Another Movie Guide

Review of an Episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Over the years many foreign things have come to America and become popular and famous. The Beatles, for example, are a band from overseas, and kung fu movies largely originated in China. Also, toys sometimes make it to America from overseas and become a big hit. Some things in this category include the bizarre little creatures called Pokemon which were placed on cards and traded by small children all across the nation in the late nineties and early 21st century. Also popular are many different oriental dolls and Chinese board games such as Chinese checkers. Often times, these things are then referenced in pop culture such as television shows. For example, Chinese checkers was once mentioned on an episode of the popular television show, “It Is Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.

The episode in question had a very funny plot. The three main men on the show are named Dennis, Charlie, and Mac and all three are part owners of a bar in which the show is mainly set. A recurring character on the program is a woman named The Waitress, who has no other name, and Charlie is in love with her and constantly annoys her to date him, to no avail. On this episode Charlie was talking about who his best friend was, and since Dennis had already had a fling with the waitress, that eliminated him from contention. Meanwhile, Mac has been making tapes of himself trying to look tough and showed them off to the other two.

After showing Charlie one of his tapes, Mac sees Charlie destroying what he thinks is his tape and decides to try and get with Charlie’s love the waitress to get back at him. Charlie has learned about somebody dating the waitress, unaware that it is Mac, and sends Mac to beat the man up. After sending Mac on his mission to injure the man he thinks is dating his true love, Charlie stays the night at Mac and Dennis’s apartment. Still bothered by not being Charlie’s best friend, Dennis tries to convince Charlie to hang out with him and play board games like Chinese checkers instead of simply sitting around waiting for Mac to return. Charlie responds to the suggestion of playing Chinese checkers by saying that the game is a bit foreign for his tastes.

Dennis, after having figured out that Mac is with the waitress himself, convinces Charlie of this fact and the two of them decide to try and catch the new couple together to see for sure. The episode ends when it turns out that Charlie was destroying an entirely different tape to the one that Mac thought and it was all just a big misunderstanding and after all their hilarious backstabbing of each other decide that they should all just be three best friends rather than trying to destroy each other all the time.

“It Is Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” has now run for five seasons and with hysterical episodes with maniacal backstabbing and extreme selfishness amongst the main characters the show, once described by a critic as being like Seinfeld on drugs, will certainly be going for a long time to come.

Connor R. Sullivan is very pleased with the chinese board games he and his wife chose online to celebrate Chinese New Year. His wife loved the oriental dolls she ordered for her granddaughters.