"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad (2006)

Director:

Daniel Attias

Writers:

Rob McElhenney (developer) and
Glenn Howerton (developer) ...

TV Series:

"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (2005)

Original Air Date:

17 August 2006 (Season 2, Episode 10)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

When Dennis and Dee discover their mother has lied to them about Frank being their dad, they get to know their real father. Meanwhile, Mac and Charlie attempt to impress Mac's imprisoned father by becoming hardened criminals. |

Plot Keywords:

Internet | Singing | Lifting Weights | Incest | Clown

Cast

  (Episode Credited cast)

Charlie Day	...	Charlie Kelly
Glenn Howerton	...	Dennis Reynolds
Rob McElhenney	...	Mac
Kaitlin Olson	...	Dee Reynolds
Danny DeVito	...	Frank Reynolds
Anne Archer	...	Barbara Reynolds
Stephen Collins	...	Bruce
Lynne Marie Stewart	...	Charlie's Mom
Gregory Scott Cummins	...	Bill
Matthew J. Evans	...	Boy in ICU

Series Cast

These people are regular cast members. Were they in this episode?

Shaun Paul Costello

...

Dude

Runtime:

24 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Bluebush Productions

Trivia:

The red headed band member playing guitar is Jon Walmsley (Jason Walton from The Waltons), who was also was on an episode of "7th Heaven" (1996) as a band member with Stephen Collins.

Quotes:

Mac: Charlie, this is our opportunity to prove to people that we are to be respected. No one is more respected than dudes in prison right?
Charlie Kelly: Yeah.
Mac: And what are dudes in prison?
Charlie Kelly: Hard?
Mac: Right; this is our chance to get hard.
Charlie Kelly: OK OK i just don't know if this is the best way to get hard.
Mac: Of course it is, this is totally hard. Look you want to get hard don't you?
Charlie Kelly: I want to get hard. I want to get very very hard.
Mac: Alright, do you want to shove heroin into your ass?
Charlie Kelly: Dude I don't want to shove anything in my ass.
[...]

Movie Connections:

References Patch Adams (1998)

A fitting closure to Season Two

Season finales - especially those for comedies - are often cursed with having to tie up loose ends in the narrative, resulting in a noticeable shift in humor. However, although not quite as outrageously funny as some of the earlier episodes in the season, "Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad" was a lot funnier than I had expected. It manages to come full circle while still providing plenty of laughs, and it even provides an amusing twist at the end that I never saw coming.

The plot is a return to the more complex - after some rather straightforward episodes, this one is all over the map. It begins with Dee finding a man on MySpace.com who claims to be her real father. So Dee and Dennis ask their mother whether there's any truth to this - and she confirms that the man is being honest.

This causes Frank, who thought Dee and Dennis were his children, to question his entire life. He is so upset that he has a minor stroke and ends up swearing to seek revenge against the biological father of Dee and Dennis.

Meanwhile, Dennis and Dee meet up with their real father, who is played by Stephen Collins in a nice send-up of the role he is famous for in "7th Heaven." Dennis and Dee love their new father for a while, but soon his incredibly clean image and "nice guy" vibe starts to get on their nerves. And in the meantime, Mac and Charlie are lured into running heroin for Mac's father, who has been in jail for Mac's entire life. But before they can do this, they have to prove they are tough, so they tell Frank that they will beat up Dennis and Dee's father to earn themselves "street cred." The twist at the end is hilarious and a classic example of this show's sick sense of humor. To be honest I thought Charlie and Mac were kind of pushed aside for much of the duration of the episode, and usually the show is better at balancing multiple story lines, but in this case I think they just had a hard time fitting so much plot into one episode. Perhaps F/X should have granted them a one-hour time slot for the finale - the Charlie/Mac subplot could have been expanded a bit more, because I thought it was hilarious and this was the first time I really felt as if they didn't spend enough time on Charlie - who is usually a main character in every episode.

Regardless, considering they only had about 24 minutes the "Sunny" gang really did pull off an excellent finale here - it was funny, clever, brutal and entertaining. It leaves you hanging with its open ending, and I honestly can't wait for Season Three to begin.