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Friday, November 2, 2012

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: This is definitely the weirdest wedding ever! (My thoughts on episode 8x03 “The Maureen Ponderosa Wedding Massacre”)


Once again I found myself thoroughly enjoying this episode. I don’t think that it was good as the first two episodes, but it was still a great episode. The main thing that bothered me about it episode is the fact that Liam and Ryan McPoyle were in the episode way too much for taste. Liam and Ryan McPoyle, as well as their sister, Margaret, are definitely my least favorite recurring guest-star characters on the show. I’m okay with their characters being on the show, but only in small doses.

One of my favorite things about this episode was Frank and Dee’s interactions with each other as they conspired against Dennis. Much like  “The Gang Recycles Their Trash”, I really loved watching the two of them interact with each other a lot in the episode. I personally thought that the part where Dee was sucking on Frank’s head to get venom, rabies, poison, or whatever you choose to think would have gotten into his bloodstream was absolutely priceless. Also, I have to say that I found Dee’s reactions to Ryan and Liam’s comments about the fact that their family has been strictly incestuous for over a hundred years beyond priceless. I also loved the scene where Frank and Dennis walk in on Ryan and Liam, and at first it looks like Ryan is giving Liam a blow job when in reality Ryan was just on his knees crying and begging Liam for forgiveness. The look on Frank and Dennis’ faces when first walked in on them was beyond priceless. The McPoyle family sure are a creepy bunch, and the fact that they are so creepy is the main reason why they are my least favorite recurring characters. I know that sometimes a character acting creepy on a TV show can be funny, but when it comes to them I don’t really think they are all that funny.

Frankly, I’ve always found the entire McPoyle family extremely creepy to watch, and I always cringe in horror when they are on the show. Honestly, the McPoyle brothers as well as their sister, Margaret really are my least favorite recurring guest-star characters on the show. I don’t hate them, I just think the McPoyle brothers are very overrated characters, and there are other recurring characters that I simply like more such as The Waitress, Artemis and The Lawyer. This episode was obviously meant to be a Halloween episode, but as far as I’m concerned having the McPoyle family in any episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia would automatically make it creepy enough to be a Halloween episode.

I have to say that the cold open for this episode is perhaps one of the best cold openings that an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has ever had. The part where they are running around outside trying to leave the wedding in a panic reminded me a lot of an actual horror movie given the way it was shot with the camera. Plus, I love how the cold open ended with The Gang being in an interrogation room at the police station. Also, I have to say that I thought it was a really nice touch on the crew’s part to use horror movie style music and a different font for the opening credits for the episode to fit the overall horror movie/Halloween episode vibe that the episode had.

This episode really reminded me of why Dennis now ties with Jenny Schecter from The L Word as my all-time favorite fictional character. Dennis’ behavior seemed pretty dialed back for him the first two episodes, but I felt like Dennis kind of reverted back to the level of shallow, narcissistic, self-centered behavior that he had last season, which was very over-the-top. The fact that he pretty much only wanted to make sure that Maureen and Liam went through with getting married, not for the sake of their own happiness, but simply so he wouldn’t have to pay Maureen alimony anymore is proof of that in my mind. I’m not entirely sure why he needed both Maureen and Liam’s signatures on the legal documents that apparently would legally get him off the hook for paying her alimony that he brought with him though. I would think that he would only need Maureen’s signature since they were married to make that legal and official, but I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know how that kind of thing works. Maybe Liam’s signature was needed to verify that he would be able to financially support Maureen once they were married, but I’m not sure.

Anyway, Dennis was unfortunately repeatedly distracted from getting Maureen’s signature. First, it was because he noticed that Maureen had gotten breast implants and in true Dennis Reynolds fashion was upset that Maureen hadn’t been more clear with him when she had apparently told him that she would change for him back when they were married in season six. He apparently didn’t realize that she was willing to change physically. However, he was soon kicked out of the bridal party’s dressing room before he could get her to sign the papers. I personally thought it was hilarious that when Dennis was first staring at Maureen’s breasts, she thought that he was looking at her teeth since she had finally had her dead tooth fixed. It also didn’t have the diamond in it like it did when she showed up at The Gang’s high school reunion last season.

Charlie also had a lot of funny moments in this episode. My favorite was probably when he apparently started quoting a speech from Jaws. I have to confess that I’ve never seen the movie Jaws, so I don’t know what the original scene from the movie is like, but I still thought it was funny. I thought that Charlie Day’s delivery of that speech was priceless. Charlie Day did a great job in this episode as a whole, if you ask me though.

Aside from Maureen, another character that I really enjoyed seeing again in this episode was Bill Ponderosa. It was revealed that Frank is Bill’s A.A. sponsor, which I think is hilarious. The idea of Frank being Bill’s A.A. sponsor, or anyone’s sponsor for that matter is ridiculous given the fact that The Gang has accused him of being alcoholic in the past and yet he’s never stopped drinking at all. I’m glad that Dee told Frank that he’s a bad sponsor after he told Bill that he should drink a beer if he wants to. Fortunately for Bill, it was a dry wedding and in true McPoyle fashion they were only serving milk. I still don’t get what it is with the McPoyles and milk.

As the episode continued, the guests at the wedding started behaving weirder and weirder. Someone had apparently tried to bite Liam’s face off, which made his face look hideous. Since they were only serving milk at the wedding, Mac and Charlie came up with a bizarre theory that the guests had all been bitten and infected by bats like Frank had been and that they had become “bat rabies zombies”, which prompted them to try and flee from the wedding in a panic. However, their attempt to flea from the wedding hit a snag after Charlie crashed Dee’s car because he had apparently forgotten how to drive. The scene where Charlie crashes Dee’s car because he apparently forgot how to drive and Dee tries to attack them when she sees that Charlie crashed her car is definitely another one of my favorite scenes from the episode. However, Mac and Charlie initially thought that Dee attacked them because she had been infected like they thought all the other guests had been. To be honest, I’m not even sure that I’ve ever seen Charlie drive a car and given his illiteracy I’m not sure that he has ever knows how to drive. Plus, it sounds like even Mac and Dennis weren’t sure that he knew how to drive.

Toward the end of the episode, Dee showed up at the police station and told them all that Bill had spiked the milk with bath salts and the guests’ strange behavior was due to the fact that they were all high on bath salts. I thought it was hilarious that Bill spiked the milk with bath salts. He must really have been desperate to get high. Dee also told them that the reason why she had tried to attack them was because she was furious with them for ruining her car, not because she had become some kind of zombie or was high. Personally, I love it when Dee gets mad at the guys because I think Kaitlin Olson plays angry very well.

The episode had an excellent ending for Dennis in my opinion. Maureen came to the police station and bailed him out, which freaked Dennis out. He became even more freaked out after he slept with her and she told him that she loved him and was never going to leave him. I love how Frank pointed out the irony of Dennis being the one to basically sabotage the wedding after he had told them he was worried that they would ruin the wedding. Dennis definitely has a knack for sabotaging himself.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode even though the McPoyle family was heavily featured in this episode, and I’m not really a fan of them. I wouldn’t say that this episode is one of my top favorite episodes of the series, but I still really liked it. The episode had an interesting storytelling structure, and the camera work for when Mac, Charlie and Dennis were running in the woods in a panic both in the cold open and at the end of the episode was excellent. It really felt very true to an actual horror movie. The episode had a lot of funny moments, and the cast all did a great job.

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

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