The premiere of the ninth season is one of the strangest episodes of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. There is a strange tenor to the actions, and until the ending, doesn’t even feel like a Sunny episode. At first, I wondered if the move to FXX caused a decline in quality or a change in production team. Of course, the team of writers/actors that is the gang are as much the operating force behind ASIP as ever.
The cold opening displays Dee at her apparent lowest. She is eating trash cake and smoking ‘like a bird’—her own admission. She clearly doesn’t care about anything at this point. Supposedly to make her feel better, the gang sets her up for an open mic night at a comedy club. Since she doesn’t care anymore, she won’t dry heave, and may actually get some laughs. She does, and these ones I believe are actually real laughs. However, from this moment on, her climb to celebrity stardom is a giant hoax, put on by Charlie, Mac, and Frank. The story is made believable, because the camera chooses to ignore plot holes in order to maintain the suspension of disbelief, a suspension of disbelief that is similarly held by Dennis, who is not in on the prank. His frustration is pushed to the extreme just as Dees limits are.