It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia – Season 6

The gang is back. Mac, Charlie, Dennis, Dee, and Frank gear up for another season of social satire through a filter of absurdist depravity tackling whatever issues and non-issues they see fit. Longtime fans of the show know that It's Always Sunny wasn’t always like this. In the beginning the characters were twisted, sure, but always rooted in a dark side of reality. As the show went on the characters began to get zanier and zanier, and the bar became less and less set in South Philly as it was in an alternate reality where a catfood-eating man-child who shares a twin bed in a condemned building with his maybe-father is only faulted for never having tried a pear, rather than writing a musical using an undecipherable series of characters instead of actual words.

Charlie (Charlie Day), who was a personable fool in the beginning, became a pathological idiot savant who spent personal time in air ducts and huffed glue in order to fall asleep. Dennis (Glenn Howerton), who was smug and inconsiderate, became a sociopath and manipulator — in fact they all became sociopaths and manipulators. Mac (Rob McElhenney) went from insecure to delusional. Dee (Kaitlin Olson) went from a punching bag to image-obsessed succubus. Frank (Danny DeVito) was always weird. Now he’s downright evil.

This season the show tries to split the difference, bringing in a slower pace and fewer moments of complete mayhem only escalated by the characters' inability to reason. Sometimes it’s to the effect of a slow build leading up to a grandiose ending, but those are often not as rewarding as you’d like them to be. Sometimes an episode is easy going, and you simply crave one of Charlie’s mini-breakdowns, not because the episode is bad, but just because Charlie’s mini-breakdowns are so good. And several times this season, the gang knows exactly what you’re jonesing for and gives you full-throttle, non-stop chaos that rivals the best episodes from seasons past.

Mac and Charlie trap themselves in a diving pool. Dee and Dennis become radio shock jocks. And Dee gets pregnant, leading the gang to recreate a Halloween party they were too drunk to remember in an effort to find out who the father is. And those are just the set-ups.

All of the ridiculous recurring characters are back in full force too, including the waitress gets accidentally punched unconscious. Artemis and Frank have a disgusting fling going on. Rickety Cricket, who at one point was a priest tempted by Dee, is now a rambling homeless man fighting off dogs in the street. Mac and Charlie’s moms become roommates. The McPoyles are as sweaty and gross with their bathrobes and glasses of milk as they’ve ever been. But most importantly the gang follows the one rule that consistently keeps the show amongst the funniest on television: as crazy as the characters they’re dealing with are, the gang is always crazier.

This natural escalation due to the creators/writers/actors' insistence on making the gang the butt of the joke is what takes the show from simple silliness to mind-blowing hilariousness and sneakily intelligent satire. The once long-shot gem, on a network no one initially paid attention to, is now an established entity in the sitcom world. Not to worry though; that doesn’t mean they’ve dimmed their spark. The gang is back. As twisted as ever.

Starring: Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, Danny DeVito

Created by: Rob McElhenney

Network: FX

Airing: Thursday, 10:00 pm E.S.T.