The Always Sunny Gang came roaring out of the gate with last week’s societal commentary on race relations. This week? They’re just the same ol’ a-holes, this time inside a water park.
The Season 12 premiere of Always Sunny was the most musically inclined the Gang has been since Season 4’s “The Nightman Cometh.” It was also FXX’s most-watched original telecast in the history of the network. An amazing accomplishment for a cast and crew that continues to dazzle us with its witty, smart banter, but who can also deliver a plot to make us think.
We can’t quite say the same thing about this week’s episode, “The Gang Goes to a Water Park,” but we enjoyed the ride nonetheless, even if these guys didn’t.
Stuck in the Middle with These Two
It’s 9:58 a.m. on a Saturday in Philadelphia. The Gang is waiting for a water park to open, as all the kids lined up behind them are frantically coughing. This actually has no bearing on the rest of the episode, except to perhaps highlight how gross water parks can feel sometimes. Still, all five are excited. Dee and Mac drive the germophobic point home, saying they want to go on just one ride and soak up the sun for the rest of the day. Mac doesn’t have to pay to get in, since he “triple laminated” his wristband from the 90s, but he does make it a point to tell his friends to avoid putting their butts on the pool drains. He doesn’t want them to enjoy the suction, even though none of them were thinking about that in the first place.
Either way, he and Dee make it to their favorite ride “The Tiddy Twister.” Dee checks that the water is pee-free for the most part (using a handy pool tester), but the ride attendant tells them both they can’t go on. It’s for kids 12 and under. With a “Screw you, nerd!” from Mac, he’s off down the slide, with Dee following right behind him. The apathetic attendant merely mills away, highlighting just how shoddily this water park is run. That fits right into the Sunny world.
And just like the attendant said, Mac gets stuck, his hyper-laminated wristband tangles in the tube. Dee comes smashing down into him, followed by dozens of 12-year-olds. “It’s squeezing me further into the stuck,” says Mac. Each kid can’t hold their bladder for any length of time and tinkle on our heroes, causing Dee’s urine sampler to go “blood red” at one point. They then decide to commission a chubby kid to bite through Mac’s wristband. They hilariously call him “Sherman,” meaning they’ve gotten to know this kid in between scenes. Just another nice little Always Sunny touch for a plot where two characters are stuck in a slide all day.
Sociopath in Training
Sunny has never actually been great with kids. From Season 3’s “Dumpster Baby” to Season 7’s “Frank’s Little Beauties,” children on the show seem to wind up with the short end of the stick. Enter Abigail, a mini female version of Dennis. Being the creep that he is, Dennis begins hitting on a single mom, telling her a sob story about how his wife, “Died horrifically. Yeah. Drowning. Kind of ironic us being at a water park.” Suddenly, a young girl comes up to him and asks her “dad” for $20. This odd encounter is enough for Dennis to abandon his single mom conquest and go chase this young wonder.
No, he doesn’t perv on her. Instead, he finds her trying to steal a pair of sunglasses, and tells the security guard reprimanding her that he’s her father. As they walk out, Dennis says she’s got real talent as a thief, but asks if she wants to be that, “or an artist?” Thus begins the start of an odd dynamic friendship, where he starts instilling his creepy manipulation techniques on her. They roam around the park, stealing and bilking people out of all their valuables before putting everything in a water park locker.
But Dennis may have taught his young protege too well. As Chandler Bing would say, “The messers become the messies,” and Abigail makes off with all of her and Dennis’ loot. The line of the night that’s kind of a throwback to the Season 10 episode “The Gang Spies Like U.S” :”If you were born in China, you’d be the head of some factory right now. Or they would have thrown you in a river because you’re not a boy.” Ouch.
Water Slide Winning
Frank and Charlie just have one goal: Go on every single ride before the day’s up. Unfortunately, their first stop finds them in a log jam of a line, and they know at that rate they’ll never get it done. When a child with Leukemia is fast-tracked to the front of the line, Frank decides to deploy a similar tactic.
Smashcut to Frank screaming “AIDS! I’ve got AIDS!” as he and Charlie walk to the front of the line. And since no one at this water park gives any sort of toss, they end up hitting every single ride “from the north down,” even one that they needed a raft to enjoy. To add insult to an offensive joke, Charlie gives Frank hickies (off screen) in order to simulate the ‘AIDS lesion’ effect. My goodness.
After hitting every single ride, they discover a gigantic slide that isn’t even on the map yet. An employee says it’s called the “Thunder Gun Express” (amazing callback) but it won’t be open for some time. Both don’t care. They’re going up there to “raw dog the sh*t out of it.” In the Always Sunny crapsack world, the employee doesn’t even bother stopping the duo. Their fantasy comes to fruition (with the help of a water bottle) in exactly the way you’d expect.
So what have we learned?
Zilch. We knew the Gang is not above exploiting diseases or horrific happenings in order to get their way, so why should they stop now? Their awfulness continues to grow with each passing season but we won’t ever tire of it.
There’s a lovely little moment of acknowledgement of the Gang’s situational depravity, when Frank and Charlie cross paths with Dennis and Abigail. “You doing an AIDS thing?” Dennis asks. “Yeah. You doing a fake daughter thing?” Charlie answers back. They’re aware of each other’s moral compass, and they just don’t care.
To put a gross cap on a gross episode, Frank burns his back as he ‘raw-dogs’ it down the slide. He lands in the pool, screaming and bloodied. “That guy has AIDS!” one panicked kid shrieks as everyone leaps out of the pool. The apathetic lifeguard simply blows his whistle and says, “AIDS. Everyone out,” which I think is a reference to this ancient Anonymous internet meme. Maybe, but maybe not. Either way, Mac find something positive to end on, by swimming past a pool jet he cautioned everyone else to stay away from. He sits on it, enjoying the suction as the episode ends on his sh*t-eating grin.
Next: The Truth May Still Be Out There: New X-Files Coming Soon?
Next Wednesday, Episode 3 airs at 10/9c on FXX, and this one’s called “Old Lady House: A Situation Comedy.” By the sound of it, it could be another self-aware meta parody featuring the Gang. We’ll be sure to settle onto the pool jets to give you another recap.