Eternal sunshine of the witless mind.
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
Overall, an episode like “Being Frank” is exactly what Always Sunny should be doing after a decade on the air. Taking a few risks. Trying out new formats. Not all these endeavors will work, but they’re worth doing. “Being Frank” didn’t really land well, but I applaud the idea of changing the blueprint. Because it can work. Like just it did a few weeks back with “The Gang Hits the Slopes.”
Being inside nutso Frank Reynolds’ head for a day certainly sounds like a grand idea, but the premise quickly wears thin as Frank is the loudest, most-debaucherous member of the group. So his insane, barely-functional escapades boil down to confusion, profanity, drugs, and narrowly surviving the day. Which is an entertaining notion, no doubt, but it’s also fairly one-note. In fact, the episode itself was a few minutes shorter than an average Sunny chapter since there just isn’t that much to do, in the end, with this concept.
Though there certainly was time for almost choking to death on a snake-meat sandwich, eating dog tranquilizer brownies, doing loads of drugs and becoming “Frankenstein” (while ruining a Jewish Shiva), motor boating a busty nurse, and getting knocked out and thrown the truck of a car.
The most amusing takeaway here though, for me, is the idea that this could be any day. Any day in the life of Frank. Sure, there was a specific goal here in retrieving Dennis’ impounded car, but it was suggested, even in the title itself, that this was what it was like to be Frank all the time. And the fact that Frank didn’t have a clue about all the stuff he was supposed to be doing tomorrow sort of sealed that up. So that larger idea, just in itself, was funny. The smaller individual moments though weren’t that great. Unless you just get a kick out of Frank screaming and calling people pieces of “s***” for around 18 minutes. Which very well may be the case for you.
In fact, I’d have to say that my favorite part of this one came right at he end when we watched Frank and Charlie about to actually play Night Crawlers. The game where the two of them just lurch around their apartment and pretend to be worms. Not only was it grand to see Night Crawlers in action, however briefly, but it was also the sweetest part of what, basically, was a very harsh and abrasive episode.
Oh, and as a huge Mike Patton fan/stan – and knowing that DeVito is too – I loved the fact that Frank was always listening to Faith No More while driving. In particularly, tracks off the band’s “King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime” album – “Digging a Grave” and “Cuckoo For Caca.” But that’s just my own little thing.
And yes, fresh from his Super Bowl Prius ad, that was Luis Fernandez-Gil as the doctor trying to tell Frank that he had a tumor. AKA – Lucha Underground’s Dario Cueto.
As tenured as the show is, Always Sunny should be pushing its creative boundaries like this. This one just didn’t work too well on the laughs front. Though the idea that Frank is a perpetual state of utter, obtuse oblivion, and often lucks into success, is a nifty notion.
