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charmac · 3 months

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Unspoken tension ahead of Charlie Work, a wound left open in Family Fight

The Production Order (the order in which the episodes are written) always seems of some value to me in Sunny, but 10 I find especially substantial. With half of the scripts of the season written by RCG, 4 are back-to-back (with their 5th one, Psycho Pete, being 2nd in order).

The run begins after The Gang Spies like U.S. Going off that into Charlie Work, as opposed to into that off Charlie Work, paints a very different narrative for the timeline.

We leave the reveal that Mac and Dennis are jerking off together into an episode that starts with high tension between Mac and Dennis. Dennis is frustrated that Mac isn't being direct, won't look him in the eyes, he's avoidant, timid. That's interesting, because Mac isn't usually any of those things, he's direct and abrupt and loud. Off 9, fully establishing Mac is gay, juxtaposing his closeted behaviour to Country Mac's openness, 10 focuses hard on the fact that Mac's confidence is continually battered as he refuses to step out of the closet. The Gang is tired of it, but Dennis is frustrated. His words maybe cut even deeper than the scratch, "Come to me like a man. Talk about being tough all the time, can't even look me in the eyes."

We leave CW and go into Family Fight, written right after, also by RCG. This episode has big focus on Dennis' obsession with public perception of himself, and the Gang. Though he can initially handle masking his demeanor, his tone of voice, what he can't mask are his words. He's smiling, he's 'joking', but there's deep truth in what he’s saying. He's frustrated, though his frustration in the moment is intended for Frank, Mac feels it directed at him. There's a fresh wound between them, because Mac fully understands what his feelings for Dennis are now, and that’s irreparably shifted their dynamic.

Misses the Boat is the last RCG-written episode of the season. From Charlie Work, where we’re kinda first faced with the fact that Mac is now overly-concerned with how Dennis perceives him, to Family Fight, where Dennis' masks slip completely and he has a public breakdown, they both veer hard to straighten themselves. Mac, very quite literally, goes straight, and Dennis resolves that he needs to cut ties to get back to being ‘cool’, he’s going to be a cool guy who has a cool car and hangs out with a babe and is cool.

But what we learn in Misses the Boat is that how they think the world views them, or should view them based on how they believe they present, isn’t who they are. They can’t actually function well in these situations. Dennis, untethered, somehow can’t control his rage as well as he can when he *is tethered* to the Gang. Mac, well, he isn’t straight, and he realises pretending to be into women is miserable.

Dennis gives him the offer: Do you want to go back? (To not addressing it, to a standstill.) And Mac quickly, excitedly takes it. Looping back to where they are in Charlie Work, back to where they settle for too long: Mac, absorbed in himself, clawing for approval from Dennis, and Dennis lashing out, tired of telling Mac what to do.

And I think this is why I love 10 more than anything, it finally addresses the issue the audience knows. With Charlie, Dee, and Frank, too. They’re going nowhere, spiraling in circles because they refuse to address the roots of their issues, and Misses the Boat makes them, themselves, fully aware of that fact. They’re miserable together, but they’re worse off alone. And they go into 11 and beyond knowing this, and all kind of resenting each other for it, until 14. Where they acknowledge it again, and decide they’re going to keep playing the game even though it’s set.