Sunny capped what's been a terrific season with the natural climax of Dee giving birth, an episode that threatened to maybe get a little too gooey at the end and then pulled back masterfully, not turning the whole think into a twisted joke but letting the gang realize the limit of their powers and for once not be mad about it. I'm sure there'll be fans out there who think Rob McElhenny has gone a little soft in marrying and knocking up Kaitlin Olson and producing a child (Axel), and some of this season's episodes have felt less dark, maybe. But we still have Rickety Cricket lighting up a crack pipe in a hospital waiting room and Dee being revealed as a manipulative mastermind who makes men with low self-esteem have sex with her. So I'm happy to have a nice little photo of Axel the baby at the end of the episode, as long as there are bridge people in Sunny's future.
I actually wasn't anticipating this episode that much, because I was worried that the guys waiting in the hospital/the guys trying to figure out who the baby daddy is was a very generic way to wrap up the season. I shouldn't have worried and remembered who we were dealing with here. Dee's utter irresponsibility was a great plot engine to get the guys actively interested in her pregnancy again, after they initially stopped caring when they realized one of them wasn't the father. But Dee is being so ridiculous (standing on wheelie stools to use the hospital TV, ducking out to get a sandwich) that Dennis, who is stuck with her, is compelled to make a modicum of effort so that she doesn't die. "God, what an irritating thing babies are!" he whines.
But soon enough Dennis is impressing himself with his parental acumen. He stops Dee from harming herself, he removes a presumed-dead guy from her room in a Weekend at Bernie's gambit, and he banishes a nurse (played by Cleo King, who plays this role in so many shows) by invoking the hammer of Thor. "And I never reference the Nordic gods!" he excitedly tells everyone later. Dennis' parental qualities are really just slightly softened versions of his natural arrogance, and his jape with the presumed-dead guy shows off his ability to gloss over a horrifying situation, this time by putting sunglasses on the dude. "Without the sunglasses, Weekend at Bernie's would have been a very dark, strange tale," he notes.
Meanwhile, by virtue of where they stood when they made the decision, Charlie, Mac, and Frank summon Dee's many past loves, from the Korean busboy to Bill the coke-snorting sex addict to Ben the sensitive soldier to Rickety Cricket, whom Frank deems "a wild card." Frank, who shows the least interest in Dee's situation despite her being his daughter, mainly uses the event as an excuse to invite his bridge friends over, so we get the delightful return of Dennis Cutty, I mean Chad Coleman, who likes Ben's jean shorts. He had a pair, but he kept wearing them and "blew out the crotch," so he insists that Ben "gotta take em off, SON!"