It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: "The Gang Squashes Their Beefs"

Like last week’s episode, this week’s season finale “The Gang Squashes Their Beefs” seeks to reward longtime viewers by revisiting old favorites. After Mac and Dennis discover that Liam and Ryan McPoyle are running the last video store in Philly, the only place they can get their hands on the long-awaited unrated director’s cut of Thunder Gun Express, (including, according to Dennis, “four extra seconds dedicated solely to the dong shot”), they’re taken aback that the McPoyles still hold a grudge against them. You know, for breaking up Liam’s wedding to Maureen Ponderosa, thus costing Liam his bride and an eyeball. Heading back to Paddy’s, the guys further discover that Dee’s brought them gasoline-smelling gas station sandwiches, since their much-abused cousin Gail the Snail now works at their preferred hoagie place. And she’s still holding a grudge because young Dee and Dennis used to throw her in the dryer. Also: the Gang rejected her grubby friendship after her father’s funeral. Surveying all of the collateral damage they’ve caused over the years, they all realize, as Dennis puts it, “We’ve got too many beefs all over town, and it’s jamming us up.” So with Thanksgiving around the corner, he says it’s time “to squash some of those beefs.”

It’s a fine setup for an episode full of references to past episodes, recurring jokes, and guest stars. “The Gang Squashes Their Beefs” is a season finale to delight diehard fans and give some beloved recurring characters another turn in the spotlight, as the Gang invites a good many (but by no means all) of their victims to Dennis and Mac’s place for some food and holiday beef-squashing. So why is the resulting episode so underwhelming?

Well, for one, most of the callbacks are to some of the show’s weakest episodes. “Thunder Gun Express” is one of my least favorite shows in Sunny history, a needlessly scabrous and clumsy Seinfeld imitation. I respect Mary Lynn Rajskub’s fearlessly schlubby grossness as Gail the Snail, but her one appearance doesn’t mark her as a particularly memorable or formidable adversary/victim. And was anyone hoping for more Bill Ponderosa? (The whole “Dennis Gets Divorced” arc was a weak beginning to season six.) Throw in Charlie and Frank’s dour landlord Hwang (who won’t fix their heat until Frank pays the rent), and that poor bastard whose car the Gang inadvertently destroyed in “The Gang Solves The Gas Crisis” (invited after, again, they mix him up with Dennis and Dee’s birth father), and that’s an underwhelming guest (star) list. At least the McPoyles are there, with Liam now sporting an eye drawn on his flesh-colored eyepatch, making it look as if a terrifying cartoon version of Liam is trying to emerge into this reality. But even their reliably unpredictable madness seems uncharacteristically subdued. From the multitudes of Philadelphians the Gang has wronged in nine years, these are the best to invite to a Thanksgiving beef-squash?

In addition, the script (credited to Rob Rosell) gives these largely forgettable returning characters an equally lackluster script to work with. Nate Mooney and Jimmi Simpson, as usual, make the McPoyles unnervingly watchable, whether underplaying in the scene where Dennis and Mac attempt to get them to sign Dennis’ peace treaty, or finally going insane and taking the predictable Thanksgiving food fight to the next level, hurling a hatchet into poor Rickety Cricket’s arm. (He wasn’t invited, but David Hornsby’s amiable victimhood as Cricket is always welcome as well.) For a season finale, and one loaded with returning characters and in-jokes as this is, the episode is startlingly lacking in memorable lines, relying on viewers’ recognition of old jokes as new jokes. (See: “She’s mashing it,” “jabroni”). The episode is both trying too hard and not hard enough, overloading its running time with would-be crowd pleasing references but failing to appropriately build comic momentum.