1x01 The Gang Gets Racist

Friends and acquaintances have been recommending It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to me for years, and I'm notoriously bad at acting on recommendations, so here I am: twelve years after it premiered, I sat down to watch the pilot. I'm well aware that one of the central ideas of the show is four misanthropic, inept friends get themselves into uncomfortable situations often involving social taboos. I don't generally subscribe to the school of thought that anything and everything is acceptable to joke about; for example, Dave Chapelle's recent return to stand-up comedy was shot through with transphobia that served little other than to make him seem like someone who wanted to take advantage of what is still an oppressed group in society for cheap and, in my case, non-existent laughs. With that in mind, I was a little wary of the jokes that centred around gay people or POC; I worried that the show would come across as a vehicle for four white, straight characters to make a mockery of others. For the most part, thankfully, I didn't feel that was the case: these characters are clearly so reprehensible that it's usually clear in this episode that the joke is on them. In a diverse world, they're the ones who should be pitied and mocked. I'm still not entirely convinced by the show's rush to involve them in situations that are deliberately offensive, but I'm also reliably informed that as it progresses, the show does get more nuanced and clever in terms of the situations the characters find themselves in.

With that said, is it funny? I laughed a few times, and this was largely to do with the characters' belief that despite their bad behaviour throughout the episode, they seem to operate in a world where they don't learn from their mistakes at all. Charlie's obsession with a waitress at a local café, along with an ill-timed remark regarding racism, leads on to him humiliating himself repeatedly. Dennis' storyline for the episode was probably the most 'problematic', with its final joke involving him having a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex, and it was easily the most tired and unfunny of the various plots. Dee and Mac don't have as much to do in this episode, but it's abundantly clear that they're both terrible people whose selfish desires trump anything resembling reasonable behaviour. I appreciated Terrell's character coming across as one of the few reasonable, level-headed people around which helped to emphasise how contemptible the Gang are.

The sitcom format is by its very nature brief and lends itself well to short, sharp bursts of comedy. I felt the show did a good job in table-setting in that time: we have a clear idea of who the characters are, what they do and what we can expect going forward. I'd except any show to take some time to find its feet and I doubt It's Always Sunny is any exception. For now, I'm along for the ride.

[7.7/10] And we’re off! This was a great start to the show. Admittedly, there was a bit of gay panic stuff that I didn’t love necessarily, but for the most part, despite delving into racism and homophobia, the jokes were on the main characters, so it worked for me.

I particularly loved the clockwork nature of the writing, where you had a number of different story threads going on that were all tied together and intersected with one another by the end. The comedy struck the right balance of edgy, awkward, and absurd for my tastes, and the ridiculousness of the characters and their great dynamic with one another was evident early.

I’m still getting the characters straight, but my favorite story was probably Charlie(?) feeling unexpectedly at home among African Americans, but using that to try to impress the girl at the coffee shop. There’s something about him being so blithely wrongheaded about what he’s doing that led to some great comedy.

Dennis enjoying the attention when Paddy’s turns into a gay bar was also a good gag. Again, some of the best humor in the episode came from the gang’s reaction to awkward situations involving race, sexuality, etc. Them tripping over themselves when outside their comfort zones was good stuff, and Dennis being initially uncomfortable about being touched by people he’s unfamiliar with but then relishing the attention was a good bit. Again, I’m not crazy about the “you had sex with a man” finish, but Sweet Dee’s “I couldn’t get a hold of my actor friends” was, at least, a nice twist.

Mac getting Dennis drunk by pretending not to know how to do a tequila shot was an amusing bit, as was Sweet Dee not realizing Terrell was gay. Again, easy stuff, but plenty amusing.

Overall, this was a tightly written, fun show of insane camaraderie, that bodes well for the rest of the series. Only 123 episodes (and counting) to go!