Unknown time, unknown place.
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
Always Sunny ended its eleventh season with a bottle episode, focused solely on the insanity that took place while The Gang was locked inside the brig of a sinking cruise liner. Not as strong as last week’s Part 1, the finale provided us with a somewhat soft landing for the season.
Of course, there were some funny moments. In particular, Dennis’ use of a random soccer hooligan “Oi Oi Oi” chant to calm Charlie. Along with Mac, now gay, trying to lead the boys through a dinner party (as he presumes that’s what homosexuals do) filled with boiled chicken and brown rice. All ending with Charlie screaming “Get your hooker’s foot out of my chicken!”
Other aspects didn’t quite hit the right notes though. The montage of everyone doing boat engine noises. The weird little percussion musical interlude involving chains, brushes, and buckets. And, most notably, the end reveal that everyone was talking to an insurance claims paper-pusher instead of the Almighty. Granted, we all knew there had to be some way out of this actually being a transcendent supernatural experience.
And yet, this way out still felt a bit light. There was something deflating about watching this very heightened concept come crashing back to reality. Granted, I have no ideas on how to have ended it in a more satisfying manner, but this just didn’t feel like “it.” Sometimes I get a bit bummed with things snap back to status quo on Sunny. Hell, Mac was ready to live his life as a committed gay man. And, somehow, just knowing that it wouldn’t take sort of pre-soured everything.
Honestly though, I do sort of feel like Always Sunny is beyond continuity at this point. Things don’t have to connect these days. Here, at the freakin ‘end of Season 11. Who says they all can’t go to hell? And then just come back next year like nothing happened? I’m okay with this. Especially when an episode is going to lean into the concept with a tricky opening that reads “Unknown Time. Unknown Place.”
The “tattling” at the end, when the room was filling with water, was a nice touch. Especially Dennis revealing that he tore up all the letters Mac’s dad sent from prison because he was afraid the man would come to their house and eat their butts. A revelation that took the wind out of Mac so hard the he just sat down to drown. Which then led Dennis to fake a good sympathy cry using his pocket onion.
While the first half of this two-part finale enticed and amused me, the bottle episode follow up – “The Gang Goes to Hell: Part 2” – coddled the usual Always Sunny dynamics a bit too much. Some hilarity, for sure, but also an element of petering out.
