If there’s one thing It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia has done better than any other show over the past 8+ years, it’s tackle the political issues of America and the world in an effective way. This is a show where the first episode dealt with racism and homophobia all at once. Basically, they’ve never been afraid to deal with the tough issues, whether it be abortion or politicians blasting you in the ass. While there wasn’t any ass blasting in this episode, they did bring things back to gun control, and discussed it in a hilariously poignant way.
Just after I wrote about minor characters I’d love to see return in season 9, we get two awesome minor characters that weren’t on my list. The first one is Principle McIntyre. You may remember him from Charlie’s brief gig as a high school janitor (“I’ll lather him up real good. I’ll strip all these silly clothes off him. I’m gonna clean him. Sparkling clean. Brand new kid for you.”) Well this time he’s been transferred from the high school to the middle school, which is where Mac and Charlie run into him again. The second is Charlie’s Uncle Jack, the lawyer/pedophile who still isn’t over his insecurities about his tiny hands. Any time Uncle Jack shows up it’s hilarious, and this episode was no different, as he had hoped the camera would add 10 pounds to his hands, and he let that be known on live TV. They also bring back the drug dealer from earlier in the show, but his appearance is very brief again.
The start to this episode is one of the strongest in a long time. Frank is on TV discussing a near-mugging that happened to him. He isn’t sure if the guys were after money or something more sexual, but he knows they were up to no good. Luckily he had two pieces on him (which he pulls out on live TV) and shot at them. He don’t see very well, so the shots didn’t hit, but it did scare the thugs away. Therefore, according to Frank, everyone needs to get down to Gunther’s Guns and buy themselves protection.
The rest of the Gang is watching this on TV, and this gets them heated about the issue, just as they were way back in the wee stages of the show when they first dealt with gun control, except this time they’re all heated on different sides of the issue. Mac and Charlie think everyone needs a gun for protection, while Dennis and Dee think if no one had guns the world would be better off.
The two groups go off on their own quests, with Dennis and Dee trying their best to show how easy it is to buy a dangerous gun. They go to Gunther’s to get an assault rifle, and they spend the whole time talking about how they can kill as many people as they want with it. It turns out they won’t be killing anyone though since Dennis has quite the record, and Dee, uh, well Dee once burned a bitch.
They then take their quest to the gun show, where they come across a dealer (played brilliantly by New Girl‘s Jeff Kober) who offers to sell them the gun for double what Gunther had asked. Dennis doesn’t like this, so he turns the unloaded gun on the private dealer, which isn’t the best idea at a gun show. They then try to buy one on the street, but after giving the money to the man, he just walks away with the money and the gun. Dennis can’t do anything to stop this, because, well, the guy has a gun.