An amazing episode with plenty of hilarious moments, “Time’s Up For The Gang” provides an Always Sunny commentary on one of the world’s important current social topics: sexual harassment in the workplace. Having been forced by Dennis to attend a sexual harassment seminar after Paddy’s Pub was registered on a negative list, The Gang do in these 20 minutes what they do best, show pure irresponsibility and an ability to follow basic tasks.

There’s so many strong points to this episode and every character is used to their full potential, even Frank, whose role may be minimal here, but all moments he features in are absolute gold. He’s immediately shown to not having any interest in being present after finding out he’s free of any problems courtesy of the statute of limitations, but after Dennis informs him this might not be the case, Frank gifts us one of the episode’s funniest recurring gags relating to the heat and “the climate”, before leaving to make some phone calls. The next time we see him, he’s wearing a robe, bereft of his clothes and on the phone to his lawyer. One of the many highlights of this is in Frank entering the room randomly talking about an “abortion list”.

As for the rest of The Gang, they’re on top form as well, split up initially with Mac, Dee and Charlie set for a sub-seminar focusing on role playing scenarios led by Alan, one of the two moderators. This scene is incredible. In an episode filled with quick quips, Dee’s casual “he should” after Alan reaffirms Mac’s role “you check IDs” might be my favourite. Though Mac’s continual belief he’s Paddy’s Head of Security and Charlie’s remark that Mac is “just our gay guy now” perfectly convey Mac’s delusion and the fact he – and the rest of The Gang – doesn’t actually have a role in the bar.

With Mac and Dee chosen to act out a simple task, this scene sees Dee lifted high up into the air by Mac using one hand gripped to her private region. There’s a lot of really funny aspects of this: Mac’s comment whilst lifting Dee in the air; the disgust of Alan; Dee’s amazement at Mac’s feat and how this is the highest he’s ever lifted her; and Alan’s stating that this is sexual assault completely swaying Dee’s point of view and causing Mac to sweat because of “the climate”. Once again Dee steals the scene with a casual “you sweatin’ Ronald?”

When we next see Dee, she’s entering the original seminar room where the female moderator is being impressed by Dennis’ very surprising knowledge of sexual harassment and assault. When Dee asks if it’s harassment for a male co-worker to constantly call her “bird”, albeit in a non-sexual way, only to be told as nasty as this is it isn’t assault, Dennis’ laugh followed by a comment of “you dumb b****” is absolutely tremendous.

As is becoming a regular theme in Always Sunny, “Time’s Up For The Gang” features a lot of callbacks to previous episodes – and also episodes that haven’t aired yet as once again The Eagles’ Super Bowl win is referred to. The portion of the episode in which the two moderators refer to a hypothetical scenario in which a fictional woman who they simply refer to as “The Waitress” is being harassed. It’s amazing how what they go on to explain is the story of Charlie and The Waitress, to which Charlie panics, believing they’re actually referring to him and defends his actions, freeing himself of blame because “he got molested”, which isn’t a reference to the Season 1 episode, but instead a reference to his intimate moment with Dee in Season 10. This comically leads to Mac commenting how Charlie was molested by his Uncle Jack and how that led to “The Nightman Cometh” and Dee, Charlie and Mac’s stating that for as bad as they are, Dennis is the worst. It’s at this point where Frank appears once again and his robe opens: “I showed dong, women saw it”, which had me in tears.

I didn’t expect the big reveal of this episode to be that Dennis organised this event in an attempt to fix The Gang’s many flaws, taking over the presentation with a prepared PowerPoint presentation, featuring a picture of Rickety Cricket of which Dennis notes the ugliness, but adds “he was born this way, it’s nobody’s fault”, freeing himself of blame in a hilarious and outright unnecessary manner. There’s also the continued implication of Dennis being a rapist/psychopath here, in which he states of the many women he’s slept with that “their phones gave consent” with an eerie prolonged stare.

I’ve noticed there’s been a fair share of concern regarding the quality of It’s Always Sunny, but if this doesn’t calm nerves and reassure fans that this show is as good as it’s always been, I don’t really know what to say. The high bar set by “The Gang Escapes” has not only be reached, but overtaken – once again by writer Megan Ganz – and set to a new standard that future episodes of this season will be compared to. I’d really advise you to check out this episode, it’s a great one.

Rating: 9.75/10

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