#(such as The Gang Carries A Corpse Up A Mountain in which charlie has to carry his dead deadbeat father up a mountain -

[sewerratzz]

finch give me like a v short synopsis of always sunny in Philadelphia and then link like ur fav always sunny in Philadelphia fics uve written so i can read it please

ohmigosh you have given me a huge challenge here OKAY SO

very basic is that Always Sunny is about this group of people that absolutely suck !! and like, it's not even like they're nice to each other (well. sometimes. most of the time no), they literally are just the worst people ever. like this perfectly sums up this group

this is The Gang. in order, their names are Charlie Kelly, Dee Reynolds, Frank Reynolds, Dennis Reynolds, and Ronald "Mac" McDonald. yes his name is ronald mcdonald. the reveal of this being his name is hilarious

they all have many issues. like so many. severe issues. they refuse to acknowledge them or deal with them or change at all.

[ofc you don't necessarily have to watch the show before reading my fics but i will always reccomend watching it in general because i love this show an unhealthy amount. Charlie is literally why my url is sewerratzz & the reason my first chosen name was charlie. i <3 him hes my fav]

there's not really much plot at all to this show. it's just stuff happening. it's great & i love it

most of my sunny fics are Charlie/Mac, so a brief exposition for their relationship is that they both have horrible home lives and parents, and they've been each other's best & only friend since elementary school. god early seasons charmac save me. they have many moments throughout the show of being sweet to each other and they're my favourites

one fic of mine i love very much is a Deetress fic, so more exposition !! this ship is Dee [see above] and The Waitress, pictured here

she doesn't have a name in the show/in canon she is literally called the waitress since season 1. i also love her. she also sucks now !! she didn't before but the gang happened and she's really. yikes. poor her yk? she has a history with quite literally everyone in the gang, has slept with all of them (except dee. but you know, they're totally lesbians and if you watch the show they have 100% hate-fucked. TECHNICALLY HEADCANON BUT. yk. subtext :p) and Charlie specifically has stalked her for. years and years.

now my fics :p

[angrymac]

season 16 macdennis

I can’t stop thinking about Dennis and Frank’s conversation in “Dee Sinks in a Bog”, where Dennis credits Frank for making him the way he is in regards to his coldness, repressed emotions, and everything with the murder hole.

Based on the particular arc that seems to have been set up for Dennis since Season 12 (with Tends Bar and Dennis’ Double Life), it feels like they are building towards something huge. It has been established that Dennis does in fact feel “big feelings”, and while he could’ve been acting, I don’t think he was, especially considering the RPG scene that directly followed.

Dennis has been repressing his emotions for an extremely long time. We see how his denial affects his physical health too, from his issues with food to his experience with covid. And then we get this moment between him and Frank that feels very intentional.

Mac and Charlie’s big cathartic moments (MFHP and The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain, respectively), both had to do with their fathers, and them finally letting go of their fathers. Dennis’ Double Life was a big episode, but I don’t think it was THE Dennis episode.

I believe that Dennis’ big episode (his MFHP equivalent, if you will) will be the Season 16 finale, in which he will finally confront Frank in some big way and let go of Frank’s expectations / judgments / worldview that Dennis confirmed in S15 that he still upholds to some degree.

Upon letting go of Frank’s (and Barbara’s) expectations, Dennis will finally be able to address the things that he’s been avoiding, such as his relationship with food, his own mortality and ability to get sick, and of course:

his complicated feelings

for 1 (one) Ronald MacDonald.

I truly believe that RCG are setting up an arc with Mac and Dennis, and my main evidence is this:

Despite 15 seasons of subtext, and 4 seasons of Mac being out and canonically in love with Dennis, nothing has ever happened between them. Charlie and the waitress have hooked up and gotten together multiple times. Dennis and Charlie even kissed onstage once.

It would be such an easy plot point to utilize. There are hundreds of ways in which they could’ve played MacDennis for laughs and had them kiss already by now. And if they weren’t planning on making MacDennis canon, I believe that they would have.

So why haven’t they done anything with Mac and Dennis yet?

Because they’re building up to it. And with Mac having gone on his identity arc in Season 15, put some distance between him and Dennis all season, and gotten a comment from Dee about getting a boyfriend, his arc for Season 16 seems clear as well.

Mac will move on and date someone else, and Dennis will repress his jealousy until he is able to let go of Frank’s parenting and finally accept his feelings for Mac.

And it’s going to be a love story for the ages.

[o-kaythislooksbad]

@ailesswhumptober day 19: taken for granted / left behind / "why wasn't i enough?"

[angsty charlie pov of 15x08, the gang carries a corpse up a mountain]

the gang falls for charlie's ruse to take a hike with his dad, so his day is off to a great start. shelley kelly can't really walk up the mountain with the rest of them, but that's fine; the gang will help carry him. everyone takes a step back when charlie opens the body bag, which is weird, 'cause it's not like shelley is a zombie or anything, he's just dead.

"absolutely not!"

"this is a crazy idea, charlie, a crazy idea, and i'm not doing it."

the seagulls and waves crashing on the rocks below them distract charlie for a minute. he's not entirely sure what everyone's complaining about, 'cause this is a simple thing. mac not understanding makes sense, 'cause mac is kinda stupid. frank's just kinda there most of the time until they need him, and dee knows nothing, stupid bird. but dennis is smart, probably the smartest guy charlie knows, so why isn't he following charlie's plan?

"we're just gonna carry the man up the mountain, and then chuck him over the side." it's really not that difficult to understand, but mac and dennis keep bickering, so charlie does the only thing left to do and plays the 'bros before hoes' card. it works on them and frank, and even on dee, so everything's back on track.

everything's great, until it's not. the gang can't even go five minutes without complaining, which is normal, that's fine, but the weight of shelley in the bag is kinda distracting, and then everyone freaking drops him. they have one job, one, and charlie never asks them to do charlie work, not ever, but this probably counts as charlie work so of course he's meant to do it alone.

this is worse than the chicken inspection thing, and the waitress telling him to stay away. it's worse than always losing chardee macdennis, and being left at the zoo, and not having christmas presents, and his play getting ruined and nobody ever listening to him, ever.

dee's the one who killed shelley with her stupid banshee curse, but she's leaving now 'cause dennis fried a castle or something, so now it's just the guys. then dennis trips on nothing, and the bag feels lighter, because dennis is a bastard man who used charlie's dead dad to pull himself up the mountain. mac throws the body bag down, and frank keeps talking and talking about resourcing things, so they end up putting shelley's bag in frank's tent and pulling him up the hill.

they pull him up, and then mac kicks him and the bag tumbles down the hill, and it looks like it's going to keep falling forever. mac talks and talks about being dutch, so charlie snaps because mac's not dutch, he's just annoying as shit, but then mac leaves him with frank and dennis and the scrambled remains of shelley kelly.

dennis and frank keep dropping him, and dennis keeps telling him they should chop up the body, because dennis has a thing about cutting people and that's a whole other pile of worms to sort through that they don't have time for right now, and then dennis tells him that shelley died from the banshee curse and covid, and that's not fair, it's not. banshee curses are serious things, and covid's not so good either, but both is a lot for just one cheese monster to handle, so of course they overpowered shelley.

dennis says it's not like he gave him covid, even though he's the only one in the gang who didn't get the shot, but then frank starts talking about horse medicines and sea creatures and then dennis leaves, muttering about men from venus.

dee leaving was nothing; she's always doing her own thing, and being around her for too long makes charlie's skin itch, anyway. mac leaving hurt more, 'cause he's mac; he's supposed to stay with charlie, or at least with dennis. dennis walking away hurts in ways charlie doesn't even have pictures for.

charlie forgives frank for killing his dad, 'cause a kelly always forgives, but then frank gives him a canteen of piss and charlie wishes he didn't forgive him, even though he said it was gatorade. but then frank gives him another canteen of piss instead of gatorade, and there's nothing left to drink, 'cause mac drank all the spritzers, and that's it.

charlie's thirsty, and his feet ache, and no one's helping him, anyway, so he's better off doing this by himself.

"i'm gonna do this alone, frank. i don't need your help! i don't need you!"

frank doesn't even try to follow him as he drags the bag further up the mountain.

it starts to rain, but that's fine. the body is in a bag, and the bag's in a tent, and it's all messed up, anyway. even if it gets wet, it's not gonna make things worse. he's charlie, this is charlie work, so he can handle it. he's a kelly, and this is a kelly family tradition, so he's gonna handle it.

it's pouring, now, and the seagulls and the waves add to the loudness around him, but it's not loud enough. without the gang yelling and fighting about whatever bullshit pops into their heads, charlie's stuck with all the bullshit in his head. he's only one guy and he doesn't have a big head, so why is there so much?

the ground is muddy, and charlie slips, falling nearly on his face. he lays there for a while, 'cause he really is just a dirt grub, but pulls himself up to sit on his knees when the puddle starts to taste bad.

"i can't do this," he mutters. "i can't do it!"

charlie's head starts to feel better, lighter, when he yells, so he keeps yelling. it doesn't matter that there's no one listening, or that the wind and the rain carry his words away. the yelling feels good, and he's felt so, so bad lately - nothing good ever happens when he leaves philly.

"it's not fair! i shouldn't have to carry you up this hill! you never carried me up a hill! you never carried me at all! you never picked me up and showed me the letters and read me bedtime stories, you never threw rocks with me at christmas, you never showed me how to bash rats or make milk steak or fight the nightman or patch up my jacket! you never played basketball with me or took me to the dump to find treasure! you never sang me happy birthday, you never took me to an eagles game, 'cause you weren't there! you need me here, to be enough of a kelly to carry you up a fucking mountain, but i needed you and you were never there for me."

tears mix with the rain on charlie's face, but it doesn't matter that he's crying. no one's there to listen to him, to make fun of him, to tell him to just get over it and get back to cleaning up and making crazy schemes for everyone else.

"you were never there for me. you left me, and i needed you there. what's wrong with me? why wasn't i enough for you to stay?" charlie's voice breaks as he sobs and shakes.

"you were supposed to carry me," charlie whispers, falling onto the body bag and hitting it with his fists. "you were supposed to carry me."

[sillyfreaktime]

idk why so many people don’t like dtamhd. I definitely understand wanting a big emotional moment for Dennis, like Charlie got in Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain, or Mac in Mac Finds His Pride. but that aside, it’s honestly a very solid episode.

We got a look into Dennis brain, which we haven’t gotten since Charlie Rules The World (I think??). Do you guys remember how absolutely ridiculous that man’s mind was, then? He straight up gave himself a haircut and a blowjob. But this time around, Dennis’ fantasy was more based in reality. He knows he’s a flawed person that’s way too prone to aggression and flying off the handle. He knows he’s aging out of his prime, and that he’s practically conditioned his friends to rely on him but never help him. But still, he convinces himself that he doesn’t need anyone else, he’s always in control, and that it’s that very stress (pressure) that makes him perfect (a diamond).

ALSO, why is no one talking about the very end of the episode? Despite how infuriating Dennis finds the gang, he still picks up the phone and tells Charlie, “I’ll be right in.” He might falsely believe he’s totally in control at all times, but the gang believes in his authority. And that’s all that matters to him. So he’s going to stay where he is needed. He is always going to help them, even if he thinks their schemes are ridiculous.

So no, this wasn’t Dennis’ big emotional moment, and that stinks. But this felt more like “Being Frank,” where we just get some insight into a specific character and what their life beyond Paddy’s and the gang looks like. And I just sort of appreciated that. Dennis has grown into such an interesting character in that he could literally be the most normal of them all, if it weren’t for his need to always be in control. And this episode gives us a great look at just how fuckin deluded the guy is [affectionate].

Plus??? It was funny! And at the core of this show, despite how tragic or even heartwarming, things can get, it is a comedy. And DTAMHD successfully told the story of Dennis’ strange little brain, all while walking the trademark Sunny line between tragedy and comedy.

[aanteater-nose]

So I have a theory that throughout the show, every member of the Gang is gonna have a serious, emotional, and significant moment (likely to take place during a season finale ep) regarding their trauma or identities. So far we’ve seen Macs moment in Mac Finds his Pride, where he struggles with his identity as a gay man and comes out in probably one of the most beautiful and heartfelt moments of the show (def emotional, took place in a finale)

And now..we’ve seen Charlie’s moment in the latest ep, The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain, in which Charlie confronts his trauma of living without a father, and the abandonment he felt because of it. (Again, a very obvious & rare emotional scene (that broke my heart) and it also took place in a finale).

Mac-sexual identity (S13)

Charlie-abandoned by father (S15)

These are both major factors that has carried on throughout their lives and the show in general where even the audience can see it. Does this mean that the gang is capable of some form of healing? The way Mac (while still being deplorable) can accept and embrace the fact that he’s gay, and Charlie can begin to heal from not having a father (despite having been very upset about it and searching for a father figure since S2)

More importantly..what’s in store for Dennis and Dee?

I don’t think this will be an “every season finale” thing, but I do believe the events will take place throughout the entire show.

[cutemeat]

How Sunny Season 15 Mimics the “Heroe’s Journey” Structure without a Hero (On Charlie Kelly in S15, a Major Callback to ‘The Fifth Sense’ from S5)

A huge theme running through Sunny and its characters is the affects of denial and ignorance. So it’s significant when a show that’s claimed to be all about a group of people who “never learn, and never grow” now has written a season that not only attempts to tell a story with a seasonal arc, but intentionally adopts the kinds of structures that are usually associated with real character growth and revelations.

One the surface, the episode "The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain” seems to accomplish just that. Especially after a very on-the-nose, impossible to ignore exchange between Frank and Charlie a few episodes prior, in which Charlie outright states that the idea of more jokes where the punchline is “it’s funny because I didn’t learn my lesson!” would just be... dumb. It would seem that Sunny’s long-standing homage to Seinfeld’s “no hugging, no learning” rule is now dead and buried. However, I would like to propose a slightly alternate reading of this arc... I say ‘slightly’ because it mostly pertains to Charlie’s arc this season.

Arguably the whole show has been a test run of the characters’ abilities to withhold a veil of supreme ignorance. And there has already been one episode which captures each of the character’s ability to push their denial to the limit, that episode being season nine’s “The Gang Gets Quarantined” which is a heavily called-back episode this season (aside from the more obvious callback of Dennis getting sick again).

The underlying message of that episode is, like I said, that these characters will stretch themselves so thin trying to maintain their denial... As well as demonstrating that a lot of their guilt stems from the bullshit Frank spews on a regular basis. But even on those occasions they wind up breaking and giving in to enough reflection to admit they’re “sick”... Well, except for one of them.

Charlie Kelly, it makes the most sense for him to be able to do this given how we’ve seen his mother is able to also maintain an impressive amount of blissful ignorance to save her own psyche. Now, I’m going to use this recurring character trait to explain why I personally think that it’s possible “The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain” isn’t actually the typical Heroe’s Journey story we are used to-- but how it instead tricks us into thinking that’s what it is.

(And feel free to take what I’m saying as total bullshit, I’m not trying to start conspiracies here lol. If you just wanna sit back and see me talk all this as some sort of spectacle with no real weight, go for it. This is Always Sunny, after all lmao.)

... But before we can jump into talking about how Sunny deconstructs and uses said Heroes Journey this season, we have to understand how the Heroes Journey is typically structured.

So this is a chart breaking down our typical journey ^^

Now I’m going to first apply this to the Mountain ep as if it is a typical Heroes Journey, before I then explain how I think it could actually be more deceptive when put in the context of Sunny...

So starting with the “Business As Usual” application...

Our “Call to Adventure” is, of course, The Gang at the end of episode 4 figuring out their vacation destination, which reveals itself to be Ireland. Then this continues when Charlie is at first sort of just following everyone else’s journeys, until we reach that point where Mac asks Charlie if he’s ever thought whether he and Shelley Kelly might be related.

“Meeting a Mentor” is when Charlie finally does meet Shelly and learns that he is not just a penpal or possibly his half-brother, but his father. And so now Charlie is “Crossing The Threshold” into this whole new world of possibilities, one that Charlie had previously deemed impossible and even resisted because he was so sure he’d never meet his father or that Frank is his father but will never have the conversation.

Our “Trials + Failure” take form less so in actual ‘trials’ as they do in Charlie following Shelley and learning more about his heritage. His “New Skill” he acquires though is one he learns from Shelley, the whole “a Kelly always forgives... the men that is, not so much the women” and this new skill is tested during the ‘banquet of humiliation’ and on the gang’s journey up the mountain after Charlie’s father dies, wherein Charlie claims he still forgives Frank even after everything.

Then we have what resembles our “Death + Rebirth” in Charlie’s breakdown on his lonely way to complete the rest of his journey, when he collapses to the ground-- giving up and says he’s “glad” Shelley is dead, comes to terms with the fact that he shouldn’t have to be the one to carry his own father up the mountain. Shelley should be the one who carried Charlie, so there’s also our “Revelation”.

Then we have the rest of The Gang “Finally Change” at the bar, when they drop their usual M.O. of only operating within their best interests and, even though it offers them no real benefit (actually hinders them from possibly getting off the continent faster than if they’d just abandoned Charlie), they go back for their friend to help him complete his journey... So they are “Atoning” for leaving Charlie to carry the body on his own. The “Gift” they offer is the huge Ford truck to get the body up the hill and make their decision to “Return” after they throw Shelley’s body off the cliff and walk off together to finally get back home to Philly.

So that is how "The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain" follows our usual Heroes Journey structure... But, this is It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The characters here are operating within a much different context than the usual sitcom, so I want to apply those rules to this story and see if it could be doing something a little different than we are used to.

And in order to do that I’d argue that we actually have to even go a little further back-- to the episode “Mac and Charlie Write a Movie” from season 5. Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the episode in a while, I will refresh your memory with the relevant information (although I do highly recommend re-watching it if you haven’t in a while, cuz I feel like it speaks for itself if you’ve also already seen season 15!)...

So, the movie Charlie and Mac wind up writing after finding out Dee is going to be an extra in an M. Night Shyamalan movie is a prequel to The Sixth Sense in which they spend much of the episode trying to figure out some good twists to include in their script.

The movie they first pitch to Dennis is one where a “supper-ripped, super-smart scientist in a mesh tank top (named and) played by Dolph Lundgren... who, after a terrible accident in his lab, blows off his nose... After reconstructive surgery, he soon realizes he smells something that stinks-- crime.”

After Dennis praises their pitch and gives them the idea to include a female lead character ‘that Dolph can bang’, Mac and Charlie head off to The Library (a spot both of them revisit together in season 15) to start typing up their script for real. But they wind up getting easily distracted and arguing not even halfway through and wind up recruiting a random kid in the library to “help them with twists” and also in the hopes he’ll basically do all the hard work for them lol...

In a later scene back at the library we see the kid explaining his ideas to Mac and Charlie for their script, and at first neither of them seems to fully grasp the concepts being pitched to them..

Mac: Okay, so he's on the edge of this cliff throwing his nose off in the ocean because he's at the happiest point of his life. Faisal: No, no, no, no... This is the scientist’s lowest point in the movie. Here he throws his nose off the cliff into the ocean, because he’s rejecting his life as a savior of all mankind.

... Those visuals sound a bit familiar lol?

Now, Charlie is clearly the most well-known and beloved character of the series amongst the general audience (along with Frank) so it makes sense for him to be the focus of this journey as our stand-in “Hero”... But what I find interesting here is the fact that they chose to utilize the plot of a movie that was pitched as a prequel. Which implies this season and the introduction of a seasonal arc structure to the show was only just the formal set-up for something.

This is where my wondering whether this Heroe’s Journey story was as honest as I’d previously thought it was after watching this episode the first couple times. Now, it seems like the episode is obviously a sort of meta-commentary on each character’s “departure” from the show’s original formula, one that tried to pay homage to Seinfeld with a similar “no hugging, no learning” rule... Hence our body being a father figure, as Seinfeld came before Sunny and was obviously a huge inspiration for the series as a whole. But throughout the episode we have our characters leave the rest of the group and the burdensome task behind...

Firstly, we have Dee. So this is a joke about how Kaitlin refused to let Dee be the “wet blanket” of the show and vouched for her to be an agent of degeneracy as much as the guys. Then Mac departs after they drag the body up a steep hill (a callback to Mac talking about the Asspounder in HOHC lmao: “imagine you’re riding up a steep hill...”) and then Mac kicks the body once they’ve gotten it to the top, which causes it to tumble all the way back down to the bottom “okay, that was my bad...” before ultimately leaving the rest of the group once it’s revealed they were messing with his identity the whole trip. This is a joke about the season 11 finale, in which Mac comes out but then goes back in the closet (once they get the body to the top, Charlie says ”i gotta say, that still felt respectful” aka it still honored the ‘no learning’ rule because Mac went back in), the body falling back down the mountain was a metaphor for the backlash/outpouring of disappointment they received from fans after Mac went back in the closet, so then Mac departs from the task altogether so he can come out and stay out.

Then we are left with the trio of Charlie, Frank, and Dennis continuing to carry the corpse until Dennis begs for another break and makes another attempt to get Charlie to chop the body up to make it easier to carry, but Charlie refuses despite the body being “already mangled” (aka: they’ve already broken the ‘no hugging, no learning’ rule outright already, so why keep attempting to honor it when it’s only weighing them down at this point?). Dennis decides to leave when Charlie continually, and stubbornly refuses to change the plan. This is a metaphor for Glenn (and Dennis, as he has a few revelations in s12) leaving at the end of season 12. Then, finally, we have Frank. He apologizes to Charlie but winds up giving him two bottles full of piss which ruins the sincerity of the moment (one can only wonder what sunny trope this joke could be referencing LOL...), until Frank winds up leaving too... Likely a metaphor for his big “I get it” moment after watching Mac’s dance in MFHP.

So this leaves us with only Charlie... Still doesn’t make sense for it not to still be a heroes journey though, right? Well, let me put it in context. So if this episode’s theme is (again, similarly to “The Gang Gets Quarantined”) all about denial of the taxing realities of a grueling tradition, and “walking away” is a metaphor for each character refusing to stick to the ‘ritual’ (aka Sunny’s formula of ‘no hugging, no learning’)... Then that would mean that actually, Charlie is the only one who hasn’t changed. So it basically is a subversion of the whole Heroe’s Journey when you put it in that context lol.

This means that all our other characters have, in spite of everything, learned. Take, for example, that joke about Dennis having dragged his feet most of the way and weighing the body down was already an explicit joke about this, how Glenn actually was always letting Dennis develop-- just in subtle enough ways that it seemed like he was still honoring the formula if one wasn’t paying very close attention or seeking it out.

So uh... In a way Charlie would be the winner of Sunny, lmao.

A Heroe’s journey usually concludes with, again, our hero changing... But instead we witness the rest of the gang changing their minds, we can see this on their faces when they all look at each other before we cut back to Charlie..

Cuz at first it seems like Charlie is changing, right? Instead of resenting the gang for leaving him to face this grueling task alone... Or maybe even realizing that maybe Charlie was still just reeling from the sudden loss of his father and clinging to any remaining parts of Shelley he asked the gang to take on this task that winds up hurting all of them along the way... I mean, Christ, Charlie doesn’t even feel bad at all for messing with Mac’s identity so carelessly. Like, to me that comes across as very concerning lol.

I believe they are repeating a mistake they have made time and time again which is bailing Charlie out, rather than giving him a chance to actually learn. Even though this time their hearts are, for once, in the right place... They are still hindering Charlie’s growth.

In the end, it’s still the gang who comes to Charlie’s rescue. This is wholesome at first glance, it promotes a sense of community rather than a toxic individualism, but when I think about Charlie’s history with extensive excuse-seeking to not feel responsible for his own bad behavior... It plants a seed of doubt for Charlie’s character, rather than one of hope-- for me, at least.

While Charlie’s breakdown about Shelley still holds the same emotional weight-- Charlie was right that it is unfair for him to be the one having to carry his father after his father was never there for him until only a few days ago... It means that in the end, Charlie didn’t really learn anything from this journey. While all our characters walk away from the task with some personal breakthrough, Charlie is only re-assigning blame to Shelley for his misery.

It’s a different type of conclusion to reach for Charlie to finally admit someone else failed him, and for the rest of the gang to admit they have failed someone. Someone else failing them early on is what the rest of the gang have been blaming for their problems right along, and we see how well that approach turned out for them. In fact, it was framed as a small moment, I think Dennis kissing Frank on the head was actually a monumental thing for his character... he has spent years openly resenting Frank and blaming him for everything, but for once he thanks Frank and is physically affectionate with him.

To tie “The Gang Gets Quarantined” back into this reading, the ending of that episode caps off with the whole gang deciding to ‘go back to the bar and get drunk’ and there’s a very palpable sense of their blissful ignorance once again being restored... The ending of the season 15 finale seems similar, but I don’t believe it is. There is not the same visual harmony as there was in Gets Quarantined. At the very least, Dennis is most noticeably absent from the sense of ‘harmony’ this time around. Last time it was Frank who was absent at the end of Gets Quarantined.

The gang are all in dark, gloomy colors to match the cloudy sky. But they aren’t matching, so it’s not as tight-knit of a ‘visual harmony’ here. Additionally, the whole gang is noticeably disheveled also due to the rain and strenuous task. The visual evidence seems clear, this time there is no real turning back from what has occurred here (unless they wind up going the route of some Wizard of Oz-ending type of reveal with Dee waking up first thing in s16 going ‘and.. and you were there! and you were there!’) and though our gang is going back to Philly-- I don’t think they will return the same way they arrived, not even close. The stakes set in Ireland were much higher than the ones in season 9, or even seasons 13 and 14 and I think that will result in more substantial consequences to our characters’ psyches as well. (again... I think, lol.)

(I think another interesting parallel/contrast between these two endings is how Gets Quarantined sees the gang walking away harmonizing and singing together, but this time we just get a song playing over their exit... Again, there’s a very literal lack of harmony this time around..)

So, again I think Charlie’s realization was still an important one. I don’t want it to come across like I’m saying Charlie had no development at all, actually! I do believe this has set up a sympathetic explanation for Charlie in the future though, so I’m wondering if this is a deliberate set-up and if they are in fact going to be pushing Charlie down a much darker path... seeing how far people’s sympathy can really go, effectively toying with that threshold that most people are usually confident in saying they’d never cross. Again, if Sunny is a show that’s all about how society can create these ‘monsters’-- what better way to really hammer home just how these behaviors that are often brushed off as ‘goofy’ or ‘misguided’ can very quickly turn into something resembling a monster. We are used to villains who we have already been informed is evil (take Charlie’s line from 15x06 “is he a mongrel or a monster? That’s all I want to know..” before he continues trying to look for Shelley), we don’t always get to see that transition from ‘just some guy’ to ‘Bad Guy’ happen, so it’s easier to tell ourselves ‘well... but i’d know better than to become someone horrible like them!’

And I admit I could totally be giving RCG too much credit here. Maybe I am way, wayyyy far off... I don’t doubt that possibility lol. But it certainly would be an interesting direction, one that would make plenty of sense as well because they have the set-up for it.

Even though I believe Charlie maintains the group camaraderie at the end in that moment, I have a hard time believing he will come away from this vacation the same way he arrived-- I mean, he just lost his own father after knowing him for three days. That’s a whole lot of intense emotion to endure in such a short span of time. I believe this whole thing broke Charlie a lot more than it seems like in this finale episode, which isn’t too out of the ordinary considering it all just happened to him. Besides, like I said earlier Charlie is the best at denial in the gang... Even in Gets Quarantined after he just puked his guts out and acknowledges it right after-- he still maintains that even though he had a key to get out of the bathroom the whole time, he didn’t reveal that because he "didn’t know we were actually trapped in here, I just thought we were playing quarantine” meaning he still didn’t get it lmao.

So that S15 finale ending shot reminds me a lot more of the scene where Charlie reveals that bit of info... Rather than the very last scene of that episode where the gang are all back on the same page with one another, minus Frank.

My personal hypothesis is that we will see some trading of roles between the members of the gang in the upcoming season... For example, it would make sense now for Dee to have the more ‘entitled, rage-filled’ personality we usually associate with Dennis-- it would certainly feel earned. While I suspect Dennis may adopt more of the ‘wet blanket’ role rather than a ‘voice of reason’, as they have usually tried to use him that way for a long time anyway and this time it would, again, feel slightly more earned. I think Mac will take on Dee’s previous role, of being generally passive aggressive rather than outright aggressive and assertive but a little wiser and less naive than the rest of the gang (bossier again, too, i hope Lol). I believe that Frank will take on the more ‘weird but lovable, generally oblivious-seeming’ position of Charlie, while Charlie adopts more of a taste for vengeance that we usually associate with Frank. Again, that’s just my personal theory for where things could be going if Season 15 is actually the kind of set-up/prequel it feels like it could be-- doesn’t mean anything concrete! I’m not in the writers room. Those are just the kinds of roles that would make sense to me after everything that’s happened this season, if they are in fact going to continue full force with the development stuff.

Because I think as they learned with Mac, development and learning doesn’t necessarily have to mean improvement or redemption. But I have no clue how they will actually go about executing that, if at all, or if it will be handled well.

TL;DR “The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain” resembles the typical heroes journey structure, using Charlie as our ‘hero’-- however, I believe it’s possible they’re subverting the typical application of this structure. So it would seem like Charlie comes out with a positive development/change (as per the usual status quo), when in fact Charlie is the one who may come out of this experience changing for the worse. Meaning that abandoning this grueling task is actually pretty rational, the gang do not have to do this task. It is, objectively and scientifically, not benefitting anyone but Charlie’s fragile psyche. But they choose to go back anyway.

However, in the end, coming to save Charlie may actually be what stopped his character from having a type of positive growth. Because he didn’t need to. Charlie never needed to admit defeat like the rest of the gang. In the words of Charlie from episode 2 of season 13, he managed to get through the task “without compromise to [his] masculine identity by any admission of guilt, failure or weakness.” whereas the gang had to admit they wronged Charlie by leaving him behind, they are the assholes. But Charlie is the victim here, from his position, so he doesn’t have to feel bad to reach the end of his journey.

Again, Charlie could have... he had that huge break down after all, but the gang’s last minute ‘rescue mission’ inadvertently gave him a way out of taking responsibility for how truly difficult the task was in the first place. He never has to give up and admit defeat like the gang. This ending is seemingly foreshadowed in episode 1 of season 15 by Mac, “Well, that's what makes America the greatest country in the world. When you're in need, the government comes in and bails you out.” and word choice is important there. In the past, it’s usually been the gang who have been bailed out by Charlie coming right back to the bar. At the end of ‘Flowers for Charlie’ the gang seem to bail Charlie out, but in reality they are bailing themselves out of doing Charlie Work by getting him back. But at the end of this finale, it really is the gang who bails Charlie out.. But in this case it has the potential to not be a very good thing for Charlie in the long-term.

We sort of get a switch in perspectives is what I’m feeling like... with Charlie learning and internalizing that good ol’ American Individualism mentality (”I’m gonna do it alone, I don’t need your help!”) with the rest of the gang finally understanding some of the benefits that come from sticking together.

In the short term, this kept them in Charlie’s good graces, however the breakthrough he did achieve on the mountain is one of realizing how he’d been betrayed by his father. And as a result any resentment he harbors is brought to the forefront of his mind... And when you add up the show altogether-- Charlie still has a lot more reasons to resent the gang than he does to thank them, so I’m saying that if the floodgates there opened: it might not end very pleasantly for the gang like it did in this finale.

Again it’s possible I’m looking at this from a more cynical lens/seeing something different just cuz I want to see something different when maybe they are attempting to do something genuinely sincere and heart-warming here with all of the gang. I’ll probably enjoy the outcome enough either way LMAO.

It’s still interesting that our other characters have been given an opportunity to subvert the expectations of Sunny the only way they still possibly could after the show has established a reputation for ‘no growth’ and that is, of course, to grow... Whichever way that may take them in the future. But again this is It’s Always Sunny so who fucking knows if that’s even gonna be the case!!!! (Again.. I fear a Wizard of Oz ending twist ..)

All right, that was long.. and that’s all I got! Again this reading is not meant to be this... Concrete ‘predictive’ theory or anything, just an alternate reading of the episode/what possibilities I think this kind of set-up could open up for the characters !