It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang Gets Whacked

(S03E12 / S03E13) "Hold on. Nobody's gonna get whacked off today!" - Dee

Every sitcom does it and it was only a matter of time until It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hopped on the "hour long episode" bandwagon. Sometimes it's a finale or a premiere, but in this case it was FX taking advantage of the first day of November sweeps. Often it works and sometimes it doesn't. As much as I love this show (and the same goes for The Office and the four hour-longs its season started with), I just can't endorse more double-length installments like this. The uneven balance between the good and the bad is just far too obvious. At times during this episode, I felt like I was watching a bunch of mediocre deleted scenes that I'd normally expect to see as a bonus on a DVD set.

Gallery: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - Season Three

Most sitcoms have extra scenes at the end of an episode taping. It gives the producers and editors rooms to play around with the finished product. Now with this show, it's my understanding that Danny DeVito shoots an entire season's worth of scenes in a one month blitz. Then he's gone and everything else is shot. So it would stand to reason that there's even more excess footage from exaggerated scripts and dropped storylines that never make it to air. It should probably stay that way because there were far too many moments in this one that were either a.) not funny at all, b.) completely unnecessary to advance the plot, or c.) dragged on for much longer than we've come to expect from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Now before you jump on me and claim that I'm taking a show that's supposed to be light-hearted and humorous too seriously, look at it this way: simply because it's light-hearted and serious doesn't mean I'm comfortable with it being bad. We know how perfect most of the half-hour installments are. You never stop laughing. Can you honestly say you laughed straight through this episode? Heck, there were moments when it became downright serious.

So the general plot centered on Charlie and Dee finding $25k worth of cocaine (or as Charlie called it: "nose clams") that belonged to the mob. Hence the title. So now they had to pay back the local boss. Charlie and Dee tried to sell more drugs and ended up becoming coke addicts. No surprise there since we know Dee already had a crack problem and Charlie regularly sniffs glue. Mac tried to pay off his debt by working for the mob and Dennis became a popular male escort for old, ugly women. Now based on description alone, that sounds like a regular episode of It's Always Sunny... right? There's the problem right there. They took a half-hour idea and made it too long.

Obviously there were some classic moments in this episode that I loved, but there was a lot of filler too.

• Frank taking on the role of Dennis' pimp was hilarious and I loved his solid gold "pimp challis chalice." The pep talk he gave Dennis was priceless too. It was almost like Frank was the Burgess Meredith to Dennis' Stallone. The fact they're actually in Philly makes that analogy funnier.
• The return of Rickety Crickety was unexpected but completely welcome. Remember him? He's the priest that had a crush on Dee in the season two episode, "The Gang Exploits a Miracle." Now he's a bum.
• Charlie's obsession with jockeys and horses was one of the best sub-plots he's ever had I think. From Buster the jockey asking Charlie if he could do a line of coke off his boner to Charlie naming his horse Peter Nincompoop, it was probably the most consistently funny plot in the episode.
• I loved how whenever the topic of killing someone was discussed, regardless of who it was, the phrase "whack them off" was used. Gold.
• Charlie thinks he might have been a centaur in a past life. I don't even know how to react.

See what I mean though? There was so much to like about this episode and then it just got dragged down by long, mediocre scenes with the mob guys or Charlie and Dee getting high -- again. There was just a lot that could have been cut out and it really would have made the episode much better in my opinion.