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Love is in the air in Philadelphia. Charlie shows his love to the Waitress by guarding her bike but once again is shot down. Then Dee’s car is hit and when her and Charlie exit the vehicle expecting to smash their teeth in, they find the drivers are a very attractive brother and sister. It turns out they’re apart of the Taft family, who are very wealthy and prestigious, and they agree to a pleasant dinner with Dee and Charlie. After their attempts at acting rich fail miserably, they realize that the Tafts are thankful that they’ve found people who aren’t as “high society” as them. It’s a match made in heaven.

For a majority of this episode many characters’ motivations are left vague – Do the Tafts really enjoy the company of the Gang, or are they in fact using them for mocking as Dennis proposes? Is Charlie really over the Waitress? – and they’re only answered in the dinner scene at the end. The ending was what elevated the episode for me, because until that point the episode had been fairly laugh-free. This turned out to be purposeful, as It’s Always Sunny wanted to make these relationships real yet ambiguous Until we saw that the brother was using them and the sister was actually in love with Charlie their true motivations could have gone either way. And when we get all of it coming to a head, with Dennis’ filmed confessions and a bloody Waitress realizing she needs Charlie to torment her, it worked wonderfully.

This was a big episode for Charlie, and revealed a darker, craftier side of him than we usually see. Charlie used a woman that somehow was in love with him to get the Waitress jealous, and it worked. When Charlie first showed signs of being over the Waitress I was skeptical, but believed that he also enjoyed the relationship he was in now enough that he could get over the Waitress. So when Charlie finally revealed that, no, he didn’t like her, and in fact he thought she was a rich slut, I was delighted in the demented way only It’s Always Sunny can pull off.

For the negative side of things, I wasn’t as wild about Dee’s story or her would-be beau, but thankfully the episode was more focused on Charlie. The episode also didn’t use Frank harassing the Waitress to the fullest potential, though the final reveal that she was badly wounded was depressingly funny. Also the Tafts were never given much life – so little so that I can’t remember their names. But besides those minor problems this episode was another success for this season of It’s Always Sunny. We’re now a quarter into a very promising season and hopefully the show keeps the quality up.

Loose Ends:

It’ll be interesting to see the future of Charlie’s relationship with the Waitress now that her restraining order on him has been decreased.

Glad to see Mac hasn’t let his weight loss stop his from wearing those Tommy Bahama shirts.

Next week on It’s Always Sunny, “The Gang Gets Analyzed”: The Gang gets Freudian as they step into the therapist’s office to work through their mountain of issues. But when Dennis thinks he has everyone figured out, the shrink turns the tables on him and exposes the insanity in his unique brand of pop psychology.

-Jeremy