In seeing the episode title alongside the promotional picture for the episode above, it immediately has you questioning why The Gang are dressed in such a way and what on Earth it has to do with solving the bathroom problem – it also has you asking what this bathroom problem actually is. Thankfully both questions are immediately answered as we first find out The Gang are heading to see Jimmy Buffett and are dressed to represent “The Island”. After Dennis frustratingly corrects Charlie that Buffet doesn’t sing “The Piña Colada Song”, the episode’s plot begins with Mac leaving the women’s bathroom singing the song, much to Dee’s disgust at him using her bathroom despite his belief he’s allowed to “as a gay man” who is more comfortable around women who also hate men.

The next twenty minutes sees The Gang’s trip to Jimmy Buffett indefinitely delayed as they try to come to an understanding about men and women sharing the same bathroom in Paddy’s Pub.

I’d say this episode manages to top “Time’s Up For The Gang” as the most socially driven episode of the season so far. Even though “Time’s Up” focuses on the very important issue of sexual harassment in the workplace, this one manages to provide an It’s Always Sunny social commentary on even more social issues including gender, sexuality, racism and religion. There’s also a sexual assault here as Mac, mere minutes into episode, starts to choke Dee for her disagreement – that’s the second time he’s assaulted her this season and I doubt it’ll be the last.

There’s a lot of expected anger against Dee in this one, but that doesn’t make it any less funny watching her spirit continue to be broken. Dennis’ eyes telling a threatening story after she quite simply spoke and is put down by Mac, Charlie stating, “Dee, we were talking” after she makes a valid comment towards the end of the episode and Mac following this up by telling her to “shut the f*** up”, which was surprisingly uncensored but absolutely hilarious. The reaction of Dee after Mac’s comment can be described as a mixture of confusion about why she is still a part of this Gang, and also of acceptance at her role in it.

As this episode is about the bathrooms of Paddy’s Pub, we get two very rare scenes inside the women’s bathroom. We discover that Charlie, thanks to his upbringing from a single mother, can only defecate dressed as a woman, so of course we see him dressed in a blonde wig, a dress and pink high heels. After 13 seasons you’d think these characters might have been completely developed, but here we are, finding out Charlie enjoys cross-dressing. This of course has him convinced that he’s transgender much to the irritation of Dennis and Frank. The next scene in this bathroom comes after The Gang have decided it can be used by both men and women as long as candles are used to block out the smell and human screams are used instead music to cover the sound – the latter was, worryingly, Frank’s idea. Mac and Dee leave their stalls to join Dennis and Charlie (who is comically eating his breakfast burrito) and after some disagreement from Frank about the decision, his door is opened only to reveal he’s sitting there holding his gun (not an innuendo, actually his famed little gun) to make sure he’s safe while doing his private business.

The rest of the episode sees The Gang coming up with their own ways to label the bathrooms, including Mac spending four hours in the office with a laptop, only to limp out with a laptop infected with Russian malware and a pixellated sign featuring pictures of male genitalia and pictures of roast beef to represent female genitalia. That’s right, pictures of roast beef. Frank and Charlie’s idea of a label gifts us Frank’s highlight of the episode, with offensive symbols used to stereotype specific religions. Frank’s political incorrectness and outright immoral ideals leads to quality interactions with Dennis who brilliantly quips “I hate it when you’re on my side!” We also later see Charlie go to attack Mac in a similar to fashion to Mac’s assault of Dee – hands straight for the throat – after Mac’s comment that “ghouls don’t exist.” Mac twice exclaiming “I’m a bear!” after Charlie angrily shouts “you’re a twink” for the third week in a row gifts a golden example of his uncertain perception of himself. “You’ll never be a bear!” shouts Charlie who after so many seasons of offending Mac by calling him gay, has now amazingly found that calling him a particular type of gay person is just as offensive.

This is a really enjoyable episode that despite its modern day themes feels very old school thanks to it being set completely inside Paddy’s – for the first time this season. It was going to take something special to top last week’s strongest episode of the season, and while this one doesn’t reach the same heights, it does manage to keep a trend of quality episodes going as Season 13 continues to get better.

Rating: 8.5/10

TO READ ABOUT LAST WEEK’S EPISODE

FOR MORE FROM SEASON 13 OF IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA