A few years ago, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia gave us a pretty awesome Christmas special, showing that just because everything about the characters on a show is depraved, that doesn’t mean they can’t bring holiday spirit. But plenty of shows have made Christmas episodes, many with a new one every season. A Thanksgiving episode on the other hand, well far fewer shows have attempted that, and even fewer have made a Thanksgiving episode where none of the characters are thankful for anything at all. Because of that, The Gang Squashes Their Beefs should be a new holiday classic, if for nothing else than the novelty of the concept.
But this episode is far more than something to enjoy because it’s unique. It’s an absolutely hilarious episode, with some of the best moments the show has turned out, providing plenty of reasons to be thankful for It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
The episode starts with the Gang finally acknowledging how many enemies they’ve made over the years. They realize it’s a problem when they can no longer go to multiple places they enjoy since the people who work there hate them. They decide that can’t go on any longer and they have to find a way to squash all the beefs that they’ve built up over the years. The best way to do that? Bring them all to one apartment for a giant Thanksgiving dinner.
The main reason for why this episode is so great is because of all the minor characters that are brought back into the picture. Usually episodes of Sunny are celebrated for bringing one or two of the hilarious minor characters back, but including this many is almost too much. There’s not nearly enough time in a normal-length episode to fit in as many jokes as all these quality characters deserve. I wrote earlier in the season about some of my favorite minor characters of Sunny, and thankfully season 9 has brought plenty of them back into the Gang’s life. While there are still a bunch out there that I’d love to see, with the McPoyles, Gail the Snail, Hwang, Cricket, and that guy they mistook for Bruce all in one episode, it would’ve been almost impossible for this episode to flop.
And flop it does not. In fact, the rest of the episode is as good as the minor characters it involves. The way the Gang goes about seeking to bury the hatchet without ever admitting fault is classic Sunny. They never feel bad about the things they do, they only feel bad that others don’t like them. Instead of apologizing, they simply want to move past everything, which is exactly what should be expected from people like this. The minor characters are written well, as are the main characters, and really my only complaint is that there’s not nearly enough time to properly focus on everyone.