Characters / It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang's Families

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Main Character Index
The Gang (Dennis Reynolds, Dee Reynolds, Charlie Kelly, Mac, Frank Reynolds) | The Gang's Families | Recurring Characters | Other Characters

Families

Dennis & Dee's Family

Barbara

Barbara Reynolds

"Children, would you like to have been aborted?"

Played By: Anne Archer

Debut: "The Gang Goes Jihad"

Frank's gold-digging ex-wife and Dennis and Dee's mother. She was a cold, cruel, selfish woman with little affection for her family. Frank referred to her as his "whore wife".

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• Abusive Parent:
  • To Dee. In her will she leaves Dee with nothing and explicitly calls her "a disappointment and a mistake" and shows no concern for Dee when she's in a neckbrace. It's made Dee a Female Misogynist who will nevertheless be desperate for approval from literally anyone, especially older women who she doesn't even like. In one episode Dee starved herself for three days to not look puffy before going on TV, likely a result of the amount of Weight Woe Barbara has inflicted on her.
  • She was this to Dennis as well. All the unearned praise she lavished him with is pretty clearly the reason for his intense narcissism, not to mention the whole "Golden God"-thing. "Frank vs Russia" expands on it, with an Incest Subtext-laden projection from it that all men had a mother who made them feel powerful and inflated their ego, but also got them to feel dependent and powerless, seeking validation from her in sexual partners for the rest of their lives. Dennis has also been shown starving himself or skipping meals to stay slim, likely meaning he also developed Weight Woe from Barbara's parenting.
• Alcoholic Parent: Dee - surprisingly fondly - remembers her getting completely hammered at Risk E. Rat’s padded bar.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: After her death, attitudes range from apathy to outright celebration. Frank pops champagne while Dee and Dennis are largely concerned with what she's left them.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: She reveals that Frank isn't Dennis and Dee's biological father as if she's talking about the weather.
• Domestic Abuse: Confirmed by the shooting script that she had a tendency to hit Frank if she was angry enough.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dies off-screen in "Dennis and Dee's Mom is Dead," from a botched neck lift. Dee and Dennis don't care, and Frank is downright celebratory.
• Even Evil Can Be Loved: Not by Frank, but while the twins both know she did terrible things to them, they’re still horrified when they are conned to dig up her corpse.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Consistently horrible to everybody, including her own husband and daughter, but almost overly loving towards Dennis and her dog.
• Gold Digger: Married Frank for his money.
  • Ends up trying this on Bruce, when she finds out he was wealthy all along. It doesn't work.
• Greater-Scope Villain: See Minor Major Character below. If not for her, Dennis, Dee and even Frank may not have been as bad as they are today.
• Hate Sink: Even by the Gang's standards, she is an absolutely repulsive human being with zero redeeming value.
• Hidden Depths: She wills all of Frank's money to Bruce Mathis, crediting him as "a handsome man with a beautiful soul". A surprisingly humane mindset coming from a woman like Barbara. Then again, it could just be another jab at Frank.
• If It's You, It's OK: While it probably wasn't intentional given Mac wasn't written as gay early in the series, there's some subtext that she's this for otherwise gay Mac; in "The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award" he gets defensive about how he's had an orgasm before and brings her up specifically, and is seen at various points trying to chase the high of their hookup with other older women; implying she's the only woman he genuinely enjoyed having sex with.
• It's All About Me: She is very self-centered and smug.
• Jerkass: Relentlessly cruel and abusive to everyone she meets, but especially towards Dee.
• Karmic Death: It's oddly fitting that Barbara would die as a result of an unnecessary surgery she got to appease her own vanity.
• Lack of Empathy: She stole medication from dying children and chastised Dee for telling one of them they won't die after they asked her if they would because "if they die, you'll look like a fool".
• Minor Major Character: Only gets a few appearances before being permanently killed off, but is a major reason why Dennis and Dee became the awful people they are today, as well as why Frank became disillusioned with his wealth. Essentially, she's responsible for three-fifths of the Gang even existing.
• Mrs. Robinson: Subverted. She banged Mac, but only to upset Frank and actually finds him quite unattractive.
• Narcissist: She's a textbook example of one; Parental Favoritism that went well beyond abuse, she's very vain (to the point where she died getting cosmetic surgery), shows Lack of Empathy to everyone around her (especially her own family), and is willing to go to absurd lengths to get petty revenge on people (like sleeping with her children's friend Mac to stick it to her husband). Pretty much every negative trait Dennis and Dee have they either inherited from her or she was the catalyst for it in some way (not the Frank was any better, anyway).
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: While Dennis doesn’t go to the funeral and still cares more about money, like Frank and Dee, but unlike them, he’s under the illusion that Barbara Reynolds famous Ice Queen was warm and caring. She’s also the root of his terrible attitude toward sex, so you can make the connection.
• Parental Favoritism: Towards Dennis. This isn't a good thing.
• Parental Incest: “Frank vs Russia” confirms that she’s the root of Dennis’s sex issues instead of the rape by Ms Klinsky. She at the very least groomed him, making him feel both godlike and helpless all at once, and when she dies, she wills him the house on the condition that Frank is never allowed in.
• Really Gets Around: Cheated on Frank frequently, and he in turn calls her his "whore ex-wife".
• Rich Bitch: Well, she did marry a rich guy for his money.
• The Sociopath: The worst sociopath in the entire series, which is saying a lot.
• Weight Woe: Has clearly managed to give both of her children eating disorders, and in their kinder moments, they’ll remind the other one to actually eat something.

Bruce

Bruce Mathis

Played By: Stephen Collins

Debut: "Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad"

Dennis and Dee's biological father. The antithesis of Frank Reynolds, Bruce devotes his time and money to charities and philanthropic efforts, including adopting several suffering children in Africa.

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• Disappeared Dad: Jerkass Has a Point from Frank that he’s not exactly the only dad who abandoned Dennis and Dee.
• Doting Parent: When he first meets them, he’s so sweet and gentle that Dennis and Dee - who have been raised by Frank and Barbara - don’t really have any idea how to react.
• For Want Of A Nail: Per the podcast, showing who Dee and Dennis could have been if they didn’t have Abusive Parents.
• Good Is Not Soft: When Frank and Dee try to trick him into giving them the fortune Barbara left for him, he tries to teach them a lesson by pushing them to their limits.
• Horrible Judge of Character: It takes him less than one episode to see the Gang for what they are... but he's almost shockingly blind to the fact that Barbara is probably worse than all of them put together. He also assigns all the blame to Frank for the way Dennis and Dee turned out.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Of course he’s neglecting Barbara’s part in all of it, and he pushed his stepdaughter into incest to teach her a lesson, but he’s right in Frank raising Dee and Dennis to be monstrous waste of space animals. Even they agree with Bruce occasionally.
• Nice Guy: He does volunteer work and is very nice and courteous to Dee and Dennis before realizing they're bad people.
• Only Sane Man: He starts out as a very reasonable person, but his desire to get the better of the Gang makes him quickly lose his rational demeanor.
• Opposites Attract: Evidently. The show doesn't go too deep into their past relationship, but somehow the benevolent, charitable Bruce Mathis was once drawn to the arrogant, narcissistic and downright sociopathic Barbara Reynolds.
• Selective Obliviousness: Despite being an Excellent Judge of Character otherwise, Bruce refuses to see that Barbara is actually a vain, self-centered Gold Digger who was a horrible mother to Dennis and Dee.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: While he's still occasionally mentioned, he hasn't actually been seen in the show in years. There's no in-universe excuse for this, although the actual reason is because Stephen Collins was convicted for child molestation and is more or less banned from Hollywood forever.

Donna

Donna

Played By: Nora Dunn

Debut: "The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention"

Barbara's sister and Dennis and Dee's aunt.

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• Only Sane Woman: Out of everyone in the whole terrible Landgraf-Reynolds family, she's the most normal, and her reactions to the Gang's and her daughter's antics are how any sensible person would react.
• Token Good Teammate: Her sister was an Abusive Parent and Rich Bitch, her daughter is an overgrown awkward teenager, her niece and nephew may very well be sociopaths, and her brother-in-law is Frank. While we don't see her do anything saintly, the fact that she DOESN'T act depraved makes her this for the entire Reynolds family.

Gail the Snail

Gail the Snail

"If we all showed up super high at the reception, everyone would be like, 'Whaaaa?'"

Played By: Mary Lynn Rajskub

Debut: "The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention"

Dennis and Dee's "Garbage Pail" cousin.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: To just about everyone. Both platonically and sexually.
• Beauty Inversion: The very attractive Mary Lynn Rajskub gunged up as a slobbery, disgusting creep.
• Friendship Denial: She seems to think the Gang is doing this, when really they legitimately don't like her.
• Gonk: She's as unpleasant on the outside as she is on the inside. By "The Gang Goes Bowling", she is truly hideous; her lack of self-care has made her age like milk, which her ill-fitting and childlike wardrobe accentuates, and she has developed a voice like sandpaper from decades of heavy substance usage.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Sexually Active Today?: She brags about losing her virginity twice despite being 33 years old, once to her own mother.
  Gail: Mom, I'm sexually active now. Get over it!
  Donna: You're 33, you're supposed to be sexually active!
• Incompatible Orientation: She's very attracted to Mac, and expresses this even after he's out of the closet.
• In-Series Nickname: She has two of them - primarily "Gail the Snail", largely due to her mucus and the fact that the only surefire way to get rid of her is to salt her. She's also known as "Garbage Pail Cousin", since she's generally disgusting.
• Oblivious to Hints: She has this weird habit of making various presumptions and ignoring all claims to the contrary, like when she randomly declared Mac her boyfriend and Dee her bestie, to the point where she becomes The Thing That Would Not Leave. It is left vague whether this is just Selective Obliviousness or if she has some sort of disorder. Either way she would fit right in with the Gang if she wasn't so repulsive.
• Really Gets Around: Virtually every appearance finds her bragging about all the casual sex she has, from "giving [Frank's landlord] a handie under the table" in "The Gang Squashes Their Beefs" to, in "The Gang Goes Bowling," hooking up with a guy in the parking lot and later having a threesome with Frank and Artemis.
• Smoky Voice: By "The Gang Goes Bowling", decades of heavy drinking and weed usage and a total lack of self-care have given her a horribly deep and abrasive rasp that makes her immaturity and childish personality repulsively apparent.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: Until you throw salt at her.
• Totally Radical: She constantly uses mostly outdated slang in an attempt to seem cool to the people around her.
• Womanchild: She's 33 in her debut episode, but looks and acts like an awkward, moody teenager who is desperate to fit in; among other things, she is gratuitously sexual and inappropriate, repeatedly announcing that she is masturbating people in public (and is apparently extremely bad at it, like one would expect a sexually inexperienced teenager to be), obsessively fixates on crushes and does not get hints that they want nothing to do with her, and childishly brags about her substance usage like a kid who just discovered alcohol and weed. She also dresses the part, both with her sleepwear-only wardrobe early on and her inappropriate wardrobe for a funeral later on, and her greasy hair and dull complexion makes it clear that she doesn't bathe very much.

Pop-Pop

Heinrich "Pop-Pop" Landgraf

Season 1

Season 8

Played By: Tom Bower, Glenn Howerton (younger self in photographs)

Debut: "The Gang Finds a Dead Guy"

Dee and Dennis' grandfather on their mother's side. Also a former SS officer and Nazi war veteran.

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• Affably Evil: He is very kind to his grandkids... while taking them to Aryan camp.
• Identical Grandson: A photo of a young Pop-Pop shows he was the spitting image of Dennis.
• Nazi Grandpa: His Nazi-war-veteran status and prejudices cause Dee and Dennis to be unsure about whether or not to pull the plug on him. This is because on one hand, they'd be killing a family member, but on the other hand, he's a nazi.
• No Sense of Personal Space: While he vastly prefers his grandson, when Dee comes to see him he gropes her and it makes her fear of old people worse, getting her to puke.
• Racist Grandma: Dee and Dennis try to convince themselves that he must have lost his racist beliefs after coming to America... until they find a summer camp home movie showing that he didn't change in the slightest.
• Retired Monster: He clearly has no remorse about his past, and hasn't renounced his fascist beliefs at all.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Fought in WWII on the side of the Germans and still believes in Aryan superiority.

Gino

Gino Reynolds

Played By: Jon Polito

Episode: "Frank's Brother"

Frank's older brother and Dennis and Dee's adopted uncle.

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• Cain and Abel: With Frank in the present-day, due to both being in love with Sha'Dynasty.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Was only seen or mentioned at all in his eponymous episode, but it was him who started his little brother Frank on the path that gave him all his shady connections.

Charlie's Family

Bonnie

Bonnie Kelly

"I don't want a dog to eat my face, Charlie!"

Played By: Lynne Marie Stewart

Debut: "Charlie Got Molested"

Charlie's mom, a sweet and timid woman who is attracted to cruel men. She had a one-night stand with Frank Reynolds 30 years ago, possibly making him Charlie's biological father.

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• Abusive Parents: While she's a genuinely nice and well-meaning lady and she does love Charlie without any doubt, her obscene over-protectiveness of her son, mixed with her own warped views of the world impacting his development, led Charlie to become the borderline feral man that he is today.
  • Additionally, her job "entertaining" Santa Claus was a clearly traumatic thing to put a child through, and her neglect of Charlie during her working hours ended up leading to Charlie's inhalant abuse.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: When Frank was with her, he would treat her like crap because "The woman prefers to be treated like crap. [He's] never seen anything like it." and says that sometimes it's too much even for him. Charlie later tries to break them up by setting her up with Mac's dad, informing her that he was in prison. And it works.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: "The Gang Beats Boggs: Ladies Reboot" reveals she finds horses attractive.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Has attempted to kill Mrs. Mac in her sleep at least once. Dennis also describes her interactions with Mrs. Mac overall as being a form of psychological abuse after observing their relationship for several hours.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Not quite as obvious as Charlie, but almost every episode featuring her shows her to be as weird as he is in her ridiculous beliefs and superstitions, and it's repeatedly demonstrated she's the reason he picked up said beliefs.
• Extreme Doormat: To call her weak-willed and timid would be quite the understatement. She's evidently an extreme masochist who enjoys being mistreated.
• Female Misogynist: She doesn't trust other women, and panics when she realizes that the plane she's on is being piloted by women in "The Gang Beats Boggs: Ladies Reboot".
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: Played with. In the Christmas Episode, she's revealed to have been a prostitute and is one of the nicer members of the cast. But she also has severe mental issues and is a xenophobe.
• Nervous Wreck: She's very timid and shy. "I don't want a dog to eat my face off, Charlie!"
• Nice Girl: While her ridiculous coddling of Charlie was abusive in its own way, and she's shown to be xenophobic toward her Muslim neighbors, Bonnie is the only parent besides Frank that is ever nice to anyone, and acts sweet and welcoming to the Gang whenever they visit her.
• Obliviously Evil: Really loves her son and wants him to be safe, yet completely can’t take the hint that he resents her and keeps inviting Uncle Jack over.
• Odd Friendship: With Mrs. Mac, after some initial difficulties that involved Mrs. Mac strangling her a tad.
• Parental Neglect: While there's no doubt that she loves Charlie, she was definitely not an attentive parent to him as he grew up.
• Racist Grandma: She bonds with Mrs. Mac over their mutual xenophobia.
• Really Gets Around:
  • Aside from the dozens of men she had sex with while being a prostitute, she's slept with Frank, Shelley, Luther, and Eduardo Sanchez.
  • When the Gang goes to the Irish countryside, several men in a pub suggestively call her a "wonderful woman."
• Shrinking Violet: Older, but has severe nervous issues.
• Stepford Smiler: She has a tendency to admit depressing things in a cheerful tone.
• Those Two Girls: With Mrs. Mac after they move in together.
• Token Good Teammate: Out of all of the parents of The Gang, she's the nicest and most well-meaning, and has shown to genuinely love her son, despite not being the greatest at actual parenting when Charlie was younger (to put it mildly); the only other parent who comes even remotely close (discounting absentee parents Bruce and Shelley) is Frank, and he was very, very psychologically abusive to Dee and Dennis growing up.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Girly girl to Mrs. Mac's tomboy.
• Useless Bystander Parent: It's suggested that the troll in The Nightman Cometh is her, and that she allowed Charlie's darker self to take his childhood soul away. When homeless, he resents her for not noticing Uncle Jack's inappropriate suggestions of activities they could do, or that she keeps finding ways to try and force him to interact with his family when they don't get along, such as inviting Jack and his sisters to an intervention when she thinks Charlie got abused by his gym teacher.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: While she refers to Mrs. Mac as a "horrible, horrible woman" and even tries to kill her in her sleep at one point, she also sincerely considers them to be great friends.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: A rare non-villainous version: her extreme overprotectiveness of Charlie led to her doing things like vaccinating him every month and sticking him into a bubble to protect him from illness. She meant well by it and truly was trying to (in her own mind) protect him, but a lot of Charlie's current instability is the fault of her own extreme parenting.

Jack

Uncle Jack Kelly

"You and me, pallin' around, gettin' nuts... doing crazy, fun things..."

Played By: Andrew Friedman

Debut: "Charlie Got Molested"

Charlie's creepy uncle (the brother of Charlie's mother Bonnie) and a lawyer. Weirdly insecure about his hands.

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• Affably Evil: An Amoral Attorney with strong child molester vibes, but otherwise comes off as meek and amicable, never having a harsh word to say about anyone.
• Amoral Attorney: Jack is the Gang's go-to attorney though a rather bad one. It's obvious to the audience that something's not quite right with him, every time he appears on screen.
• Black Comedy Rape: It's strongly implied that he tried to molest Charlie, but was unsuccessful as Charlie dodged him. He also makes multiple suggestions about activities they could do during a sleepover that could be interpreted multiple ways.
  • Additionally, he's very heavily implied to have preyed on other children, given the fact that he wears a Boy Scout uniform, and has something hidden on hard drives he "accidentally" leaves under the floorboards in Bonnie's house.
  • The implications that he preys on other children intensify in later seasons, wherein he spies on a child Frank is facing in a chess match and drives an ice cream truck, which he admits has no ice cream.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Pretty much runs In the Blood for the Kelly family. Special attention goes to his obsession with the size of his hands.
• Compensating for Something: His self-consciousness over his small hands causes him to edit in different, larger hands in all pictures of him, while his public access TV show uses creative camera angles to avoid showing his hands as much as possible.
• Creepy Uncle: Uncle Jack is a deeply unsettling man. He's always touching people, he's obsessed with hands (he feels his own hands are too small), and he is all but outright stated to be a pedophile interested in young boys. He is visible turned on and gives encouragement when Charlie is forced to show on a doll where his gym teacher allegedly touched him as a kid, and even offers Dee advice when declares she's kidnapped some kids (by accident).
  • He repeatedly hits on Charlie, his actual nephew, even when Charlie tells him that he'll never do the things Jack wants to do with him, and a recurring gag is Charlie repeatedly having to deny that Uncle Jack has molested him.
• Informed Deformity: He's unbelievably insecure about his supposedly small hands, to the extent that he shows up in court wearing oversized fake hands even though his hands are clearly completely average.
• It's Not Porn, It's Art: During a live television interview in "Gun Fever Too Still Hot," he tries to make the case that his "tasteful artistic" depictions of children should not be censored by the government.
• No Social Skills: Aside from being a massive creep, Jack is seemingly physically unable to have a conversation with anyone that doesn't derail into a diatribe on how the "art" he likes should be acceptable or his supposed small hands.
• Noodle Incident: Whatever he did to Charlie as a kid has yet to be elaborated on.
• Odd Name Out: The only member of the Kelly clan shown so far whose name doesn't end with a hard E sound.
• Omnidisciplinary Lawyer: Jack is stated to specialize in state and constitutional law, but the Gang comes to him for divorce issues and the McPoyle-Ponderosa trial... all of which he completely botches because he's totally unfamiliar with the relevant laws and has never even practiced in a courtroom before.
• Porn Stache: His moustache serves to really enhance his creep factor.
• Red Right Hand: For some reason, he himself considers his hands to be small to the point of deformity, and tries hiding them at all costs, to the point of wearing incredibly obvious gloves described as "fake hands". After accidentally flinging one across a crowded courtroom, he runs to retrieve it, screeching the whole way
  Jack: Oh my God! Oh my God, nobody look! Nobody look! Nobody look! Nobody look! Nobody look! Nobody look!
• Red Baron: He's very heavily implied to be the mythic "Nightman" that inhabits Charlie's mind. The Gang outright evens states so in a later episode.

Shelley

Shelley Kelly

Played By: Colm Meaney

Debut: "The Gang's Still in Ireland"

Charlie's former pen pal, who runs a cheese shop in Ireland. When Charlie tracks him down in Ireland, he finds out that his "pen pal" was actually his biological father.

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• Disappeared Dad: Has been absent from Charlie’s life, besides being his pen pal. After his death, Charlie breaks down over how he was never there for him.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: The last we see of him he's driving home with Charlie after being startled by what they think is a banshee in the middle of the road. The Cold Open of the next episode reveals he died the previous night from an unknown cause, later revealed to be because Frank gave him COVID-19.
• Good Counterpart: To Frank. He's an honest, upstanding man who forms a parental bond with Charlie. Downplayed in that he didn't make any attempt to connect with his son beyond them being pen-pals, and never informed him of his true parentage.
• Instant Illness: Dies of COVID a day after catching it from Frank.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Charlie assumes his pen pal is secretly his brother. After meeting him, Shelley reveals he is actually his father.
• Nice Guy: Generally an affable guy, some slight misogyny aside.
• Shared Family Quirks: Shelley, like Charlie, is a musically gifted cheese enthusiast who spends his time bashing rats with a stick.
• Walking Spoiler: His existence reveals that Frank isn’t really Charlie’s biological father.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He dies two episodes after being introduced.

Bunny and Candy

Bunny and Candy

Played By: Olivia Cohen (Bunny) and Isabella Cohen (Candy)

Debut: "Charlie Got Molested"

Charlie's younger sisters.

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• Annoying Younger Siblings: Bunny and Candy are both extremely obnoxious, bratty and a tad bigoted.
• Bad Influencer: By the time of their second appearance, they've become popular on OnlyFans by performing niche ASMR videos of themselves sticking their hands in a jar of their family's teeth while topless. In fitting with the trope, they're both vapid, unpleasant young women in yoga pants.
• The Bus Came Back: After one non-speaking appearance and mention in the very first season, the sisters vanished from the show for nearly 18 years before finally appearing again in "Frank Shoots Every Member of the Gang". Mac even lampshades this, stating that he forgot Charlie had sisters (the creators admit they forgot also).
• The Dividual: They have no apparent differences in their personality, always appear together, and often speak in unison.
• Foil: Unlike the grossly naive (and just plain gross) Cloudcuckoolander Charlie, they're savvy and modern women who make a living as social media stars. And while they're perfectly willing to perform activities similarly strange and sickening as the ones Charlie does on a daily basis, they do it for monetary gain as niche internet fetish content whereas he simply does it because he's just that weird.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • They find their family's tradition of collecting discarded teeth in a jar across generations to be gross and weird, and yet have no problem filming themselves sticking their hands in said jar while topless for money and clout.
  • They slut-shame their own mother for what she did to raise them, but do similar work themselves.
• Irony: They hate their family and where they come from, but ended up being just like their relatives. They do gross things (like Charlie) to get money from perverts (like Bonnie). They're casually bigoted (like Bonnie) and don't really care about other people (like Charlie). They're also short, which is a genetic trait nobody can run from. Especially because their legs are stubby.
• Jerkass: They're shrill and immediately hostile to their mother and brother when they come to visit them, freely throwing around homophobic slurs and calling their mother a slut.
• Meaningful Rename: While we don't know what their birth names were, they renamed themselves Bunny and Candy as part of their rebranding as online fetish content creators. It also highlights how disrespectful toward and disconnected from their family they are.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The moment they see both Mac and Charlie, they immediately throw out homophobic slurs towards them.
• Practically Different Generations: They appeared to be preteens when Charlie was in his late twenties, and are young women when he reunites with them in his forties 18 years later.
• Rich Bitch: Unlike their dirt poor but generally amiable and (relatively) innocent brother, they're wealthy enough to live in a mansion and mean enough to call their mother a slut and their brother and his gay friend homophobic slurs within seconds of them coming to visit.
• Single-Minded Twins: They often speak in unison and tend to repeat each other when they don't.

Mac's Family

Luther

Luther McDonald

"What do you guys know about smuggling heroin? Through your anus?"

Played By: Gregory Scott Cummins

Debut: "Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad"

Mac's father, a convicted felon. He is tall and has numerous tattoos and a generally intimidating appearance because he never blinks. Possibly due to his past imprisonment and intimidating presence, he is one of the few people the Gang does not immediately try to manipulate or exploit.

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• Abusive Parents: Was emotionally distant towards Mac while he was growing up, and only ever acknowledged him to insult or belittle him, causing Mac to desperately crave his approval. While Luther has genuinely made several attempts at reconnecting and improving his relationship with Mac, the Gang inevitably ends up screwing it up. He also chose to name his son "Ronald McDonald" for the sole purpose of making fun of him.
• The Atoner: Once released from prison, he goes to apologize to all the people he's wronged.
• Awful Wedded Life: His relationship with Mrs. Mac is frosty at best. They barely even speak, despite sharing several scenes together.
• Beard of Evil: Subverted. In a flashback where he doesn't have the beard, he's more unambiguously evil.
• Boomerang Bigot: Does not approve of his son's sexuality despite his own relationship with Eduardo Sanchez.
• Berserk Button: His son. He genuinely loves him, but every thing Mac does ends up infuriating him.
• Creepy Monotone: Rarely raises or inflects his soft but raspy voice, usually relying on his eyes to do the emoting for him.
• The Chew Toy: Pretty much every time he interacts with his son, he ends up getting arrested, physically hurt, or potentially murdered.
• Death Glare: His default expression. He himself remarks, "I don't blink."
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Shown to genuinely love his son pretty much every time he appears. The only problem is that Mac is such an idiot that he constantly ruins his attempts at reconnecting with him by extending his prison sentence. Even then, Dennis eventually reveals that he had sent Mac countless letters from prison that he (Dennis) had destroyed before Mac was able to read.
• Failure Is the Only Option: He and Mac will never be able to reconnect with each other as father and son, despite both of them wanting to, as the Gang's actions will inevitably end up getting him arrested by the end of the episode.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: It'd be a stretch to call him a good guy, but he went from a dangerous criminal to a guy who wants to set his life straight and make amends with all of the people that he feels he has wronged.
• He-Man Woman Hater: He's ecstatic when he mistakenly assumes Mac's knocked someone up but becomes very hostile at the thought Mac might have a daughter instead of a son.
  Luther:: If it's not a boy, you flush that shit out and try again!
• I Am a Humanitarian: When he first meets The Gang, he seems oddly intrigued by Dee's hair, playing with it in his hands without saying anything. Dee is understandably creeped out, but she somehow twists this into thinking that Luther wants to eat her.
• Icy Blue Eyes: As Charlie points out to Bonnie.
• I Want Grandkids: Or very specifically, grandsons.
• Jerkass Ball: He's notably more openly hostile toward his son (and more talkative in general) in "Mac Kills His Dad", and "Mac Finds His Pride", where he outright states that he doesn't love Mac in the former, and that the only value he sees in him is his ability to give him a grandson in the latter. This is in stark contrast to his previous appearances, where it's always made clear that, while cold and abrasive, he genuinely loves Mac.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He has a shady past and is quite blunt and rude, but he genuinely loves his son. In "Dennis Looks Like A Registered Sex Offender," Mac calls the cops on him because he thinks his father is on a murder spree that will end with him and Charlie. It turns out that Luther actually got arrested for violating his parole: he's not supposed to leave the state, but had purchased plane tickets for himself, Mac and Charlie to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame. Even after getting out of jail again, he writes Mac a letter saying he still loves him and that he's trying to learn to forgive him.
• Knight of Cerebus: Played with. While he's incredibly intimidating and rarely given jokes while on screen, he never actually does anything to make the show darker than it normally is. The Gang believes him to be this, however, causing them to freak out whenever he's involved in an episode's plot.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Ironically, he ends up being the better parent to Mac. While every interaction Luther and Mac have ends in complete disaster, Luther clearly does care for Mac, while Mac's mother wants literally nothing to do with her son.
• Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: "Heart of Gold" may be too far, but he's a gruff and unfriendly man with a checkered past who nonetheless is generally always shown to possess a genuine desire to go straight and make amends with his son.
• Named After Somebody Famous: During the Gang's trip to Ireland, which Mac anticipates at first for the chance to reconnect with his roots, he finds out that not only is Luther's family not Irish, but Dutch, and his dad was born Luther Vandross before changing his surname — suggesting that, even though he knew firsthand how embarrassing it was to have an uncommon, famous name, he might've specifically chosen "McDonald" just so he could name his son "Ronald" as a cruel joke. This later turns out to have been a lie, but the sheer plausibility of it speaks to what an asshole Luther is.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Every time he genuinely tries doing something nice for Mac, Mac's stupidity end up completely biting him in the ass.
• Obviously Evil: Genuinely quite terrifying, and pretty much exactly what most people would expect a hardened criminal to look like.
• Parental Neglect: Zigzagged. On one hand, he's an inveterate career criminal who has been in and out of prison for most of Mac's life, and he was a generally apathetic parent at best when he was around (when he wasn't trying to get Mac to do things like work as a drug mule). On the other hand, he is clearly aware of his many mistakes as a parent and has tried to atone on some level, but between the Gang destroying everything they touch and his own inherent nature, he hasn't really succeeded.
• Red Herring: As an incredibly scary career criminal, the Gang constantly suspects him of doing dangerous activities. Every episode he appears in inevitably reveals this to not be the case.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Incredibly soft-spoken, though this somehow makes him more scarier. When he does raise his voice, it's always because Mac managed to seriously piss him off.
• Strong Family Resemblance: With his hair slicked back, Mac looks a lot like him.
• Tattooed Crook: He has quite a few tattoos.

Mrs. Mac

Mrs. "Mac" McDonald

"Stop talkin' to me like I'm an asshole!"

Played By: Sandy Martin

Debut: "Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom"

Mac's mom. She is usually seen smoking and watching television on the front porch of her home. She is extremely apathetic, demonstrated by her falling asleep at her son's "funeral" with a portable TV on her lap and remaining the same as usual when Luther is out on parole, and she often communicates with minimal words and unenthused grunts, which Mac serves as translator for.

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• Abusive Parents: Openly rude and uncaring towards her son. Mac is so accustomed to her behavior that he has trained himself to interpret her agitated groans to mean whatever words of approval he currently wants to hear. She has also burned him with her cigarettes.
• Ambiguously Bi: While she married and had a son with Luther, she has a gruff and rather butch demeanor, lives with Bonnie Kelly, and acts like an old married couple with her. Notably, Luther is seemingly bisexual himself, and every other confirmed member of the McDonald family is either bi or gay as well.
• Berserk Button: Being woken up, as Mrs. Kelly found out to her detriment.
• Brutal Honesty: She's outright admitted that she doesn't like her son to his face, said she hated her husband while he was sitting right next to her, and told Dennis that she thinks he's ugly (and agreed with him when he said the same about her).
• Gonk: Something of an Informed Deformity. While she is a generally unhealthy and unhygienic woman, all of the members of the Gang besides Mac treat her as though she is The Grotesque, with Dennis going as far as to say that she is disgusting just to look at.
• Hidden Depths: She's very handy and good at fixing things.
• Jaded Washout: She's completely checked-out and generally miserable about her lot in life.
• Jerkass: Has no problem with telling her son to his face that she doesn't love him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Mac desperately insists that she's actually a Jerk with a Heart of Gold deep down, every time she utters more than a sentence or two, it's crystal clear that she genuinely does not like or care about him.
• The Masochism Tango: She has no problem admitting that she hates Luther (right in front of him).
• Must Have Nicotine: She's literally never seen without a cigarette. The one exception was when she was on a plane (she had eaten all of her nicotine patches) and even then, she still tried to light a cigarette.
• Not So Stoic: Despite her usual demeanor, she will snap out an loud insult or nasty comment given enough irritation. Mac, Dennis, and Bonnie have all been targets.
• Odd Friendship: With Bonnie Kelly, after some initial difficulties that involved Mrs. Mac strangling her a tad.
• Parental Neglect: She doesn't give two shits about her son and makes no attempt to hide it.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: While on a plane, she complains that there’s too many “coloureds” sitting up front.
• Racist Grandma: She bonds with Bonnie Kelly over their mutual xenophobia.
• Smoky Voice: She's got a voice like industrial-grade abrasives from her decades of constant smoking.
• The Stoic: "Irritated" is basically her only emotion. A flashback to Mac's childhood shows her acting and speaking in a much more normal fashion, suggesting that old age has caused her to stop caring even more than she already did.
• Terse Talker: When not grunting, she speaks in blunt, curt sentences.
• Those Two Girls: With Bonnie after they start living together.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomboy to Mrs. Kelly's girly girl.
• The Unintelligible: Much of the time she communicates in grunts and coughs, which Mac then translates.
• Unnamed Parent: She's the only parent who's never been given a first name, with most characters referring to her as simply "Mrs. Mac."
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Constantly fighting with Bonnie Kelly, but doesn't actually seem to mind having her as a roommate.

Country Mac

Country Mac

Played By: Seann William Scott

Debut: "Mac Day"

Mac's cousin from the country, a motorcycle-riding badass who is everything Mac is not.

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• The Ace: A true jack of all trades, he is shown excelling at everything that Mac struggles to do.
• The Alcoholic: The Gang notes he always has a beer in his hand. This later causes him to die abruptly.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: When confronted by two thugs, he successfully pulls off an "ocular-patdown".
• Berserk Button: Hurting his cousin. He's pretty much happy and relaxed all the time, but flies into a rage and tries to strangle the black-belt after Mac gets hit one too many times.
• Big Brother Instinct: It's unknown which cousin is older, but he's very protective of Mac. In their disagreements, he tries to gently steer him in the right direction; and when a black belt strikes him, he flies into a rage.
• Country Cousin: He's nick-named "Country Mac" because he's Mac's cousin from the countryside.
• Death by Falling Over: He dies from his motorcycle falling over at low speed.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: He falls off his motorcycle and dies. Despite all of his larger than life badassery, his death was incredibly abrupt and anticlimactic.
• Due to the Dead: Subverted. Mac tries to get the Gang to spread his ashes in the countryside. Frank just dumps the ashes down Paddy's toilet.
• Fatal Flaw: He's an all-around good guy who's honest about himself and affable to others, but his reckless drug and alcohol abuse eventually get to him.
• Foil: To his cousin, Mac. He is reckless, tough, confident but not cocky, religious but tolerant, and open about his sexuality.
• God Is Good: Believes in God for the good things he does, contrasting The Fundamentalist Mac.
• Good Counterpart: He's basically what Mac could be if he actually got his act together and made something of himself.
• Improvised Weapon: When a black-belt knocks out his cousin, he uses his shirt to strangle him.
• It Runs in the Family: The second gay cousin of Mac's we meet, and one of four family members that's attracted to the same sex to some capacity (though confirmed to have had sex with a man, Luther's sexuality is more ambiguous).
• Manly Gay: He admits he's at the bodybuilding competition to pick up some bodybuilders.
• Mellow Fellow: Remains calm and cool even when performing death-defying stunts.
• Mr. Fanservice: He's good looking and we get to see him shirtless.
• Nice Guy: Very easy-going, gets along well with the Gang, and clearly loves his cousin despite Mac's obvious jealousy and resentment of him. He goes along with Mac Day unquestionably and reacts to Mac's rudeness as if it's friendly banter.
• Not So Invincible After All: After jumping off a bridge and getting into a mass brawl, he's killed anti-climatically by falling off his bike while riding it. The most likely conclusion is that he was actually hurt during his many demonstrations but he refused to address these injuries. The beer made him bleed more and the accident was simply the final blow.
• Only Known By His Nickname: We never get to know his actual name.
• The Stoner: Shares some weed with the Gang at the planetarium.
• Straight Gay: The Gang don't realize he's gay until he tells them he's into dudes.
• White Sheep: Literally the only well-adjusted member of the McDonald family... besides drinking/drugging himself to death.

Donald

Donald McDonald

Played By: Gregory Scott Cummins

Debut: "Frank Shoots Every Member of the Gang"

Luther's brother and Mac's uncle.

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• Butt-Monkey: The poor guy's name is Donald McDonald, he was The Unfavorite to his father, implied to have been the victim of homophobia, and despite always wanting to have kids never got the chance. Then when he tries to bond with his nephew, he's completely shut down.
• Creepy Uncle: Subverted. He's not actually one but Mac keeps misinterpreting his well-meaning attempts at being a loving uncle as this.
• Fat and Skinny: He's noticeably plump compared to the wiry Luther, and is a much warmer and more pleasant man to match.
• Foil: He's the complete opposite of his felonious and intimidating brother, Luther.
• Generation Xerox: He's basically an older Mac, a sports-loving man who struggled with his sexuality while trying to form a good relationship with his father. Charlie even lampshades this.
• Good Counterpart:
  • To Jack Kelly. He's not at all creepy (besides perhaps some well-intentioned desperation) and genuinely wants to have a good relationship with his nephew, Mac.
  • To his brother, Luther. While Luther is an imposing criminal that neglected and lied to his son for most of his life, Donald, by contrast, is a genuinely sweet person who is eager, even desperate, to have a familial connection with his nephew.
• Hope Spot: He seems tailor-made to be the loving, open Parental Substitute that Mac has been craving his entire life yet Mac, being Mac, fails to pick up on this and dismisses his attempts at bonding with him as Donald being a weirdo. Notably, Charlie repeatedly points this out to Mac during their visit with him to absolutely no avail before giving up out of frustration.
• Irony: Mac is so steeped in denial that he treats his apathetic and often abusive parents as being kind and loving. When he interacts with the actually kind and loving Donald, he treats him as though he's a Creepy Uncle in the vein of Jack Kelly.
• Nice Guy: A warm and friendly man who is welcoming to his family and the Kellys.
• Remember the New Guy?: He was never mentioned prior to Season 16. Possibly justified by his status as The Unfavorite White Sheep of his family.
• Straight Gay: A "life-long bachelor" who was "always funny"; but a huge sports fan who likes watching the game and playing catch, just like his nephew.
• Strong Family Resemblance: While it isn't stated if he and Luther are twins, both are played by Gregory Scott Cummins, making them strongly resemble one another.
• The Unfavorite: While Mac's grandfather wrote dozens of letters to Luther during World War II, he didn't write even one to Donald. Donald heavily implies this was due to him being gay, drawing a strong parallel between himself and Mac.
• Unfortunate Names: While it isn't quite as bad as Ronald, 'Donald McDonald' isn't a name most would clamor for. Charlie notes this soon after learning of his existence.
• White Sheep: Appears to be a perfectly well-adjusted and kind man in stark contrast to Mac and his parents.

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