight answer as to whether Dennis will be back this season, but I sure hope he is. Here’s the trailer for Season 13, which debuts next Wednesday, September 5 on FXX:

Mac looks like a 10. The rumors that Mindy Kaling is joining the show appear to be true. I can’t wait to see what the show has up its sleeve for the 13th season.