It's Always Sunny Season 16 Episode 4 Ups Uncle Jack's Creep Factor - And It May Be Too Much
This article contains spoilers for the latest episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." It also contains references to pedophilia, child sexual abuse and pornography. Reader discretion is advised.
There have been some pretty dark running gags throughout "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," but Uncle Jack's pedophilia is definitely one of the darkest. The character, played by Andrew Friedman, first appeared in the seventh episode of season 1, in the aptly named "Charlie Got Molested." Though the episode was actually about a ploy the McPoyles forced Charlie into regarding a coach at their old high school, later episodes hinted at the fact that Charlie actually was molested, but by Uncle Jack instead of Coach Murray. Jack's probable pedophile tendencies have mostly been one-off gags or hints at Charlie's traumatic upbringing, but in the season 16 episode "Frank Vs Russia," his creepy (and illegal!) predilection is all but confirmed.
The best moments with Uncle Jack are the ones where he's being utterly humiliated, like in "McPoyle vs Ponderosa: Trial of the Century," when he tries to hide his "small" hands beneath big rubber ones and accidentally tosses one across the courtroom before screeching "Nobody look!" Other moments, like appearing on the news and showing a photo of a nude child while declaring it art are more awkward, pushing the line of decency every time. "It's Always Sunny" has never been bound by the rules of TV, but "Frank VS Russia" gives us more Uncle Jack and some seriously off-putting jokes that might even cross the line for some hardcore fans.
Something's up with Jack
"Frank Vs Russia" is far from the first time that Uncle Jack's molesting tendencies have come up, but it is certainly one of the more unpleasant. In the past, Charlie (Charlie Day) has been reticent to spend any time with Jack, and in "The Great Recession," when Jack talks about how they used to wrestle when Charlie was little, Charlie says that what they did shouldn't be done "between uncles and nephews." Any time he tries to touch Charlie, Charlie pulls away, and he seems horrified by Jack in every way. This doesn't appear to just be an obsession with Charlie, either, because in "Old Lady House: A Situation Comedy," Jack goes on a hunt through his sister Bonnie's (Lynne Marie Stewart) house to find a hard drive that he was hiding in her ceiling.
In "Frank Vs Russia," Charlie and Frank (Danny DeVito) need to borrow Uncle Jack's "spy glasses" in order to cheat at a chess tournament, and they go through his box of creepy tools, which are almost as unsettling as what's in Dennis's Land Rover. (A man's gotta have his tools!) While Uncle Jack watches Frank play chess against a child, he instructs Charlie, who's wearing the glasses, to hold still so he can take a screenshot. It's kind of rough, knowing this child is a victim of a sex crime. Kids have been fair game for all kinds of awful stuff on "Sunny," including underage drinking, a Ponderosa preteen drug dealer, and some serious violence, but this might be the limit.
The episode also shows Jack driving an ice cream truck that he calls his "side business," but when Frank asks for ice cream, it's revealed that there isn't any. Yikes on bikes.
Does it go too far?
So, does "Frank Vs Russia" go too far? In this "It's Always Sunny" fan's mind, the jokes are pretty in-line with the show's tone over the years, even if they feel a little ickier because there's an actual child involved. The episode doesn't shy away from some other very dark jokes about consent, like Dee having a massive supply of roofies that she calls "magic beans," so it's not as if the jokes about Jack come totally out of left field. "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" has always pushed the boundaries of good taste and what's acceptable to joke about, and sometimes that means they're going to step slightly over and make everyone just a hair uncomfortable. They at least have the good sense for Charlie to call out Jack's awful behavior, and clearly do not condone it. Depiction does not equal endorsement, especially with "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." They're the worst people in the world! That's the whole point!
The gang will always be terrible people, surrounded by terrible people. Uncle Jack's creep factor may have gone up a bit, but that's because the show has gotten even more chaotic and intense in its later years. Is it possible that the gang takes it way too far at some point? Maybe. But for now, the awful stuff is pretty darn funny.
New episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" premiere on Wednesdays on FXX and the next day streaming on Hulu.