It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell

FX

(Season 4, Episode 11)

This was the episode we all heard about, where we were going to get to see the gang during the Revolutionary War era. The framing sequence was that the boys wanted to get the bar declared a historical landmark. In order to do so, they needed to be able to prove its importance in history. And said significance is that apparently Patrick’s Pub, as Paddy’s was known then, is responsible for the cracking of the Liberty Bell.

Unfortunately, I found myself pretty disappointed with the episode over all. I think it’s because I love the real world situations surrounding the characters. I like Dee as an aspiring (and horrible) actress doing stand-up every night. I like Frank and Charlie in this inappropriately creepy cohabiting situation in the nastiest apartment I’ve ever seen. While their general personalities were intact, everything was just too out of place in the 1700s.

We started off just fine with Charlie, Dennis and Mac so disturbed by a painting of George Washington hanging up in the office at the Historical Society that they were just ready to cut it out of the frame. It’s this complete and total disregard for anyone outside of themselves that makes the show work. They ported that with them into their 1776 story, but it just wasn’t as effective there.

That’s not to say there weren’t some highlights:

• The whistling wooden teeth were a little funny, but Dennis and Mac getting tarred and feathered for being British poofs was even funnier.
• It was kind of funny when they blew that guys’ head off. Especially if you skipped back and saw how bad of a head prop it was.
• And that may be about it.

I really thought Charlie and Frank were rendered useless here. Even their bit where they started planning to kill the guy with the pumpkin cart fell pretty flat. The funniest thing about them was Frank’s hair. Maybe my expectations are too high. Generally, It’s Always Sunny has more laughs per half-hour than any show on television. For some reason, it just didn’t work out for me tonight.

What did you think of their trip to the Eighteenth Century?

Clacked by Jason Hughes
on Nov 07, 2008 @ 04:00 EST5EDT