Ranking Tonight’s New ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’ Against All the Other Meta Sequel Episodes
Whether it’s a teen drama, a mystery, a political thriller or a weird erotic storyline inexplicably featuring Uncle Jack, tonight’s new episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia isn’t quite as compelling as some good old-fashioned trash-recycling.
After 20 years away from Paddy’s Pub, a couple of former underaged drinkers came back to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia in “Overage Drinking: A National Concern” for a self-referential second installment of the show’s teen-turned-adult-drama storyline. Back in the Season One episode “Underage Drinking: A National Concern,” Dennis and Dee found themselves in the middle of a CW-esque lover’s quarrel between two striking teenagers, Tammy and Trey, as Paddy's Pub's dangerously young clientele prepared for their senior prom — potentially featuring a few super-seniors.
This week, the Always Sunny writers followed up the show’s 2005 foray into the teen drama genre by having the characters search for a new style of story that will keep things fresh and interesting for them after 20 years of episodes. “Overage Drinking: A National Concern” followed in the Always Sunny tradition of doing a part two of a beloved episode that comments on both the past and current state of the show, but, considering the steep competition in the category, we can’t call it the best meta sequel in Always Sunny history. It’s certainly not the worst, though.
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Here is our definitive ranking for Always Sunny meta sequels from worst to best, starting with…
‘The Gang Beats Boggs: Ladies’ Reboot’
As a serious contender for undesirable superlative of “The All-Time Worst Episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” this completely unnecessary, female-focused Season 13 sequel to the all-time classic “The Gang Beats Boggs” is borderline unwatchable, which, I guess, proves the episode’s entire point about cynically “inclusive” Hollywood reboots that slap an all-female cast on an established IP and call it a “feminism win.”
Unfortunately, the “The Gang Beats Boggs: Ladies' Reboot” was every bit as heavy-handed and grating as its targets for mockery.
‘Overage Drinking: A National Concern’
Honestly, tonight’s episode would have been a perfectly fine non-meta sequel episode if the A and B plots weren’t both about finding some new kind of genre for the show to parody, only to come up empty-handed in both storylines. “Overage Drinking: A National Concern” wasn’t a teen drama, or a family drama, or mystery, or, thankfully, an erotic thriller either — nor did it ever need to be any of those things to make the return of Tammy and Trey entertaining.
Still, tonight’s entry did end up turning into something of a teen tragedy by the end, which was darkly hilarious in its own right.
‘The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7’
When Hulu removed the surprisingly high number of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia that featured white actors in Blackface from their streaming catalog in 2020 amidst a tense moment for race relations in America, they complicated both the past and the future of the Lethal Weapon franchise for every public library in Philadelphia. The next year, Rob Mac and his writers would satirize the controversy with the (possibly) final installment of the Lethal Weapon series that showed how the world’s most obtuse filmmakers would handle a little racism scandal — the real-life Riggs should have been taking notes on what not to do.
‘The Gang Recycles Their Trash’
Another victim of the Hulu scrub, this Season Eight masterpiece about the Gang revisiting old schemes and sexually charged calls-to-action was the absolute perfect self-parody about a series that many fans feared was running out of new ideas. Thankfully, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia had plenty more lube left in the tank, and The Gang has since spent another nine seasons pulling up their bootstraps, oiling up a couple of asses and doing a little plowing of their own… not gay sex.
