I’ve been keeping my obsession/fixation/love for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia mostly to myself. I have been recording audio for a giant video essay only two of my closest friends will ever see, but I’ve kept most of my thoughts about the show private despite my tendency to spew out all of my thoughts on this website. I’m breaking that streak (which I’ve kept for unknown reasons) to talk about S13 Ep10: Mac Finds His Pride.
I really don’t know if there’s an audience on this website for this show, because I haven’t interacted much with the fanbase yet to keep away from spoilers, but oh well. If I’m only writing for myself, at least I’ll always have one reader. Still, if anyone has stumbled across this and hasn’t seen the show, I encourage you to not rob yourself of a spoiler-less experience of this masterclass in comedy. It’s Always Sunny is not a show for everyone, but for the type of people disposed to love it, it is a gem in a landslide of TV shows that never fully speak to me in the way I want them to. Please, give it a chance, and come back here later if you feel so inclined.
There is so much to talk about with this show, proven by the hours of content I’ve recorded in my voice memos app, but S13 Ep10 brings a unique feeling to the show that I cannot shake. I keep seeing a video recommended to me on YouTube titled something like, “When An Episode Isn’t Like The Rest of The Show.” I haven’t watched that video despite my interest due to my ever-strong spoiler aversion, but if an Always Sunny episode was to be in that video, it would be S13 Ep10. But to truly convey the whole weight of this episode, the storyline it’s built around and the show it exists within both need to be harped on. Forgive me, I’m writing this as though the reader has no clue what this show is even though I’m pretty sure anyone reading this far has seen the show already. My bad.
It’s Always Sunny exists on a level of absurdity that is in all honesty difficult to get used to at first. After spending so much time on sitcoms with entertaining yet predicable concepts and storylines held together by genuinely kind, likable characters, It’s Always Sunny slapped me in the face with a level of insanity and intentionality that completely shook my understanding of this genre. It’s Always Sunny challenges itself with a cast of five people who are inherently unlikable and throws them into a reality that is at best half-believable and at its most extreme entirely incomprehensible. This show asks you to sit and watch seventeen seasons of horrible people doing bad things, and more incredulous yet, it also asks you to laugh at it. And fuck it, I do. I do not think I’ve ever laughed so hard at a sitcom before. I have had to pause episodes of this show several times to catch my breath before rewinding and throwing myself back into the whirlwind all over again. It’s Always Sunny, above all of its messaging, masked morality, and character building, is fucking hilarious. All of those facts made me endlessly wonder: how do they tackle Mac being gay?
I endlessly wondered this because, despite my stated hatred of them, I started this show with the massive spoiler that Mac is gay. I took a comedy class a couple years ago where we watched the first episode of this show, after which a student remarked, “That episode is even crazier when you know Mac is gay.” Two years later, I went back to the show with that knowledge still burned into my mind. Mac’s sexuality, most of the time, is handled with all of the absurdity that everything else in this show possesses. It would, in a lot of ways, be a disservice not just to show, but to Mac as a character to attempt poise and eloquence in this storyline. It’s Always Sunny does not take itself seriously in the way many sitcoms do, and so it does not ask true reflection of its characters. Mac being gay is not the “one two” gut punch I expected it to be when I started the show. With the context of my spoiler, I assumed it would be a random drop in S12 that I’d have to reel from. Instead, Mac and the complications with his sexuality start at the beginning and grow from subtext to plain sight, until it becomes a running joke that Mac is gay as hell but refusing to accept it within himself. Mac finally comes out (and stays out) in S12 Ep6: Hero or Hate Crime? If this had been the conclusion to this arc, I would have been more than okay with that. It fits the tone of the show and does not boil Mac down to his sexuality. But the tale isn’t over yet. Enter: S13 Ep10.
S13 Ep10 endows Mac with a sense of awareness that this show’s characters rarely ever get. In a show full of mind-bogglingly broad schemes that often lead to lives being ruined, or people nearly dying, or Dee’s car getting crashed, Mac enters into this episode with a very grounded plot line: he has no clue what to do with his sexuality. He’s come out, sure, but it hasn’t brought him the closure he was hoping for. Maybe he’s found a way to somewhat accept this within himself, but if he has, he doesn’t know how to express it. Mac does not understand how to envelop queerness into his personality, into his life. It has been burning him up on the inside for decades, and now he’s not sure how to let it out without starting a forest fire. Thus, Mac enters into a state of believability that no character in this show has ever held. Mac’s conflict in this episode is incredibly real, incredibly common, incredibly relatable in a way It’s Always Sunny swears itself away from. Thus, Mac feels more human than he has ever felt before and yet is still surrounded by people who remain absurd. This brilliantly intensifies Mac’s struggle: his friends get this comfort of their insanity, get to play around and goof off in their usual manner without needing to question anything about themselves. They all possess a security that Mac has suddenly been stripped of. Sure, he’s always been in denial about himself, but in S13 Ep10, he isn’t. He finds himself aware of an aspect of difference within himself that distances him from the world he wants to remain a part of.
As Frank drags Mac across Philly in an attempt to artificially help him “find himself,” Mac only winds up melting into more despair. This episode is, of course, not without comedy or absurdity, but Mac refuses to directly play a role in it. This becomes especially heavy considering Mac’s typical demeanor. He usually possesses a level of delirious joy (only matched by Charlie, the best character in the show, but that’s another essay) and a bright foolishness that lands him in many of the show’s sticky situations. To see him so downtrodden feels not only wrong but almost gut wrenching, especially when you have to watch Frank be the opposite of helpful. Mac is repeatedly told through the show, and through this episode, that his friends do not understand him. He’s always seemed okay with that, and I have to reiterate, this show is a satire so allergic to taking itself seriously that how these characters genuinely “feel” is both unimportant and usually irrelevant. But here, in this episode, the fact that he is so misunderstood seems to be eating Mac alive. This compounds when he attempts to connect to his father, a running through line of Mac’s character that has always brought me some sadness despite the humor it’s presented with. Mac is rejected by his father once again and left to dig through his head alone.
The real main reason this episode stands out so much to me lies in its ending. Watching It’s Always Sunny, especially in the insane, all-at-once way I have been over the past month, gets you looking for patterns. Not much in this show is predicable, but when it comes to sincerity, you can always be certain that any “sweet” moment is going to get slapped in the face. You are in fact often punished for ever having hope that these characters will come to a genuinely intelligent, kind, and/or cohesive conclusion. So when I reached the final minutes of S13 Ep10, I excitedly waited for the punchline. Mac gets up on stage in front of an audience of inmates including his father, and announces his sexuality. I sit on the edge of my seat, waiting for it to fall apart. But the joke never comes.
Instead, Mac performs a genuinely beautiful, well-choreographed dance expressing his inner battle with his faith and his sexuality. Much of his turmoil comes from the clashing of these two identities, of his inability to hold both in his hands at the same time. Mac’s violent, punitive version of Christianity breeds a level of self hatred that queerness is not allowed to exist within, and so his dance represents a war between the two ideologies he holds so dearly. It’s clear to Mac that being gay means something, maybe everything, but religion isn’t something he is willing to let go of, nor should he have to. It is through his dance, a dance with a metaphorical angel, that he finds a way to forgiveness. Toward the end of the performance, Mac ends up in the arms of this angel, being comforted as he is told “It’s okay.” Through this, Mac can reconcile his sexuality and allow it to exist alongside his faith. He realizes that he does not need to abandon one or the other, instead deciding that perhaps, the God he has spent his life worshipping made him this way for a reason.
I watched this scene with my hand covering my mouth the entire time, still waiting for the punchline. I thought back to S7 Ep13: The High School Reunion Part Two, where the gang puts on an insanely well-choreographed dance, only to reveal that they were actually bombing the entire time, and expected that punchline again. Surely, we would cut away and reveal Mac wiggling around on the ground with tears in his eyes while being hopelessly booed, right? But that doesn’t happen. The performance concludes, and It’s Always Sunny lets you sit in it. Frank finally understands Mac, finally “gets it,” and the viewer is challenged to do the same. There is still some absurdity in this scene, but that is mainly because of the show it exists inside. You’re telling me that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has an unironic, completely sincere dance performance by Mac, fucking Mac, Mac who doesn’t know his right foot from his left? Still, once the shock had worn off, I felt a deep sense of gratitude toward this writing decision.
It’s Always Sunny tackles many different issues and makes its stance known. One of my favorite things about the show is its refusal to be lukewarm, its refusal to “appease everyone.” In a world of asshole actors, writers, and various celebrities deeming that art is “apolitical,” a stance so braindead it actually concerns me, It’s Always Sunny completely rejects that notion. It’s Always Sunny is a show about the topics most sitcoms shy away from, and while it’s not always hit the nail on the head with it’s messaging or it’s tone, I have greatly respected it for having the balls to attempt to mean something. Still, these messages are never portrayed in a sincere or a kind way. The show is ultimately about five awful fuckers who do awful things to awful people, including each other. Which is why Mac getting this moment feels so goddamn special.
As a lesbian, something so deeply resonates within me regarding Mac’s desire to be understood. I think all human beings have that innate yearning, but it is undeniably different for queer people. The queer experience is not only uncommon, but entirely unique to every LGBTQ+ person. When Mac is being dragged around club to club in Frank’s attempt to pigeonhole him into a subculture, I felt the same hopelessness that Mac felt. There is something deeply terrifying about feeling like you don’t fit in with a community that is already ostracized from society. Not only is Mac gay, he does not find comfort in the subcultures the straight community wants to shove him and all of us into. People have become more “tolerant” of queerness as long as it’s presented in a way they understand, so they shove us into boxes in order to define us. Mac feels this pressure to join this BDSM club or drag show culture because even if he doesn’t feel like he belongs, at least he’ll fit somewhere, right? This feels so close to the queerness I’ve experienced. After “finding yourself,” there’s this pressure to quickly jump into a community you’ll be safe in. I spent the first years after coming out trying to find a place in “lesbian culture.” I learned terminology, history, tried to shoehorn myself into places I didn’t really feel like myself in. Like Mac, my desire for understanding usurped my deep need to be myself.
In the end, Mac does get to be himself. He does an outlandish, absurd, beautiful performance that is entirely insane and entirely him. He realizes through this what he’s in fact been trying to express the entire time: above all else, he’s still fucking Mac. This dipshit douchebag who thinks he knows karate. Queerness is just another part of himself he’s got to learn how to let in. This is not to say that it’s useless to try to find community within queerness. But Mac will do that his way.
The work and intentionality Rob McElhenney puts into this goddamn dance is as impressive as it is heartwarming. Despite how awful they all are, I have grown incredibly fond of every character in this show, especially Mac. This episode feels so vindicating because goddamn, maybe this guy will finally stop eating himself alive so much. Then again, who knows. I haven’t started s14 yet, so maybe he’ll regress. Then again, don’t we all?
To be queer is really to be anything at all. We are a vast, diverse group of people. To try and make us all understandable under the same umbrella terms is not just cruel, it’s useless. I’ve even soured on the concept of labels a little, because as helpful as they can be, the thought of having to deterministically name myself as something feels suffocating. Yea, lesbian works for now, but the pressure of having to stay in that label or risk alienation feels like it works against what being queer feels like.
I’m probably taking this way too seriously. Oh well. I love you, Mac. I love you for your stupid schemes and your ridiculous lines and your stupidity and your hilarity and your queerness. If nothing else, this episode reiterates to me that if you try to make yourself smaller, you’ll only end up exploding out louder than ever before.
To any queer person reading this, I hope you find people willing to understand you not just in the context of your sexuality, but in the context of who you are. We all deserve to be known for all of our quirks, beauties, and boring little factoids. And if you’ve got to put on a beautiful, over-the-top dance performance for your incarcerated father to find yourself, fucking go for it.
