Depravity doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It doesn’t always necessitate turning the people of a town into salt or smiting a population by killing its first-born. Sometimes a few years of prison would do just fine, and by that measure “the gang” of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia should probably be serving multiple consecutive life sentences. Seinfeld, a show about four friends who entertained their every whim and social preference at the expense of others, ended with them finally being jailed for engaging in their typical behavior in the wrong situation. It seems only fitting then, that a show that has billed itself as “Seinfeld on crack” should see its characters jailed for all eternity for everything they’ve done, because with their sixth season they buy a boat for the sake of encouraging sex, argue the merits of blackface, fight gay marriage, get divorced, pollute the minds of America’s children, and give birth to a baby, they continue their descent into bedlam. Hilarious, hysterical bedlam.
If you haven’t already met “the gang” all you need to know is this: they’re a group of five friends whose weekly escapades are fueled by greed, ego, and borderline sociopathic tendencies. Their misadventures typically stem from Dennis’s overconfident bluster, Mac’s inflated sense of self-worth and appeal, Charlie’s uneducated and illiterate exuberance, Dee’s desire to show up the four guys for ignoring her, or Frank’s schemes to make money or take advantage of a system. Seldom do the stories ever go in a rational direction or in a way that any sane person should be comfortable with, but through a combination of stupidity and oversight each episode usually achieves just the right fever pitch of politically incorrect comedy. Although, compared to previous seasons, the sixth season has fewer highs and lows to its level of comedy and seems to run at a very consistent pace. It doesn’t have any of those wildly outrageous episodes that warrant numerous revisits, but each episode typically earns one or two hard laughs within a steady stream of chuckles.
The main reason It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s sixth season doesn’t feel quite as fantastic as the earlier ones is because it doesn’t go after a controversial or inane subject with quite the same fervor as it has in the past. Even as the show tackles gay marriage, it goes a very obvious route that feels forced and gives us a disingenuous of Mac, who, for whatever reason, is tasked with being the antagonist on the subject. What has always made the show worthwhile was not that the show took controversial positions on hot topics, but that no matter what side it took on any discussion, it managed to twist it into a despicably selfish perspective for a given character’s own desires. To some respects, the sixth season succeeds to this length with its cynical approach to why men buy boats or the trashy nature of public pools. Unfortunately, those brilliant moments come few and far between other, more mild acts of social evil.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
While Dennis and Mac don’t greet us at the beginning of the set to mock us for buying an HD set of a show filmed in standard definition like they did for season five, the sixth season set boasts more than enough extras to incentivize fans. Perhaps the most fun of the featurettes is the extended cut of Lethal Weapon 5, the inappropriate sequel made by Dennis and Mac. As a close second the show’s blooper reel provides quite a few laughs, and the audio commentaries have a similar effect, though the audio track is a bit distracting as instead of dampening the entirety of the normal audio track, it only turns down when someone talks in the commentary, making it hard to follow the conversation at times. Finally, the Blu-ray set includes deleted and extra scenes along with an It’s Always Sunny trivia challenge to go along with flip cup.
"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Season 6" is on sale September 13, 2011 and is not rated. Comedy. Directed by Matt Shakman. Written by Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, Rob Rosell, Scott Marder. Starring Charlie Day, Danny DeVito, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, Rob McElhenney.
