Line #28 Headscratchers/Itsalwayssunnyinphiladelphia


1	'''As a Headscratchers subpage, all spoilers are unmarked [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff as per policy.]] Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.'''
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3	* In "The Gang Gets Held Hostage" Frank reaches behind his back to reach for his gun taped to his back. When, during crawling through the air vents, did he get access to duct tape and taped to his back?
4	** Probably justified as part of the overall ''Film/DieHard'' parody.
5	** FridgeBrilliance It's entirely possible that while crawling through an Air Duct, they found some Duct Tape. Especially considering Charlie isn't exactly the best handy man, a lot of broken things in the bar are probably fixed with duct tape.
6	* In 'The Gang Exploits A Miracle', Mac encourages Cricket to teabag Dennis when he passes out from starving himself. When Dennis starves himself again in 'Frank's Pretty Woman', Mac's a lot more caring. Why?
7	** All characters sometimes care about the others, but use them and treat them callously (to the point of planning to kill them as for example in "The Gang Gets Held Hostage") other times. It all depends on what they get out of it. In this case, amusement after Mac's holy stain scheme failed.
8	* In "Dennis and Dee's Mom Is Dead", Dennis and Dee's real father steals the gangs camera as proof that Dennis violated the terms under which he was given his mother's house. It seems like Dennis could have simply avoided losing the house by getting the camera back and destroying the tape. Why no one in the gang tried to get their camera back is beyond me.
9	** Probably because even ''they'' know when attacking a guy would lead to more problems for them.
10	** Despite all their bravado and show, everyone in the gang is a coward.
11	* In "Mac and Charlie: White Trash", Mac and Charlie get stuck in an empty pool. So why didn't Mac give Charlie a boost over the edge? The pool was only about 8 or 9 feet deep, they could've easily gotten out that way. Or at least grabbed the mattress and dragged it back in.
12	** It was a diving pool, those are at least twenty feet deep so people don't get paralyzed when they smash into the bottom.
13	* When the gang gets mugged (for the second time) in "Hundred Dollar Baby" why don't they just run? They've got open space behind them and look to be in better condition than a methed out addict with a tiny knife. Hell, they knew running away would work (it did the first time), and even without leaving Dee behind as a decoy (which didn't seem intentional) they would've been fine.
14	** Like it's been established before, they are all a bunch of idiotic, cowardly jerks.
15	* In season one, Charlie is described as being in love with the Waitress "for months." Later episodes show that they went to school together (and the Reunion episode has Charlie mention that she was the prettiest girl in the school, implying an infatuation from early on). So why is Charlie's love of her so recent?
16	** It's the gang. They probably didn't notice or really care until then. Dennis and Dee were at college for a while, presumably and Mac is self absorbed.
17	** Maybe Charlie thought she was pretty in school, but didn't develop an actual crush on her until much more recently.
18	** Also, in the episode "The waitress is getting married" the Waitress tells Dee that she sat next to her in school, but Dee doesn't remember, so they aren't the most observant bunch
19	** Maybe it's all of the above somehow?
20	** The Waitress was [[RetCon RetConned]] to have gone to their high school in Season 4. Before that, as shown in "The Gang Sells Out", the Waitress didn't know anything about the Gang's past, either.
21	* Mac (Rob [=McIlhenny=]) and Charlie (Charlie Day) are The Danza; why is Glenn Howerton not Glenn on the show?
22	** Apparently he had more of a problem than the other two to being ''that'' connected to his character.
23	*** Good point. Of the three, Dennis comes off as the most villainous.
24	*** They might also have decided that Glenn didn't feel right for his character. Mac and Charlie fit the characters pretty well. Dennis doesn't feel like a Glenn.
25	*** They do, however, both contain "enn". It's a stretch, but it'll do.
26	*** Glenn Howerton has said outright that he wants to distance himself from the character of Dennis.
27	* Is Frank still as wealthy as he was when he first entered the show. He was a successful businessman but he's mostly spent the last 6-7 years participating in unsuccessful schemes with the gang and doesn't seem poorer for it. He just paid $200 to Dee to suck the poison out of his head in the last episode ([=S8E3=]), so he can still throw away money, I suppose.
28	** Frank says that he's rich in "Charlie and Dee Find Love," so he's apparently still got a lot of his money left. Frank seems to have a lot of shady connections, so he's probably always grifting on the side.
29	** Frank makes a good deal of dough in "Frank's Back in Business," not to mention fracking the mountain in "The Gang Hits the Slopes" and investing in Gunther's Guns before riling people up about gun control in "Gun Control Too: Still Hot."
30	** In "Wolf Cola: A Public Relations Nightmare," it appears that Frank has been producing soft drinks under his company Frank's Fluids, seemingly for a good profit. Of course, it requires a combination of less-than-upstanding buyers and people buying it for "alternative purposes."
31	* Why does Frank choose to live with Charlie if he has enough money to bail the gang out when they're in trouble?
32	** Frank outright says in his first episode that he wants to live as utter, utter trash. He's sick of respectability. "I wanna live like you again, Charlie. I wanna be pathetic and desperate and ugly and hopless."
33	* A minor question but in "The Gang Gives Back" why is Charlie running around blocking shots and everything and being such an awful referee?
34	** This could probably be attributed to him being quite drunk, and angry at all of his friends and the Waitress
35	** Because he wants to show the Waitress how much damage she's done by ceasing to be his sponsor in favor of pining over Dennis.
36	* Rickey Cricket can join the priesthood any time he wants, right? If he quits because he's in love with a girl and doesn't do anything about it or consummate that relationship, I'm pretty sure he's not in trouble. The priesthood even takes people who had sex before taking a vow of celibacy.
37	** He implies in the episode where he first leaves the priesthood, that he left in such a way that he would never be allowed back.
38	*** Does he? When Dee suggests he go back, he simply ridicules the idea, saying "that's not how it works," not indicating his departure was anything abnormal.
39	* Did Bruce Mathis completely lose interest in his kids? As far as I know, their only crime was not wanting to be in an air-conditioned room with a bunch of terminally ill kids that they had little or no idea how to help. Also, how good could Bruce Mathis have been if he had sex with a married woman? I presume he might have known about it all this time if he independently messaged Sweet Dee anyway.
40	** After the events of "Dennis and Dee's Mom is Dead" I'm pretty sure he doesn't want anything to do with them. Would you?
41	** Also, it probably has a great deal IRL with the actor who played Bruce Mathis turning out to have made sexual advances at minors.
42	* Why hasn't Charlie been arrested? I mean I know he's supposed to be a downplayed TokenGoodTeammate who's not really good per se, just the least immoral one in the group. But he's been stalking the waitress for a long time & she hates him for being so obsessed with her. Why doesn't she call the police or try to get a restraining order? I know it's probably hard to get a stalker arrested in certain situations. Though he obviously knows where she lives and makes no secret of the fact that he's stalking her and I'm pretty sure the lawyer (which they used to see) would love to help her out.
43	** She ''has'' a restraining order. Multiple restraining orders, in fact, according to "The D.E.N.N.I.S. System." Charlie just ignores them.
44	*** In that episode she begins to call the police when she finds Charlie in her apartment destroying her sink (or "fixing it" as he claims). Unfortunately, he mentions Dennis, and she gets DistractedByTheSexy.
45	*** She's generally in a very bad place. She's been homeless and very poor. So she gets involved in plots.
46	** Also throw in the waitress' behavior during her frequent falls off the wagon.
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48	* Why is Frank's hair black if Danny [=DeVito=]'s hair as of a Season 9 TV interview I just saw was white. Frank is likely as old as Danny [=DeVitto=], so why go through the trouble of dying his hair?
49	** Season 8 shows that he deludes himself into thinking he's not old, so he probably dyes it. In ''Frank Retires,'' he actually looks like an old man.
50	** People are accustomed to seeing Danny with dark hair. He looks the way he's always looked when he first appears in the show, and they didn't want his hair to suddenly change color between seasons.
51	** In the beginning of "Being Frank", we see Frank dying his roots in front of his mirror as he starts the day. It's the character's cosmetic choice.
52	** Everyones hair doesn't go white at the same rate either. I know people older than Danny [=DeVito=] who still have their old hair colour.
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54	* How did Country Mac die in "Mac Day"? The motorcycle was going 5 miles an hour.
55	** It seems he just tilted over drunk and cracked his head open on the asphalt.
56	*** He was wearing a helmet, so it seems he snapped his neck when he fell over.
57	*** Actually he wasn't. Snapped neck or cracking his head open are both legitimate possibilities.
58	* In "The Gang Gets Held Hostage", Margaret is revealed to be a deaf mute. But in "Who Got Dee Pregnant?", the [=McPoyle=] brothers tell Mac to call her. My question is: Why are they telling him to call her, if it's impossible to communicate with her over the phone?
59	** One of her brothers would probably pick up and be a very creepy middleman.
60	*** The response above is likely the real answer, but message relay services exist that allow Deaf people to make and receive calls. It’s not dissimilar to how speech to text works in that Deaf people can type their responses.
61	* In "Flowers for Charlie" could the experimenters have been any more insensitive or any bigger jerks? Was there any delicacy to try to portray behavioral scientists as ethical?
62	** I don't know. But if I had to guess, it's probably due to RuleOfFunny, especially since it's kind of a SadistShow. Or Tsang Te (the scientist interacting with Charlie) could have seen how Charlie treated everyone when he thought he was smarter than them and thought he needed to be taken down a peg. I mean, the dude did rag on Charlie a bit for thinking he was suddenly too good for a woman he spent years pining for. It's debatable whether Charlie really deserved that (especially since Tsang Te's the one who ''caused'' it), but it's possible.
63	** Recall that at the end of the episode, the lead scientist mentioned that Tsang Te's (spelling?) role was to reinforce Charlie's belief in his own intelligence. What's unethical about that?
64	** It's likely they weren't real scientists to begin with. Their test group contained a sample size of one, there was no control group, and the graph in their presentation did not label any axes with units (though what unit of measurement "arrogance" has is anyone's guess). What ''were'' they, if not scientists? Who cares? This is a world where an old man regularly pretends to be a doctor named "Mantis Toboggan" and very few people question (that aspect of) it.
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66	* In "Flowers for Charlie" most of Charlie’s behavior can be explained as simple effects of the placebo. However he actually does some clever stuff: he quotes Shakespeare, he gives an informed opinion of Stephen Hawking’s role in the scientific community, he identifies Frank’s intentions and describes them in an eloquent way and he explains the etymology of placebo. How did he do that? Those are not exactly super genius level observations, but is definitely way beyond Charlie “I can’t actually read” Kelly’s capacities.
67	** Charlie has produced Grammy-grade songs, manipulated a girl just to get The Waitress jealous, & gotten Paddy's a passing health inspection. He really is a genius...who just happens to be illiterate.
68	** Furthermore, his "genius" moments were probably just things he heard elsewhere and repeated without actually knowing what he was talking about (even though he thinks he does).
69	** It's likely that he heard those words, opinions, and facts in his audiobooks and was repeating them. That's why he couldn't do it again by the end of the episode- enough time (a few days) had passed that he already forgot them.
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72	* How can Frank fall out that window in the 11th season and survive if he lands on his head?
73	** It's happened often enough in real life, and Frank/Danny is a pretty small guy, so the impact wouldn't necessarily be as bad.
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75	* In "The Gang Hits the Slopes", when did the gang find time to develop into great skiers? Mac in particular is known to be far less athletic than he lets on.
76	** In Dennis' and Dee's case, it's probably a hobby they picked up in their spoiled youth.
77	** The Slopes have different rules.
78	** RuleOfFunny in that the episode was generally parodying over-the-top 80's movies, maybe.
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80	* Why hasn't anyone tried to get help for Dennis? Yes, they are {{UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist}}s, but they all must know he is a serious danger to all of them.
81	** They're all dangerous people (Dee admitted to outright plotting to killing off Dennis and Frank for the inheritance money. Charlie seemingly might have murdered the "leprechaun" in "Charlie Catches A Leprechaun" if the gang hadn't stopped him. Frank carries a gun on him constantly and is reckless with it). They're also extremely ignorant, stubborn people who refuse to change their long-set ways, learn new things, or admit to their flaws. It seems like they're willing to let themselves kill each other than admit that any of them need help. They're also all severe alcoholics, drug-users, and people who just generally put themselves in bad positions (they do run a dive bar that they've described as the kind of place where people get stabbed). It doesn't seem like they put much thought into health or safety in any real way. The Gang must know the stuff they do is seriously dangerous, but as they say in "The Gang Gets Quarantined" after realizing they're alcoholics:
82	-->'''Charlie''': What do we do with that information?
83	-->'''Dennis''': What do you do with any information? You just stuff it deep down inside and keep an eye on it.
84	** In "Mac is a Serial Killer", the gang gets ready to chop Mac up into pieces with a chainsaw because they think Mac is a serial killer. In "The Waitress is Getting Married", Mac and Dennis tell Frank that they're arming themselves with weapons because they think that Charlie will be distraught at losing the waitress and "try to take them out". Their patterns of dealing with potential danger in other members of the gang doesn't line up with trying to get help for anyone, or doing whatever would be the healthiest/most rational method for the situation.
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86	* In "Mac and Dennis Move to the Suburbs" the pair make a bet with Frank that they can live in the suburbs for one month, otherwise they have to sleep with an old (black) man for a year. If they make it Frank must pay their rent for a year. After a long [[Literature/TheShining Shining-eqsue]] descent into madness Mac and Dennis make it the full month. Frank then says the year's rent would be for the house in the suburbs. The end of the episode finds them sleeping with the old man as if they had lost the bet. If they held up their end of the bargain, it shouldn't matter that Frank has surprise parameters for the rent usage. They could just not use the money.
87	** I like to think that the camera cut away just before Mac and Dennis did something to forfeit the bet at the literal last second.
88	** The spirit of the bet was that Mac and Dennis couldn't hack it in the suburbs, while they were insisting it would be a piece of cake. The idea was that if they indeed liked it there, Frank would pay the rent on that house for a year, and if not, they would have to sleep in a bed with Old Black Man (and Dee, after she wormed her way into the bed, believing she could get a king sized bed out of it). Realizing winning the bet would mean having to stay in that house for a year, Mac and Dennis quickly jumped over the threshold as Charlie was counting the last seconds.
89	*** And possibly punched the piss out of Frank for good measure. Hell, I know I would.
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92	* I know it's a comedy, and RuleOfFunny supersedes anything else, but when exactly did The Gang acquire the bar? The series debuted in 2005, and in the underage drinking episode, Mac explicitly states that he is 28 years old. The rest of the gang graduated in the same year as of the high school reunion episode, so they're all 28 in that episode apparently. But in Storm of the Century, they mention that the bar has a panic room that they cleared for Y2K. The gang would have been 21 years old then - how did they own the bar in 1999?
93	** What makes you think they designed the panic room?
94	** Where did I write that they designed the panic room?
95	*** In that episode they state that Dee made them create the panic room for Y2K, because she was terrified of machines uprising, and then immediately raided it after it passed. If Mac was 28 in 2005, that'd make him 22 in 1999. Dennis and Dee never state what level degrees they were pursuing in college, only that Dee dropped out and was briefly institutionalized. It's possible that during a summer break from college in 1995-1998 that Dennis, Charlie, and Mac happened upon a run down bar, and got Dennis' parents to bankroll them owning it, since Frank was still Dennis' real dad at that point and his mother spoiled him. Frank could've twisted some arms to let them work underage until 1998, Charlie and Mac could've been running it while Dennis was away at school, and Dee would presumably be in the mix at that point.
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98	* In "The Gang Turns Black" Charlie says (well, sings) that he and Frank live in Section 8 housing. so ''how'' are they on Section 8, considering that Frank is definitely at least middle class, which should disqualify them?
99	** Because as far as the law is concerned, Frank isn't middle class. Nearly all of his money was hidden from the government in a series of fake accounts to presumably to keep his ex-wife from getting ahold of it. Furthermore, many of the businesses in which he is currently making money from aren't exactly on the up-and-up, so the government wouldn't have any knowledge of them. As far as the United States Government knows, he's broke, and therefore eligible for Section 8 housing. Alternatively, Charlie could be the only official tenant, and Frank is only freeloading at his place without the landlord's knowledge.
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101	* Towards the end of Season 7, Mac's real name is revealed. Question is, the writers clearly intended to keep Mac's real name a secret, as seen in the credits to Lethal Weapon 5 where Dennis is listed as "Dennis Reynolds" and Mac is listed as "Mac," so why did they wait 7 years to have this joke in the show if they already planned it?
102	** It's much funnier to reveal the name Ronald [=McDonald=] after building up the mystery for 7 seasons than to reveal it right off the bat.
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104	* Why would Mac's dad record his family stealing other families' presents on Christmas? He's a neglectful father (and doesn't seem like the type to preserve family memories) who's also a criminal, and thus should probably know better than to film himself committing a crime
105	** It's possible he was a slightly better person during Mac's early childhood. He obviously had enough of a sense of obligation to his son to stick around for at least a few years.
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107	* Jackie Denardo: Who is her news channel ok with her dressing so inappropriately? Are there any TV news reporters in real life with that much cleavage?
108	** In an era where BlondRepublicanSexKitten is a trope, sex sells even on the news.
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110	* In "Making Dennis Reynolds a Murderer" its revealed at the end that the whole documentary was actually just made by Mac and Charlie. But where did they suddenly get the talent/budget to create such a professional-looking project? The difference between it and their Fight Milk ad is night and day, plus Frank likely wouldn't want to bankroll it as usual due to accidentally confessing to feeding his sweatshop workers to each other during filming.
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112	* Why doesn't the waiter at Regino's go to flight school if Frank already paid the bill? Yes, he's in debt but he's enrolled. He can either do that or drop out.
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114	* In "Time's Up for the Gang" we learn that Frank has a lawyer who is presumably fine with shady clients, considering he's the fixer for Frank's past few decades of sexual harassment. Why is the Gang still relying on Uncle Jack and Charlie? Frank can afford it, and while he probably wouldn't help the Gang out of the goodness of his own heart, some of their cases implicate him too.
115	** It's possible Frank's lawyer specializes in sexual harassment lawsuits. Admittedly, Charlie's uncle is supposed to be a constitutional lawyer, but he may work for the Gang on the cheap/free. Especially since the Gang employed his services to fight a measly $200 lawsuit.
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117	* "Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack" reveals that Dee and Dennis had their health insurance canceled by Frank at age nine. How did neither of them learn this by now? It's not a stretch to believe that neither has been hospitalized before in their early thirties, but neither has been to a doctor in ten years at a minimum? Especially when Dee required a back brace for scoliosis in her teens?
118	** During middle/high school they wouldn't have any reason to think about their insurance status. During college, Dennis and Dee (briefly) probably got insurance through UPenn. Afterward, once they turned 22, they wouldn't be allowed to stay on their parents' health insurance anyway (this was before the Affordable Care Act).
119	*** The episode explicitly states that they believe they're covered by Frank's insurance. So it still doesn't make any sense that they believe this, since pre-ACA they wouldn't have been covered after 22 anyway. It also doesn't explain why they're barely finding out because Dee's aforementioned health issues obviously didn't end the moment she graduated high school.
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121	* Why, in the Thundergun Express episode, are the straight male members of the gang excited about a cast member hanging dong. Also, what is hanging dong?
122	** Dennis is AmbiguouslyBi and probably the most excited about the "hanging dong" other than Mac and Dee, who are obviously both into men. I believe the episode states "hanging dong" is full frontal male nudity.
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124	* I know it's just part of the whole show, but how has none of the gang been locked in prison? It makes sense for Dennis and Frank to have never been caught, considering their money and manipulative personalities, but what about the rest of the gang? They have interacted with authorities (police, Child services, etc) where they could have easily went to jail for a while. In season 3, Dee tells a cop that Frank and Mac opened a sweat shop, who then apparently doesn't look into this and does nothing. The myriad number of crimes the gang has commited can be seen [[https://itsalwayssunny.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_crimes_committed_by_the_gang#Season_3 here]] and it really makes you wonder.
125	** I'm sure there are lots of different theories to this, but A) They have been to court and been charged with misdemeanors so it's not like they're completely immune, B) A lot of the guys they deal with are also pretty shady so that might take away incentive to go to the cops, C) It's possible one or more of them has served a small amount of jail time but it wouldn't affect their societal standing because they are self-employed and D) Philadelphia is a very large city and those often have understaffed police departments so they're white privilege might take them off the radar
126	* What were we supposed to think about Lil Kevin in "Sweet Dee Dates a Retarded Person"? Also, did Kevin over-react a little?
127	** Not really. Dee was only interested in him for his “fame” and she dumped him because she was being ableist.
128	*** She explicitly said she liked him because she thought he was a great guy and it's hard to imagine she'd outright tell him that. He also probably wasn't that big fame-wise outside of a local following if he was living with his father. Doesn't she have to ask?
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130	* How did the gang get Dee through airport security without looking like kidnappers when they go to Ireland.
131	** Frank probably chartered a jet like he did in "The Gang Broke Dee." Then, considering it's the Gang, they probably stuffed her in a suitcase.
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133	* In "The Gang Gives Back" why would the A.A. meeting not understand that Charlie doesn't want to admit that he's an alcoholic? It's clear that the court sends people with alcohol-related violations to the group so shouldn't the group be prepared to deal with people who have committed alcohol violations and aren't self-diagnosed alcoholics?
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135	* Why was the museum curator so upset about anyone bringing Nazi artifacts over. Every historian knows all artifacts have value?
136	** As he says in the episode, he was disgusted at the thought of making money off of people's deaths. Putting Pop-Pop's uniform on display risks him and the museum looking like they were trying to glorify Nazism and the Holocaust, which would've been gravely immoral.
137	*** That is still a massive plot hole. There are plenty of museums that collect and curate Nazi artifacts and no one thinks they're immoral. Most museums fall into the non-profit world anyway.
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139	* Now, I want to be as sensitive and respectful when I ask this question, but in "The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain," Charlie calls Shelley a deadbeat, yet in "The Gang Goes to Ireland," Charlie reveals Shelley kept in touch with him via letters and even taught him Irish Gaelic, so I'm having trouble understanding how Shelley is a deadbeat. I apologize if that was insensitive, but I assume a deadbeat is a parent who is ''completely'' absent from their child's life, and being Charlie's pen pal was being a part of his life; even if he wasn't physically present during Charlie's formative years, he was still involved in some capacity, right? So is Charlie being unfair (even if it's perfectly understandable why) towards his father, or is there a looser definition of "deadbeat" that being pen pals doesn't fall under? Again, I mean this question with the sincerest respect towards those who've had absentee parents growing up; please pardon my ignorance.
140	** I read that as a defense mechanism. His dad just died. It must be hard to fathom that this great man who had the potential to be a way better influence than anyone else Charlie ever had is here and gone so quickly.
141	** Even if Shelley wasn’t completely absent he still wasn’t physically present in Charlie's life/ didn’t help raise him like he feels he should have as a father (ie pick him up from school, read to him etc).
142	*** To help contextualize all the struggles Charlie faced because his father wasn't present: he was a failed abortion, molested as a child, failed by the education system not noticing/caring about his learning disabilities (his dad teaches him Gaelic through letters but not English so he still struggles in the society he's a part of), bullied, neglected for long enough periods of time where he could huff glue/do inhalants, and has a very neurotic, smothering OCD mother. We never get any indication Shelley was forbidden from seeing Charlie or powerless to do so. Beyond writing letters to him, he did nothing to help his child the way a parent should.

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