It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia…and on GMMR

A round of applause for the newest member of the all new TEAM GMMR….Philiana.  Show her the love and give her a warm GMMR welcome (a warm GMMR welcome means leaving a nice comment…I know you people and didn’t want you to get any other ideas)

Hey everyone! Philiana here; I’m new to GMMR but I’m excited to be contributing this year. I will be covering the weekly adventures (and misadventures) of our favorite Paddy’s crew for the season. My very first GMMR post is my take on last night’s fantastic and carnivorous season four premiere!

“Mac and Dennis: Manhunters” & “The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis”

FX’s politically-incorrect and raunchy buddy comedy is back and doesn’t skip a beat with tonight’s start to another crazy year in Philly. For the past three seasons, we saw Charlie, Mac, Dennis, Frank and Sweet Dee treading thin ice (as they always do) by diving straight into the depths of taboo subjects such as steroids, underage drinking, guns, abortion, welfare, sex offenders and retarded people. Well, just by the episode titles, nothing really changes that much with the gang.

Disclaimer: If you’re easily disturbed or not into the whole off-collar, crazy and wacky humor with morally inept characters, don’t read on. 

In the first episode, Mac and Dennis decide to literally hunt down a man, a homeless guy named Cricket who was once a high school classmate. Why not a deer, you ask, or if you’re feeling ambitious, a bear? According to Mac and Dennis, hunting a defenseless creature is just plain stupid. Meanwhile, Sweet Dee and Charlie develop a dangerously addictive taste for Frank’s human meat. Oh, and Frank lives vicariously through the movie “Rambo,” unknowingly of course.

During that episode, we follow Mac and Dennis as they attempt to be the best manhunters the City of Brotherly Love has to offer. All they really want to do is prove that a human being can successfully be hunted and “teabagged.” (If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s pretty gross, but makes it so much funnier at the same time.)

In “Gang Solves the Gas Crisis,” the group concocts some ridiculous plan to solve the problem of paying high prices for gas. The brains of the group (that’s Mac), the looks (Dennis) and the wild card (Charlie) decide to stock up on loads of gasoline in the basement of Paddy’s Pub, wait until the demand for gas skyrockets and then sell it. Perfect plan … except Charlie doesn’t have anything to do but make “crazy man” faces.

When the bank rejects the guys’ $300,000 loan request to buy gasoline – after Dennis unsuccessfully tries to woo the loan officer, and Charlie and Mac compete for her attention too – naturally the guys go to Plan B: gas up some barrels because gas barrels sell! When that doesn’t work, they elect Charlie to store the gas in his body. And when that doesn’t work, they try being door-to-door gas salesmen. While the threesome are busy paying thousands of dollars of gas for a later profit which eventually blows up in their face (literally), Frank and Dee try to get back the money that Dennis and Dee’s real father Bruce Mathis is giving away, but target the wrong guy. Whoops.

“Sunny” is not for everyone, obviously. (I find its inability to be socially, politically, culturally and morally-centered to be a big relief.) Many would find the “cannibalism” Dee and Charlie experience disgusting and morally corrupt. Hell, some might even find Mac and Dennis’ manhunting to be mildly offensive. And the arrogance and self-serving nature of the group could deter viewers away. But “Sunny’s” dark, no-holds-bar humor gives it its undeniable edge and everyone knows we need a splash of color on the small screen.

If you were an avid viewer of “Sunny” before and thought these characters’ antics were off-the-wall, this episode clearly proved that this season, nothing is off-limits, and that’s pretty damn scary (in a good way of course). These characters have no shame and damnit, I wish I didn’t give a shit too.

Quick Takes…

After seeing Dennis shirtless last season multiple times, who was secretly wishing he’d be showing off his hairy chest again in the most inopportune moments?

How many times did Frank “mistakenly” reference “Rambo”? It had to be like 15, right?

Poor Cricket. Even his name kinda sucks.

Would beer-rubbed meat actually taste decent? Maybe it depends on the type of beer …

Now that we know Dee was planning on killing her dear (hot) brother, Dennis, I wonder how she would’ve done it.

Either Glenn Howerton (who plays Dennis) is a magnificent artist (reference to the big-breasted women on both sides of the business chart) or someone else is.

Mac blows an impressive fireball, but gets his head burned by Charlie. Nice.

Memorable Lines…
Mac: “You know a really great hunter would go hunt something that could hunt him back … like a man!”

Frank: “I was hunted once. I just came back from ‘Nam. I was hitching through Oregon and some cop started harassing me. Next thing you know I had a whole army of cops chasing me through the woods! I had to take ‘em all out. It was a bloodbath!”Charlie: “That’s ‘Rambo’ dude.”

Mac: “It’s not gay sex.”
Charlie and Dennis: “Oh okay, because it sounded like it.”

Frank: “A lotta people are buggin’ their babies these days. I guess babies can’t be trusted.”

Frank (to Dee as Mac carjacks his “rape van”): “Oh my god, is that a Muslim guy? He’s getting in my van.”

Philiana’s Funniest Scenes….
Mac and Dennis dressed in cheap camouflage gear and hiding on the street behind a cardboard box with slits cut out for their eye line as they wait for their victim to approach. Are they successful? That’s not really as important as the numerous empty beer cans strewn across the concrete and the tiny silver boom box resting on their ice chest.

A close-up of an illiterate Charlie-written gas sign with the worst misspellings ever in the history of misspellings. Wanna buy some unledd gas?

GMMR is excited to have Philiana on board to cover “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” for us this season. She’s always sunny and she lives in Philadelphia so it’s a perfect match. (Some of these statements may not be true, but I’ll let you decide which.)