#dennis meta

[angrymac]

DTAMHD predictions and rambles

so the episode starts with Dennis going for a physical again (obvious parallel to Frank’s Pretty Woman) except maybe he goes without Mac this time, or if they go together, now Mac is healthier than he is. Either of this things would bother him, especially coupled with learning about his high blood pressure

Dennis is prone to building up these ideas in his head of what he thinks his life should look like, traditional milestones and experiences that he believes a normal person would have, and that he in turn should replicate.

So he comes up with the newest “scheme” to turn his attention away from the sudden reality of his own mortality and the fact that he only has so much (little) control over his own health. (Look back on his behavior in 7.01, 9.07, 15.06 for reference— Dennis sees physical illness as a personal failure, and in turn, he’s likely going to try to make up for this by forcing some semblance of a normal experience.)

but of course, unfortunately, life doesn’t and never will go according to plan, or to script. And throughout the episode, little things will pop up that gradually chip at Dennis’ resolve, bit by bit, testing his control over his anger and encouraging him to explode.

being away from The Gang may also force him to address the things (and memories) that their company, constant schemes, and involved conversations are always distracting him from.

so all of these memories are coming to the surface along with his own mortality, finally accepting that he gets sick sometimes and that he needs food and that he’s not a Golden God, just a human person in a human body.

which will be a huge body blow. because, and allow me to cross-reference Bojack Horseman for a moment if I may:

if he’s not a Golden God, and the pain that he’s endured and ignored hasn’t turned him into some all-powerful immortal being, “then all the damage [he] got isn’t good damage, it’s just damage. and all the years [Dennis] was miserable was for nothing.”

depriving himself of things that he needed— food, Mac, the ability to be vulnerable, was all for nothing. he wasted so much time for nothing.

and it won’t take much for him to break down after that. hopefully this will be something cathartic for him and will lead to a real breakthrough (his MFHP moment in the rain).

[waywardtrek]

I’ve seen posts about how CEO/Musk guy = Mac/Fat Mac/Hawaiian Shirt Mac, but not sure if anyone’s made this comparison yet:

I interpreted CEO guy also as a “representative” of Dennis himself… Who he could have been, had he the luxury to make different choices in his life. Who he’d be if he had money and power. Sure, he might look pudgy and un-Vitruvian, but he’d be relaxing at the beach and he’d be successful—a winner. Happy. If only he could let go of control in his *actual* existence, if only he could let go of his messed up childhood and trauma etc., he could’ve been somebody… Somebody loved, somebody with someone like Mac at his core, loving him with enough heart to be as rare as a diamond—or at least trying his best to make it that way (video call, pressure cooker). Diamonds are pure, tough, precious, valuable. Diamonds are forever... But as it is, Dennis will just subsume them, take this form of love in the only way he knows how—through fantasy and violence and, uh, eroticism. It’s the only way he knows, the only way he’s worthy of receiving it. (Side note: He IS willing to receive/take it now, though - huge step!)

My other interpretation was that CEO guy is a “representative” of Dennis’ health. The guy who plays the CEO is literally the doctor who walks past Dennis in the final sequence, so this tracks. Also, the fact that Dennis presses the man’s hand to his own heart first shows that kind of intrinsic connection/understanding. And, as his health personified, the fact that the CEO is pudgy but ultimately happy and successful—while Dennis is ‘beautiful’ BUT tormented and rage-filled, no matter how hard he tries (even in a fucking delusion/fantasy of his own making)—of course the only thing Dennis can do is fucking rip his heart out and pressurise it into a diamond.

In other words, in his delusion, Dennis himself is personifying his mental health issues/inner turmoil, whereas the CEO is personifying all other aspects of his health and life. There truly is greatness (diamond) within Dennis; he knows this (and this is where Mac comes in… they are inextricably linked, after all.). But the only way Dennis knows how to extract this greatness and love is through rage, fantasy and violence and, uh, eroticism again... All of which are coping strategies, bc he doesn’t actually know how to achieve the greatness he’s striving for—that level of perfection is a fallacy, and he also knows he’s fucking doomed no matter how hard he tries because the problem is in his own mind--an eternal byproduct of his trauma. (the ‘not your fault’ throughout is, again, a huge milestone for him, imo)

The main reason I thought all of this, btw, was the simple fact that CEO guy is wearing a red Hawaiian shirt, a la:

The Gang Solves the Bathroom Problem

Which, incidentally, is also the only time we ever witness Dennis outright call himself a ‘straight man’ (when he clearly, painfully isn’t), playing up to a false persona of his own creation, with his real feelings being completely irrelevant. As long as he is pretending to be the perfect person -- his trauma/shitty life experience has taught him is the only way to be -- that’s the most important thing of all. with that, he is in control. he is god.

Hmm yes. Thank you for reading my essay.

[realbeefman]

sunny should do an episode where the gang descends through the layers of dante’s hell and at first they’re all a little freaked out but it’s still got the sunny background music and they’re joking and getting into situations but as it progresses the mood gets more and more somber and the sets get more disorienting and their experiences more disturbing until eventually we end on ten minutes of dead silence while the gang silently walks down an endless and shadowed staircase that grows progressively darker and darker until the screen is fully black and all we can hear is the shuffling of their footsteps ever further down down down until even that fades into nothing but an unfathomably endless darkness

[weeddennis]

the gang + monsters

[absolutely-not-my-main-blog]

Holes. Keys. What Have You.

I have full analyses I've been wanting to actually do and gather images for over the entire past year, but in the meantime, have this <3.

[sunflowerdigs]

I think Henren would have been much better served by a plot that centered Mara and her thoughts and feelings about being returned home, rather than one that seemed predicated on a manufactured conflict between Hen and Karen that didn't really make much sense, given that Hen has been a firefighter for decades and presumably missed all of Denny's Halloweens as well. A Mara-focused plot seems like the most natural follow up to an episode that pitted Henren against a system that gave Mara's feelings no consideration when deciding her future. Mara's voice was, appropriately, barely heard in 8x04, so it should have been very loud in 8x05 to further contrast her treatment at Ortiz's hands vs at Henren's. This would have also allowed Denny to play a more complex role in the episode, since Mara tends to confide in him when she's not comfortable confiding in Henren (I really, really enjoy their sibling dynamic and think Denny is severely underused given the actor's capabilities).

Frankly, we all knew that Denny wasn't going to die and that knowledge, plus the out-of-the-blue, disconnected nature of Henren's conflict ruined a lot of the pathos of the car crash scene for me. Additionally, lbr, kids don't really care who takes them trick-or-treating, they just care about the costumes and the candy (imo, it was actually very thoughtful and touching of the high school girls to bring their candy to Denny - I had some big issues with Athena's plotline this episode as well). Had Hen missed Thanksgiving or Christmas, Karen's anger would have been a lot more understandable.

Overall, a missed opportunity to conclude the Mara plotline in a thoughtful way, I think.

[dryersheetbear]

do u. understand

[vlueberries]

One sec I need to talk about Shiva.

Lady Shiva was introduced in Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter in the 70s. She was a traveling martial artist hellbent on getting revenge for her sister, who she believed had been killed by Richard Dragon. She lured Dragon into a trap, revealed herself as Carolyn's sister, and tried to fight him to the death. Once she realized that Dragon had nothing to do with it, that Cravat and The Swiss (unimportant villain characters, they killed Carolyn) had been the ones to kill her sister, she helped Dragon defeat the villain (by giving him her shiny belt so he could redirect the beam of a deadly laser that was being pointed at them while they were fighting, don’t even ask) and Richard Dragon and Lady Shiva became allies, friends even. Dragon convinced her it would be a waste to kill Cravat and told her that he had killed the Swiss himself. She accepted this. They shook hands. This all took place over the course of one issue of Richard Dragon: Kung Fu Fighter. It took ONE issue for Shiva to go from antagonist to ally. She then tagged along with Richard because she liked the adventures he got up to, the danger, the challenge, and the thrill of it. Richard even called her later on when he needed help on a different adventure. What I’m saying is she didn’t start out as evil.

Okay, so what do we know about Shiva so far? She’s a thrill-seeking peripatetic martial artist of great capacity and skill. She cared about her sister. She’s willing to kill. She’s an adventurer and a valuable ally. Great. Moving on.

The Question 1987 features THE Lady Shiva. A character capable of both ruthlessness and mercy, cruelty and tenderness. A curious, thrill-seeking, teasing character. She was vicious and nonpartisan and she was working as a mercenary for hire. But she was an ally, even when she was beating the shit out of Vic. She loved the O Sensei. You can tell she even cared about Vic in her way. I’m not saying she had a heart of gold, or that there weren’t tropes she fell into. She wasn’t and there were. But she was a fairly well-rounded, morally gray character that played a key role wherever she showed up. She was closer to a non-traditional anti-hero than anything else. Idfk, just go read The Question.

I read a tvtropes article describing Lady Shiva as “an archetypical Dragon Lady, complete with sinister motivations and exotic sex appeal,” which… she isn’t. She subverted this trope in several ways actually. She never had “sinister motivations” until Chuck Dixon got his grubby little hands on her. Her motivations were pretty neutral. She had her own set of principles, she was very morally gray. She wanted to travel and fight worthy opponents on her adventures for the thrill of it. She seemed to operate mostly on personal whims, and on the basis of building worthy rivals, out of love for the art of combat. And she didn’t use her sex appeal for shit (until the Richard Dragon reboot comic kms), she didn’t tolerate sexual advances or objectification. She just WAS NOT a conniving temptress, I don't understand where this misperception came from (but I do blame Dixon, I’ll get to that in a sec).

This same article states that she began as the arch-nemesis of Richard Dragon? Unless you’re accepting the version of the two of them from the very short lived Richard Dragon 2004 series as their canonical relationship then NO she didn’t. But I digress.

There was a marked change in the way Lady Shiva was written by the time Robin (1991) came out, this is where her character starts to lean towards the Dragon Lady trope imo. She also weirdly, and maybe arguably, leans more into traditional femininity while at the same time being written as more wild and uncontrollable. Chuck Dixon seemed to fundamentally misunderstand Lady Shiva as a character. He turned her (sometimes ironic) disdain for brutes who wouldn’t last a second in a fight with her into stereotypical womanly haughtiness. He turned her capacity for ruthlessness into bloodlust. And he made her into a conniving, somewhat deranged, villainous woman, tempting our young hero towards evil (oh my!). Again, I’m not saying she ever had a heart of gold, but Dixon changed core character traits (namely her respect for other people's personal code) to turn her into a villain.

“Kill him, little bird. Kill him and become a predator��Aren’t you my weapon? My instrument of death? Say you are mine.” Like?? She would not fucking say that, respectfully.

That isn’t even to mention Richard Dragon (2004) where Dixon turned Shiva’s relationship with Dragon into a resentful, sexually charged dick-measuring contest.

Even so, I don’t entirely hate Shiva as a villain, especially in Batgirl (2000). Pucketts Shiva is a bit less egregious imo. So she’s a passively suicidal evil mentor-figure who wants Cass to be a killer like her. Whatever, I can get on board with that I guess. I can enjoy it because I love Cass and this is a great comic run. But the retcon that–Listen, THE RETCON THAT IS SHIVA’S SISTER BEING KILLED BY DAVID CAIN, SHIVA DESCRIBING THIS AS FREEING, SAYING SHE’S GRATEFUL, THEN AGREEING TO GET PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD IN RETURN?? This boils my blood. Shiva, who was introduced as somebody who cared about getting revenge for her dead sister. Shiva, for whom freedom and autonomy were core character traits. That Shiva?? That Shiva is relieved her sister is dead and is willing to carry her sister's killer's child to term?? What the fuck?

I hate it. I don’t understand it. Why would you take a complex character who makes it difficult to tell who she really cares about, and flatten them into somebody incapable of love?

Okay I’m done, this is getting too long and I don’t even want to get started on New 52 era Shiva. I don’t have a conclusion, I’m just annoyed. Thanks for reading. The Question (1987) is NOT a perfect comic but if you’re interested in Shiva please please please check it out, it’s very moody and philosophical, noir-esque. Also Chuck Dixon suck my dick.

[charmac]

The peak of Dennis' fantasy for obtaining control of his body, for obtaining peace of mind, being stealing a man's heart, turning it into a diamond, and consuming it. While Mac, in his fantasy, was trying to pressure cook a diamond into existence

[dennisboobs]

I wanted to dig into the Sunny the 13th promos a little bit, because I think they're a really great subversion of expectations that a lot of people have about Always Sunny and Dennis' character in general.

Looking at the comments on various platforms from around the promos were released, a good number of people seem to have taken the promos as if Dennis has "finally snapped" and is going to kill the gang. He is, after all, wielding an axe, wearing a slasher-esque hockey mask, and appears to be threatening harm in all of the promotional images.

But in the video promos, he's more akin to a ghost than a slasher villain, trying and failing to get the gang's attention, for the seven minute Paramormal Paddy's promo. Several times over the course of the promo, he is actively scared by the things happening in the bar, wheras the rest of the gang barely even acknowledges it.

He's the one being pursued in all of the promos, not the other way around. Pursued by his friends' parents, pursued by the Waitress, pursued by Margaret McPoyle. In Dennis' Double Life, he tries to own up to his behaviour and commits to becoming a father, but in doing so, he is running away from his old life, and it all still follows him.

If listening to the conversations that the gang is having, you can also clearly hear them discussing whether or not Dennis actually killed Maureen. Dennis isn't technically there to defend himself, but the general consensus is that he did (even though Dennis originally denies any involvement, and his name was cleared).

In the production script for The Gang Gets New Wheels, they assume Dennis has killed Mandy and Brian Jr. and that is why he's come back to Philadelphia and decided to raise his son "from a distance". Given the gang's perception of him, and his apparent track record with killing Maureen, this would be a fair assumption, but not once does he raise his axe at them, or even make any move to threaten them at all.

In both the Ponderosa Wedding Massacre and Making Dennis Reynolds a Murderer, Dennis' secrecy and suspicious behaviour stems from not wanting others to know that he had sex with Maureen. I don't believe he killed her, and I don't believe he killed Mandy and their son either. I also don't believe he'd kill the gang. Besides, as we know from Mac is a Serial Killer, axes are too messy.

At the very end of the promo, Dennis walks toward the gang with his axe lowered, and Dee turns around to look at him, implying that they knew he was there the entire time. This aligns with their lack of interest in his absence in The Gang Gets New Wheels.

Throughout the promo, he's seen sitting at the bar alone, in one of the booths, rolling across the floor in the chair from the back office, watching them from afar, staring into the camera. He's bored. He's lonely. He's being left out of the gang's conversations. This can easily be seen as a representation of how he felt in North Dakota.

So of course he's wearing a mask, leaning into their perception of him as a psychotic killer, it's easier than being honest and vulnerable. Better than telling them that he came back because he missed them.

[soranatus]

Transformers: Earthspark, 1x18: Home (2023) Detective Comics, Vol. 1 #457: There is No Hope in Crime Alley! (1976)

Bonus:

[beecass]

just watched the vic vinegar and hugh honey ep and honestly mac and dennis are soooooo couple in it it made me so sad i hope they either adress the fact that dennis doesnt seem comfortable with mac anymore or they bring back this aspect of their relationship

look at dennis he clearly wanted mac so much at this moment if frank had not appeared they wouldve fucked raw then and there

!!!!!!

[weeddennis]

idk if it's intentional but it's fun how in risk e rat's charlie, mac and dee all interact with mascots that match (one of, in charlie's case) their respective animal motifs

[sunnykeysmash]

[bambi-kinos]

I'm going to ask some meaningless questions. Do you think Paul has had sexual relationship with other men? Do you think John was his first male sexual partner? Sometimes I think it could be, because they are best friends. Sometimes I don't think so, because John's control over Paul is too strong, leading Paul to have a strong defensive mindset towards him.

Tl;dr - I do think Paul has hooked up with other men and maybe even dated but I don't think it's anyone that he was publicly friends with.

When it comes to Paul and sex with other men, that's still a black hole making us go "wtf." Technically Paul's first sexual experiences with other men were the group circlejerks and that's actually a very common initiation experience for guys. (All men are spiritually gay. Joking...or am I?) That being said it's pretty safe to say that John was Paul's first one on one experience with another guy. John is the only person Paul trusted enough for that, Paul otherwise does rapid risk assessments and usually (though not always) decides that it's not worth it. Paul does like physical risk and adrenaline but that's more like stuntman stuff. I don't think Paul has sex with other men unless he trusts them absolutely or otherwise has reason to think he won't be harmed by it. That narrows Paul's candidate pool considerably.

I think Paul is really too canny to hook up with anyone he had public ties with. He has a quote floating around where he makes fun of the press because he knew they were looking for a secret flat and a secret mistress hidden away in it and that he was proud of strategizing around that by living with the Ashers for as long as he did. He said that all of his hook ups (with women) were done by going back to the lady's home and doing it there. So he dodged media scandal by simply not having a secret flat with a mistress and a love child hidden away.

I think that Paul would handle his male hook ups the same way. I think that he would be similarly cold and calculating like he is with his female hook ups. He makes sure there is no smoking gun. I find it telling that we only have two real examples of potential datemates for Paul that aren't John: Robert Fraser and Denny Laine. And I believe they're both disqualified based off of what we know about Paul's preferences and his canniness, at least in the context of this specific question.

I don't think that Paul had sex with Robert Fraser because 1) they were friends and 2) Bob was gay. That meant he was the obvious choice for public speculation about Paul having a gay fling. Which meant he was no choice at all in real world terms. That's not to say Paul didn't enjoy manipulating Fraser or that he wasn't willing to dangle the chance at sex in front of him as a carrot to make Fraser do what Paul wanted, but something I've noticed about Groovy Bob is that he was extremely sycophantic and a wet noodle. Paul doesn't respect a suck up. Paul respects people who are good at getting what they want and that wasn't Fraser. He didn't have much in terms of what I would call a backbone, though that doesn't mean he wasn't strong in other ways.

Paul "liked" Robert Fraser the same way Paul "loves" Nancy. Not because he is swept up in some sort of powerful emotion but because Fraser::Nancy are conduits to something Paul needs (that "need" being high society and influence.) And they happily allow Paul to dictate all the terms of their relationship with him. No matter how much of a control freak Paul is, he does not respect people who knuckle under like that. Fraser never stood up to Paul, he allowed Paul to belittle and humiliate him sexually when Paul interrogated him about his sexual experiences at school. Paul took Fraser to Paris with him explicitly to piss John off, a remarkable demonstration of how far Paul was willing to go to use another human being as a game piece in his sex games with John. And Fraser went along with it, demonstrating that he was happy and eager to be controlled and used. And look there's nothing wrong with that if that's your thing but it does indicate to me that he was not trustworthy enough for Paul to have sex with. And Paul is smart enough to know that. Paul likes people with a backbone which is why he put up with Heather Mills for so long. That's not to say that their friendship wasn't genuine or that the quote about "Robert meant freedom" wasn't based in genuine emotion, but Paul always talks about Fraser in materialistic terms. Who Fraser introduced him to, what paintings Fraser got Paul, how useful Fraser was to the Beatles business. Which says a lot about what exactly Paul meant by "freedom."

The other credible candidate that we know of is Denny Laine. It's common speculation that Denny was in a threesome with Paul and Linda which I guess would qualify him as a sexual partner to Paul? But I'm actually hesitant to award that because I don't think a threesome counts as a gay experience due to the presence of Linda. I also think that Paul would not have fucked Denny due to the same reasons he wouldn't have fucked Fraser. If Paul and Denny had sexual contact than Linda was the mitigator and Paul wouldn't have done it one on one. I respect Denny as an artist but he's not someone capable of standing up to Paul, he was permanently on the backfoot because he owed Paul his career. They both knew that and since Denny wasn't willing to give Paul attitude well... Nothing in Paul's character or behavior makes me think he would deign to fuck a sycophant. Which a Denny was, despite his talent and work ethic.

And again there's a big disqualifier that includes both of them: they were men with public ties to Paul, therefore he can't fuck them because that's a liability. Paul has sex with men who take him back to his flat and that he doesn't otherwise know and who don't necessarily care about him.

I don't think there will ever be a satisfactory answer. It's not just John's hold on Paul to consider (though I agree that matters) it's the question of "is Paul willing to fuck or be fucked by a man that isn't John?" And looking at what a control freak Paul is, how wary he is of scandal, it doesn't seem very likely that he'd hook up with other men often if at all. If Paul does have sex with other men then it's in the form of hiring male sex workers and then giving them NDAs that are longer than The Lord of the Rings. And why would he go to all that trouble when he can just have sex with a nice lady, which keeps his reputation intact?

And then there's the question of sexual fidelity and loyalty. I wonder if John was so special to Paul that he doesn't have sex with other men because he feels it would betray John and what they meant to each other. Paul was jealous of John's relationships and I feel safe assuming he hated it when John had sex with other people. So I wonder if Paul would avoid sexual encounters with other men out of loyalty to John and the tattered remains of what they once were.

Personally, I think that Paul does have sex with other men. There's one candidate in particular that I think he was enamored with and would have had a relationship with if things had gone right for once in Paul's life. But the identities of these men will never be known because Paul knows better than to leave evidence behind for anyone to find. And I think it would be infrequent because Paul would feel like he was betraying John and the exclusivity they never had.

I do wonder if Paul and Ringo started having sex in the 1990s but it's not based in anything except that they would be two injured animals comforting each other.

As you can see my answers are all over the place, I've tried to make this come together (lel!!!) into a cohesive whole but it just kind of...refuses. And that's because Paul has done such a good job of keeping this shit locked up tight.

[powerbottomdennis]

Mac using god and people (Luther and then den ) to fill his god hole but also just refusing to understand them at all. Being so close to finally having a relationship but being held back because being understood is the only thing Dennis wants from him. Them developing(?) in the opposite directions with Dennis thinking he knew Mac and reciprocating feelings until season 9 or so, having that facade fall once and for all and now hating Mac (altho it's more complicated than that). Mac now thinking he knows Dennis and idolizing him, possibly having the same results when he finds out that Dennis is infact, not God. Them spiralling around each other forever ough I'm going insane.