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eemoo1o-sunnyoo · 11 months

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E.A.R.: Season One Round-up

⚠️ Please note that this season includes the episode “Charlie Got Molested”, in which several sensitive terms are used, as per the title. Discretion is advised.

So now I have finally finished S1 of It’s Always Sunny, I am here to present you with my notes from the season. The majority is of Dennis and his actions, with some additional notes on Mac as well.

Keep is mind I intend on keeping these round-ups brief, and as such I may not share all of my notes, simply the consensus of them. And with that, we have:

“The Gang Gets Racist” (1x01):

Dennis is weirded out by Terrell looking him up and down.

Dennis naturally attracts gay men when the pub becomes a gay bar. It’s assumed that Dennis gets the most tips during this time.

◦As such he then embraces the attraction. This could be seen as him valuing money despite his wealthy background (perhaps a season one-exclusive ideology), perhaps in excess, and — as Dee even points out — vanity.

Mac tricks Dennis into getting blackout drunk but pretending to being unable to follow directions over a tequila-and-lime salt lick.

◦This shows their closeness and manipulative undertones early on.

◦This also shows how Dennis perceives Mac as dumb, whilst Mac was able to trick him.

It’s at first inferred that actor friends of Dee’s are used to trick Dennis into believing that he had sex with them (actually, them with him, while he was absurdly inebriated). It later turns out that the actors couldn’t make it, and that this actually happened.

“Charlie Wants an Abortion” (1x02):

Dennis goes with Charlie to his supposed son’s house. He tries to support him, somewhat.

Then, the mother of Charlie’s “son” then asks if the two are “together”.

◦This, like natural Dennis’ attraction of gay men, could later foreshadow his close relationship to Mac and Mac’s crush on him.

◆ While Mac’s “thing” used to be remarks about his “questionable sexuality”, Dennis’ could have been incorrect assumptions about him and Mac/Charlie.

◦Additionally, the prostitute at the blood testing clinic also assumes that Charlie is Dennis’ boyfriend in the next scene.

◆ When he then denies the prostitute who later offers to blow him for ten dollars, he then insults her to Tommy when she can still hear him.

When Charlie advises Dennis not to engage with Tommy as he had just done, Dennis disregards the advice and proceeds to engage him anyway. This shows social ignorance and hardheadedness.

When Mac later reports that pro-life chicks are “dirty/freaky”, and Dennis is convinced to attend a rally with him, Dee asks him if he’s “really going to throw away all of [his] convictions for a chance to get laid”, to which Dennis replies, languidly, “I don’t really have any convictions.”

◦This appears to be the first suggestive highlight of Dennis’ detachment to social and political views.

Dennis thinks that it is appropriate to hit on women at (the pro-choice side of) an abortion rally. After a failed attempt he retries. This seems to be the start of Dennis’ inappropriate behaviour, particularly towards women, during the series.

◦After two women reject him, he approaches Dee and claims that he thinks that all the women there are gay.

◦He then promptly switches sides.

“Underage Drinking: A National Concern” (1x03):

Dennis is the first to ask why weren’t they carding (asking for IDs). The rest of The Gang says that it isn’t their job, to which Dennis replies, “It’s everyone’s job!”. This could raise the question as to why Dennis wasn’t carding himself.

In this episode, we see the first instance of what we will later discover to be Dennis’ false recollection of his middle/high school popularity.

◦Mac and Charlie then point out that the only reason Dennis ever had a girlfriend in school was because he always went after freshman, because he’s “always had a creepy thing for younger girls”, which Dennis contests.

◆ This demonstrates his need for control for the first time in the series. This need for control presumably comes from his molestation by the high school librarian.

Dennis is then later easily seduced (this does not lead to sex) by Tammy. This is presumably the first time in the series, beyond Maureen Ponderosa, where Dennis has been the one seduced/pursued.

After getting the go-ahead from Mac and Charlie, Dennis immediately embraces Tammy’s advances. This could suggest that the only thing on Dennis’ conscience over begging with Tammy was his friends’ ridicule, and not her status as a high schooler.

“Charlie Has Cancer” (1x04):

In the opening of the episode, Charlie says that he’s been crying. Dennis replies with an awkward laugh, “Oh, I’m sorry,” but it’s obviously insincere.

◦Even after acknowledging that Charlie has been crying, he then goes, “Oh, and I thought my place looked like shit,” when stepping into his apartment. This demonstrates an emotional detachment as he’s set on getting the basketball that he’d come for.

Dennis’ immediate reaction to Charlie informing him that he may have cancer is “W-What?”, but then as Charlie starts to talk about it, he asks, “Did you want to talk about it, right now?” which shows that he is relatively uninterested. This could suggest that his initial shock was due to being taken by surprise, and not out of empathy or sympathy. After some back and forth, the two stand in awkward silence.

In the next scene, Dennis then lies to Dee and Mac that he Charlie “cried together and [he] held him for a while”.

Mac and Dennis then concoct a plan to cheer Charlie up by finding him a woman to look after him. When Dee declines to help, Dennis calls her a “pain in the ass”.

In an effort to put his plan into motion, Dennis exploits Charlie’s sickness by referring to him as “sick and injured” with no remorse. This shows that the plan is to make Dennis and possibly Mac feel better, under the guise of it being Charlie.

To get Dee in on the plan, Dennis promises that she can punch Mac in the face. He makes this promise with seemingly no remorse.

◦Additionally, he sided with Mac for punching his sister during the Christmas party.

Dennis quickly discards his plan to help Charlie for what he believes to be “a hot new waitress”. This shows that most of his morals are like paper, and that he thinks of himself first and foremost.

Dennis shames Mac for planning on going out with Carmen.

When Mac voices his plan to tell the Waitress that Charlie has cancer, Dennis vetos it immediately. When asked what he would rather do, Dennis hesitates before the scene cuts and he is doing what is essentially Mac’s plan, but moderately softer, perhaps more flirtatiously. This results in him getting with the Waitress despite him knowing that Charlie has a crush on her.

◦After this, even when Mac points out that Charlie has liked her for months, Dennis hardly shows much remorse.

When Dee asks for help carrying a keg, Dennis declines with an easy lie without even sparing a glance.

Dennis’ reaction to Charlie telling him that he doesn’t have cancer is very similar to when he was told that he had it.

◦He then gets angry at Charlie for lying (which he then admits that he was). This shows that, like any other person would, Dennis feels betrayed at being lied to, feeding into the “I have feelings” speech from “The Gang Tends Bar”.

“Gun Fever” (1x05):

The episode opens with Mac making fun of Dennis’ health drink, asking if it will help erase the damage he caused to his liver the night prior. Dennis digs back with if Mac’s coffee will help him forget the whale he slept with the night prior.

◦This remark could come across as unjustified.

◦This also feeds into Dennis’ view on women, calling the “whale” gross and even suggesting that she had diseases that might have spread to Mac.

Mac says that if Dennis lowered his standards “a little bit”, then maybe he would get laid more.

Mac and Dennis find that Dee “has the worst taste in men” when Colin makes his first appearance. Dennis even calls him an “80s stereotype”.

When Charlie mentions that last week, Colin had his hands down the back of Wendy’s (a bartender from another bar) jeans, which Dennis replies with “Gross.”

◦Perhaps this could suggest that Dennis is disgusted by PDA.

Dennis finds it gross when Mac makes a remark about Dee potentially sleeping with Colin.

◦It is at this point that Dennis works out that Colin is the safe thief.

It’s actually Dennis who intends on reprimanding Colin outright as opposed to Mac. Dennis then goes along with Mac’s plan to “trick” Colin.

Dennis is the one to shoot Charlie when he steals money from the register. He is clearly apprehensive to use the gun, as he runs forwards and shoots with his eyes closed.

Dennis is reluctant to drive Charlie to the hospital as he “doesn’t want bloodstains all over the interior” (of his car). He then ‘compromises’ by suggesting that they put a trash bag over him.

“The Gang Finds a Dead Guy” (1x06):

The first line of the episode from Dennis is his first thought over the dead man: a sarcastic, “Well this ought to do wonders for business.”

◦He is also more concerned about the mess than the death, as is the rest of The Gang.

Dennis is the first to jump in to stop Charlie’s power-washing method with facts about spreading germs. This could show that he is built to be the most logical out of the group.

Mac and Dennis fight over who owns the pub when Rebecca (a conventionally cute girl) asks for the owner to discover where her grandfather had spent his last night.

Mac starts talking about her grandfather, and she asks if he knew him, to which Mac starts to disagree, but Dennis jumps in, easily, with a “I knew him pretty well,” so that her focus may be on him. He also says before she leaves that he has some “pretty incredible stories about [her] grandfather that [she] will just not believe”.

When Dee seems concerned over the death of the girl’s grandfather, saying it reminds her of her and Dennis’ own grandfather, Dennis shuts her down, saying that Pop-pop is an asshole and that he bets Rebecca’s grandfather is too, and that “People don’t just abandon their parents for no good reason.”

◦Charlie passively disputes this.

◦Later, Dee asks Charlie to visit their grandfather with her because Dennis won’t go.

When Rebecca comes in to find the two bickering, and asks if it’s a bad time, Dennis immediately swoops in with a lie, saying, “We were just talking about your grandfather. Emotions are running very high here today. (…) I try not to think about me, in these circumstances, though. How are you?”

When Rebecca asks for a favour from Mac and Dennis (putting together a memorial service), Mac is the first to jump in. Dennis doesn’t answer until Mac says that it may be difficult (to find people who knew her grandfather well), to which Dennis jumps straight in saying that he knew many of his friends, saying, “It’s not gonna be hard for [me].”

Dennis’ plan for this is to go to the homeless shelter and pay some men to attend the funeral. Even Mac says that it’s shady. Dennis replies with, “If you wanna back out now, go ahead. I’d be happy to take all the credit for this,” to which Mac refuses despite his convictions with the scheme.

◦In addition to this, Dennis is the one to ask an encroaching homeless man if he’d like to make twenty bucks. When the man agrees, he then asks if he has any nicer clothes. There is an awkward amount of time before he and possibly Mac realise what he had just asked.

◦Later, Dennis (and Mac) take five homeless men to Rebecca’s grandfather’s memorial, under the pretence that they were close friends of his.

Rebecca asks Dennis and Mac to give a speech, to which Dennis says that he has something prepared, shocking Mac (proving his previous statement a few scenes ago about being one step ahead), and then going even further to embarrass/foil Mac by saying that he’s a terrible public speaker.

◦He also goes into additional detail about this and ends the list of embarrassing symptoms with, “His third grade stutter comes back, it’s adorable.”

When Mac asks to borrow Dennis’ car to go to Charlie’s “emergency”, Dennis says, “You can’t, you’ve been drinking.” After Mac leaves with a grunt of frustration, Dennis then turns to Rebecca and tells her that Mac “has a bit of a drinking problem”, proving that he can so easily throw his friend under the bus.

◦This is also proven to be ironic later in the series.

Dennis then lies his way through his speech quite naturally, using some clichés like “He was a bit of a curmudgeon, but he had a heart of a lion.”

◦Dennis also throws in an anecdote about Lionel (Keane) wanting to give and so he persuades him and himself to go down to the mission where they “fed every last poor, miserable, precious soul, but [also] washed the feet of every man, woman, and child there in the spirit of Christ”.

◦He finishes the whole speech with a wink to an honoured Rebecca.

Dennis then goes back to the bar where he finds Charlie and Dennis burning the nazi uniform (paraphernalia unbeknownst to him) and then asks Mac if he’d like to know about that girl. Mac declines repeatedly but Dennis continues to taunt and egg him until Mac admits defeat and gives up. Dennis says that he doesn’t get to give up as they went “head to head” and that “he won fair and square”. He then proceeds to explain at an aggravating pace about how he and the girl went home and “sweet, passionate love”.

◦Then, Mac hands Dennis the photo of young Pop-pop and tells him that his grandfather’s a nazi, breaking Dennis’ spirit upon finding out that the picture looks like him.

“Charlie Got Molested” (1x07):

Upon discovering the newspaper headlines about Mac and Charlie’s former P.E. teacher, Dennis (and Dee) show concern, even calling it “awful”. When Charlie leaves in a rush, Dennis concludes that he, too, was molested by the teacher.

◦This immediate accusation is popularly surmised to be a byproduct of Dennis’ own molestation in middle school by the librarian Mrs. Klinsky at 14. (“Takes one to know one”).

Dennis tells Dee that the first step to dealing with molestation is understanding. Dee disputes that it’s acknowledgement, meaning that some of the things that Dennis may say in confidence aren’t always true or can be disputed, especially in the region of psychology.

Dennis mocks Dee’s idea of giving Charlie an intervention and inviting his whole family to it.

Dennis shows dismay/disgust at Mac focussing on whether or not the abused kids were “blown”.

After Mac rushes off to his bedroom due to the prior point, Dennis and Dee follow him, though Dennis is the one in the lead, and the first to ask if he’s okay.

When Mac is upset over “not getting blown”, Dennis says, after some silence, “You’re goin’ to hell, dude.”

◦Perhaps this aligns with the theory of Dennis assigning his own trauma/molestation onto the situation?

Dennis and Dee follow Charlie to the McPoyle’s apartment, which demonstrates a lack of boundaries in the group (as we know).

Surprisingly, it’s Dee who wants to “drag [Charlie] back to the bar and tell him that they know he got molested” whereas Dennis wishes to take the softer approach and “ease him into it”.

◦THIS IS IMPORTANT. Perhaps this is the tactic that Dennis would like to be used on himself?

Dee says to Dennis, “You have no room to talk, all the girls you’ve molested-” which Dennis stops her and says, “Woah, woah, don’t start throwing that word around like it’s meaningless, okay? This is serious.”

◦The fact that Dennis adds, “This is serious,” could infer that he doesn’t take such a claim seriously unless it was to harm him in some way (hence the woah-ing).

◦Unfortunately, this claim could also be seen as true. Dennis’ hypersexuality and controlling tendencies when it comes to sexual relations (especially later in the series) could be an attempt for his subconscious to regain control since Mrs. Klinsky.

When Dee and Dennis go find Charlie at his mother’s house to try Dee’s plan, Dennis says that he thinks that it’s a terrible idea.

When Bonnie starts hyperventilating over the news, Dennis is the first to ask if she’s okay.

At the end of the episode, Dennis is smoking a cigarette down to the butt. He’s mostly holding it.

Additional Mac Notes:

(1x01) Seeing as their hateful “frenemy”-esque dynamic is yet to be thought out, at the end of the episode Dee and Mac are sat alone drinking together in the bar counting their earnings of the night ($114).

(1x02) Mac is immediately attracted to the Pro-Life Centre’s secretary, Megan, indicated with a “Hoo, mama.” This must indicate this season is set “before he was gay” (consecutively, not canonically).

(1x02) Mac signs off his and Dennis’ phone call with “Later, gator.”

(1x02) Mac’s morals seem to be easily abandoned when they put himself in jeopardy. (I.e. Abortion is right when he may be the father.)

(1x03) At the high schoolers’ party, Mac is playing beer flipping / flip cup. After several failed attempts he finally lands one and appears to be a sore winner.

◦The irony here is due to how many attempts at flipping his cup that Mac fails at, as in “The Gang Reignites a Rivalry” (5x12), Dee is continuously chastised by the rest of The Gang for being terrible at flipping cups.

(1x03) Out if the entire Gang, Mac is the only one without a prom date.

◦This could perhaps suggest that he hadn’t a prom date for his own prom, which could be why he slept with Dennis’.

◦There is also the possibility that due to his initially closeted status and crush on Dennis, most of not all of the girls that Mac would pursue would have to have something to do with Dennis (i.e. His mother, his prom date, the Waitress, etc.).

(1x05) Mac’s immediate reaction to the breaking and entering (and everything in the safe stolen) is, as though it is obvious, “to buy a gun”.

(1x06) In the opening conversation with Dee, Mac disputes that he break Tom Brady’s arm, then saying, “No more super bowls for that pretty boy.”

Additionally, I made a tier list for the season’s episodes: