It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Season 16 Episode 6 Goes Full Kids These Days
One of the most refreshing aspects of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" is just how little its main characters care about children. Sure, Dennis is technically revealed to be a father in season 12, but that's no longer a concern. Most sitcoms have at least one of their characters have a baby a couple seasons in, but not this one. By season 13, not only are Mac and Charlie still childless, but they're both actively going around and beating the s*** out of the local children. Most TV shows would be concerned that the sight of a main character slamming a kid's face into a car door might make him unsympathetic to viewers, but for "Always Sunny" that's part of its charm. Frank, Dennis, Dee, Mac, and Charlie are all garbage, and we wouldn't have them any other way.
This has never been more clear than in the latest episode, "Risk E. Rat's Pizza & Amusement Center," where the gang goes to a Chuck-E-Cheese ripoff for the day, only to discover that the place is no longer as cool as it was when they were kids. Where are all the mascots based on racial caricatures or making fun of the disabled? Where are all the health code violations? Why doesn't the female robot have realistic breasts anymore? The Risk E. Rat's of 2023 is far more sanitized than the Risk E. Rat's of the late '80s, and it's even more sanitized than it was during Frank's time in the '50s. The culture shock is impossible for the gang to move past.
A recurring theme
The gang spends the entire episode complaining about how kids these days aren't enjoying a real childhood, even as it becomes increasingly clear that these changes within this Risk E. Rats are probably for the best. Dee is capable of realizing that the game Frank played here as a kid (where they were encouraged to sexually harass the waitresses) was bad, but she can't quite grasp the concept that the mascots from their own childhood — based primarily on racist caricatures — weren't ideal either. As always, the gang comes within mere inches of reaching self-awareness, only to immediately retreat to the comfort of their rose-tinted memories of the past.
In a lot of ways, the whole episode feels like a call out of nostalgia, and how much people are deluding themselves with the idea that things used to be so much better. Go into the comment section of any commercial or news broadcast from the '80s and you'll see a whole bunch of Gen Xers longing for a time where things were simpler and more pure. But was the world actually simpler and purer back then, or did it just feel that way because they were kids at the time? For the "Always Sunny" gang, the answer's obviously the latter, and it's not the first time they've made this mistake ...
Misremembering the past
Every time we get a glimpse into the character's past on "Always Sunny," it turns out to be far more terrible than the characters remember it. Charlie was almost certainly molested by his uncle, for one, and Dee and Dennis were put in a Hitler Youth summer camp, which they only realize once they find video evidence.
Even when the revelations about their youth aren't something out of a horror film, they're still much more depressing than the characters are willing to admit. As early as the show's third episode, "Underage Drinking: A National Concern," we've learned that although none of these characters were particularly cool in High School, they all prefer to imagine otherwise. The only exception at the time was Dee, who was still enjoying her season 1 status of being the "voice of reason" character before season 2 brought her down to the rest of the gang's level.
By the time the show reached season 13's clip show parody episode, Dee has gotten just as delusional as the rest, taking part in a collective delusion that she and the gang once lived in a New York City apartment in front of a live studio audience. Nostalgia had warped their brains so much that when they thought about their '90s, they didn't think back to their time in high school, but their imaginary time living out episodes of "Seinfeld."
This latest "Risk E Rat's" episode follows along the gang's time-honored tradition of willful delusion. Its conclusion, with the gang inadvertently traumatizing the kids and then refusing to take responsibility for it, only confirms that this tradition's not going to end any time soon. Every main character here has had a terrible childhood, but that's never going to stop them from remembering it fondly.