It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005 - Present): Review By ROFLitschristian

It's down to the final four episodes of Sunny's seventh season and these past few episodes have not gotten me too thrilled about a finale. The season started off so strong, blowing Season 6 out of the water in so little time. They hit one speed bump, expected in all shows, but every since that speed bump only two episodes have really been sunny.

I was so excited about finally being able to see why Mac has gained so much weight since this season has only brought up the topic once or twice and in the past few episodes Mac's been short on screen time, however, "How Mac Got Fat" really didn't do much to this story line.

In "How Mac Got Fat," Mac has set off to a church confessional to forgive his friends for making him gain so much weight. Sounds funny, right? Sounds Sunny? The only time I can recall an episode of Sunny being told through a story is "The World Series Defense" from Season 5 which was a staggering episode to me. A home-run if you will. I was not opposed to this setting because that last episode hit it out of the park... wow I keep making really terrible puns. My apologies. But what differentiates this episode from "The World Series Defense" is that in the Wolde Series episode they used the area around them to help add to the humor. In "How Mac Got Fat" the only essence of humor in the modern time with Mac and the priest was Mac eating doughnuts. There's not much you can do with a setting like that but it really slows the episode down.

As for the rest of the episode, according to Mac the Gang has become hugely successful. They start to become so enriched with their "popularity" that it ultimately leads to Mac's weight gain. Throughout the episode Charlie, Dee, Dennis, and Frank were doing such random things nothing felt like it belonged together. Everything just sort of came out of the blue and none of the story lines every melted together smoothly enough. It was, "Frank and Charlie do this, Dee does this, Dennis does this, episode's over." Everything they did does relate to the characters themselves - Dennis far too conceited with his looks, Dee thinking she's Comedy God - but they all just seemed like fillers to get to the point.

The ending itself had me laughing but again it just felt like it was put in there to pass the time. And when we finally get to the whole point of the episode, it comes and goes in a total of about 8 minutes. We see why Mac accidentally got fat, and how the Gang finally reacts to it. The end. Everything was jumbled and unsatisfying.

Now Mac is one of my favorite characters. And seeing him finally get an episode of his own was great. But he seemed to be the only character on his game, other than Charlie. Dennis stayed in his comfort circle and his part turned out ay-okay. Dee however was not clicking for me. I cannot remember a single funny thing she said tonight which is a realy disappointment for me as she is my favorite of the Gang.

Charlie and Mac though stood above the other three. Charlie's slow breakdown had that Sunny feel. It really goes back to Seasons 1 and 2 where he was more in charge of his life and contributed more seriousness to the Gang while still retaining his comedic value. Mac, as the main fatty of the episode, also moved smoothly across the episode. He had some slight bumps but never had me bored.

But one last thing, where was Frank?! He shows up at the beginning, mentions the meatbomb, which we'll get more into in a second, does one minor act, than disappears until the end...

As far as directing goes, I was and was not impressed. I commend the episode on using scenes shot from last year's unaired episode IP06004. If you recal, shots in the Season 6 trailer were no where to be found in the season itself, specifically speaking of the meatbomb and why Mac will never go to Africa. The episode includes both these shots... well sort of.

The meatbomb is idealized by Frank but that's about it. From the Season 6 trailer we all know that the meatbomb did infact happen, however it seems now like we won't really get to experience it. This episode makes me wonder what the actualy unaired episode for Season 6 would've been like.

All in all "How Mac Got Fat" is the unaired Season 6 episode with Season 7 injections. I commend them for using this episode and fusing it in with the current season rather than toss it away, but the finished product wasn't all there. Maybe this is why the episode was all confused in itself. Had the episode been molded more carefully it could've made something better than what was presented, but that's not such an easy job. It waslike trying to put a rectangle in the cirlce spot in one of those baby shape things. But in the end it was a great idea to not only comepletely finish Season 6 but to extened Season 7 one episode farther. The only nit-pick I have about it is that it felt like something just to shut us up about Mac's weight so we can move on from it.

Overall, "How Mac Got Fat" isn't the best episode of Sunny from a regular audiences' standpoint. If you dig down deep enough into the episode you'll like it because of how Sunny made it and not for what was actually made. I surely would've liked to see the meatbomb but the ending surely made up for that. It's not for the faint of heart but it's enough to keep me wanting more.