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Saturday, November 10, 2012

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Is Charlie finally getting over The Waitress? (My thoughts on episode 8x04 “Charlie and Dee Find Love”)

Let me start off by apologizing for not having my review for this episode posted before the new episode aired on Thursday. I had to work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then I got sick on Wednesday night, so I didn’t feel well enough to do very much writing on Wednesday night and on Thursday; that being said, here are my thoughts on the episode.

After I watched this episode for the first time I found myself thinking that this episode was great enough to be considered an instant classic. I also thought that this episode was rather surprising in a lot of ways as well, especially when it comes to the way the episode ended, but I’ll get to my thoughts on the episode’s ending later.

The episode started off Charlie and Dee driving around in Dee’s new car as they followed The Waitress as she delivered Indian food to people on her bike since that’s apparently her new job. Charlie took it upon himself to guard her bike by barking like a dog at a guy who was walking by it after she left it unattended while she was delivering some food to people, which I have to say that I thought was hilarious. The Waitress soon caught Charlie scaring off the guy that he believed was trying to steal her bike. Despite Charlie explaining all of the things that he does to try and make her life easier such as put vitamins in her shampoo so her hair doesn’t fall out, taste testing her food in order to make sure that it wasn’t poisoned and guard her bike to make sure that it doesn’t get stolen, this latest stalking attempt from Charlie was apparently what sent The Waitress over the edge even more so than in the past.

The only difference this time is that this time Charlie actually listened to her. Despite being devastated by The Waitress’ insistence that she wanted him to get out of her life, he admitted to Dee that The Waitress was right about how he shouldn’t follow her around when Dee said that she wanted to follow The Waitress around some more. However, her car was quickly crashed into by a man named Trevor Taft who was with his sister, Ruby, and despite the fact Dee was furious that he had crashed into her car she was instantly smitten with him, while Charlie was instantly smitten with Ruby. Speaking of Dee’s new car, I thought it looked hideous. I haven’t seen too many purple cars, and I have say that purple isn’t a good color for any kind of car.

I have to say that I thought it was hilarious how Dennis and Mac were both trying to make the whole situation about them when it came to Charlie and Dee befriending Ruby and Trevor. Mac adamantly told them not to screw the whole situation up for him when they were telling him, Dennis and Frank that Ruby and Trevor were taking them out to dinner to apologize for hitting Dee’s new car. Mac insisted that Charlie not eat any cheese or any food that’s similar to cheese, and he also told Dee not to drink any alcohol when she and Charlie had dinner with Ruby and Trevor. I have to admit that I’ve always wondered what the deal is with Charlie liking cheese so much. I love cheese too, but Charlie seems to love it even more than I thought was humanly possible.


The whole dinner scene was rather funny, especially when the cart with a bunch of different kinds of cheese was set right by Charlie. Charlie Day did a great job in that scene, because the way he played it made it seem like it was causing Charlie physical pain to not eat the cheese before he finally cracked and started shoving as much cheese as he could grab off the cart into his mouth. Charlie’s behavior prompted Dee to stop resisting the urge to not drink any alcohol and show off her pit stains, which was just weird.

Instead of being scared off Charlie and Dee’s behavior, Ruby and Trevor were actually relieved to see them act the way they did because it made them nothing like their other friends, which they liked and the evening actually took a turn for the better after that. It turned out that Mac and Dennis were watching them from Dennis’ car and were baffled by the fact that Ruby and Trevor appeared to like Charlie and Dee. One thing that I noticed about this scene was when Dee was showing off her pit stains Kaitlin Olson started talking in the same voice that she does when she’s taking on her Martina Martinez alter ego. That was funny.

I have to say that Charlie really surprised me in this episode. I wasn’t expecting him to act as mature and grown up with Ruby as he did, and I wasn’t expecting him to tell her about The Waitress either. I instantly assumed that he wouldn’t tell her about The Waitress and that she would be scared off after she found out about Charlie’s past with The Waitress. The Waitress soon showed up after Charlie had finished telling Ruby about her, and if I didn’t know any better it looked like The Waitress was jealous when she saw Charlie with Ruby. It was especially surprising to see Charlie defend Ruby when The Waitress saw them together and freaked out. As much as I love Charlie’s obsession with The Waitress and all of the comedy that it provides on the show, I have to admit that I liked Charlie and Ruby together, because he acted a lot more mature with her than he typically does.

Once again Dennis constantly cracked me up in this episode, and Glenn Howerton knocked every scene that he was in out of the park. Dennis was convinced that Ruby and Trevor were all playing a game with Charlie and Dee and were planning to humiliate them, which he was convinced would destroy Charlie. In order to try and prove that Ruby was playing mind games with Charlie, Dennis unsuccessfully tried to hit on her, which was hilarious. The Waitress repeatedly called Dennis throughout the episode, which led Dennis to believe that Frank needed to do all of the things that were on Charlie’s list of all the things he does for The Waitress that he had told her about at the beginning of the episode. Although, due to Charlie’s illiteracy it was mostly drawings and horribly misspelled words and because of that Frank was led to the conclusion that Charlie puts rat poison in her shampoo. I personally thought that Charlie’s list/drawings of the things he does for The Waitress was hilarious. It looked like a little kid had written the list and had drawn the pictures. I’m curious to know who actually made that list because it really did look like a little kid made it, but I’m guessing that someone in the props department made it and just made it look like it had been written and drawn by a kid.

In this episode, we learned that in Charlie’s own weird way he does make her life a little bit better. Without Charlie around stalking her, her bike got stolen and her life appeared to spin into complete chaos, which was one of the things that prompted her to call Dennis several times throughout the episode despite the fact that he had changed his cell phone number several times. I really enjoyed Dennis’ interactions with The Waitress when she called him twice in the episode. I especially liked that Dennis initially acted like he didn’t know who it was both times she called him and that he wanted her to just say that it was The Waitress. Personally, I think the writers have done a great job of keeping The Waitress’ name a mystery throughout the show’s run, and I can’t wait to see them reveal what her name is at some point.

I have to say that Dee was just downright weird at times in this episode. I’m not sure what to make of her dry heaving when she and Charlie meet Ruby and Trevor and several more times throughout the episode. If I had to guess, Dee got a little nervous seeing an attractive man, and it was probably an involuntary response to nerves. After all, they showed Dee dry heaving when she was doing her stand-up routines at a nightclub in the past. Regardless, I thought it was hilarious. I thought Dee acted even weirder when The Gang was hanging out with Ruby and Trevor at their place and she was drunk and was dancing very awkwardly. Dee’s behavior in that scene got even weirder when she tried to hump Trevor.

After seeing Mac’s behavior in this episode, it really does make me wonder if the writers are slowly building up to Mac coming out of the closet at the end of the season. He was constantly trying to show Trevor his karate moves throughout the episode. My favorite scene where Mac tried to show Trevor his karate moves was probably the video recording of Mac demonstrating various karate moves on Dee. Although, I have to admit that I did feel bad for Mac when Trevor and his friends were laughing at Mac as they watched the video of Mac. Ruby was definitely right about Trevor in my opinion, he was an asshole.

The whole episode started to reach a climax when The Gang all went to the party that The Taft family was throwing to announce that their father was taking the company public. I have to say that I was really surprised to see Charlie dressed up in very formal attire along with Dennis while Mac and Dee were completely underdressed for the party. If had to have guessed which members of The Gang wouldn’t think to dress in formal attire, I would definitely have guessed Charlie. If I had to guess why Charlie wore a tuxedo to the party, I’m guessing Ruby must have told him that the party was black tie since apparently nobody had told Mac and Dee that. Regardless, I thought Charlie Day looked great in that tuxedo.

Things really started to heat up when Dennis hijacked the event and showed everyone at the party footage of Mac and Trevor apparently wrestling in his bedroom and Trevor giving Mac a stock market tip on buying stocks in his family’s company. The whole cast was great in that scene, but Glenn and Rob were especially good in that scene in my personal opinion. I thought it was hilarious when Mac was awkwardly trying to tell everyone that he and Trevor had been wrestling when the footage of them initially made it look like they were having sex with each other. It was very true to Dennis as a character to very casually admit that he has a camera running filming in his room 24/7, and Charlie, Dee and Mac reaction to him saying that was just priceless and made Dennis’ casual admission to having cameras filming in his room even funnier in my opinion.

Trevor’s dad was furious with Trevor for giving Mac an insider stock tip, but Dennis tried to stir the whole situation up even more when he revealed that he had The Waitress on the phone. Apparently Frank had hit The Waitress with his car, and she was in the hospital. The Waitress told Charlie that she wanted him in her life if it meant all of the horrible things that had happened to her throughout the episode stopped, which prompted Charlie to tell her that he would come to the hospital right away and dump Ruby. I have to say that I was surprised by how harsh Charlie was when he dumped Ruby. I also think it’s really weird that Charlie would rather go be with The Waitress who has for the most part been nothing but mean to him and repeatedly rejected him throughout the show’s run than be with Ruby who actually liked him, but on the other hand I guess the heart wants what it wants, and Charlie wants to be with The Waitress. Charlie claimed that he had only acted the way that he did with her in order to make The Waitress jealous, which I do think worked given her reaction to seeing Charlie with Ruby.

This episode also answered a question that’s been heavily debated on the IMDB message board for the show, which was whether or not Charlie was virgin. Charlie said that he and Ruby had slept together a bunch of times, so he’s clearly not a virgin. I thought that what Charlie said about how a quality woman doesn’t sleep with a guy right away was very revealing in terms of Charlie’s views on women. According to Charlie, a good woman rejects a man’s advances for years before she finally reciprocates his feelings. Personally, I think that this episode showed that Charlie is somewhat old fashioned when it comes to sex, which is why he doesn’t think that a true lady would sleep with a man so soon after she meets him, but I digress.

As I mentioned earlier, the ending of this episode surprised me when it came to how it ended for Charlie. Charlie appears to have made a little bit of progress with The Waitress who seemed to be genuinely grateful to have Charlie taking care of her at the hospital at the end of the episode. She even told him that she would revise the terms of the restraining order she apparently has against him to say that he wasn’t allowed to come within fifty feet of her as opposed to one hundred feet, which the restraining order had previously stated. Although, I have to wonder why The Waitress hasn’t tried to enforce the restraining order by having Charlie get arrested when he has violated it in the past. Anyway, I thought it was nice to see Charlie and The Waitress actually getting along in this episode, but this time she wasn’t being nice to him because she was high on drugs like she was last season in “The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore” when it was revealed at the end of the episode that she had been high on ecstasy the whole night that they were together.

Even when The Waitress is mad or annoyed with Charlie, I’ve always enjoyed watching their scenes together because they are always fun to watch. Plus, the fact that Charlie Day and Mary Elizabeth Ellis are married in real life adds a certain level of humor to their relationship on the show in my opinion. It’s the same thing with Rob McElhenney and Kaitlin Olson’s scenes together. I’ve always thought it was hilarious that the two married couples’ characters on the show don’t get along well with each other.

All in all, this episode truly was It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia at its finest. This episode was overflowing with hilarious moments, especially when it comes to the character Dennis. Once again Glenn Howerton gave an Emmy worthy performance in this episode. However, as much as I loved Dennis in this episode, I also especially loved Charlie in this episode. It was really nice to see Charlie come out on top for once when it comes to his relationship with The Waitress. It was also a real treat to see Alexandra Daddario guest-star in the episode as Ruby. I thought she was great on the TV show White Collar as Neal Caffrey’s girlfriend, Kate, but given the fact that Kate was killed in an explosion, I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’ll never see her again on White Collar, so it was definitely nice to see her on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Based on the first five episodes, I think that season eight has been fantastic so far, and I’m very confident that the rest of season eight will be just as good, if not better.

That being said, I give this episode a rating of an A+.

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