Dennis Reynolds Portrayed by Glenn Howerton

Charlie Carter (young,

Seth Lee (young,

Jamal Mixon (dream, Charlie Carter (young, A Very Sunny Christmas Seth Lee (young, Pop-Pop: The Final Solution Jamal Mixon (dream, The Gang Turns Black Alias "The Looks"

"Molester"

"Anteater Nose"

"Weird Balls"

"The Legend"

"Dickless Dennis"

"Complete Sociopath"

"The Hammer of Thor"

"Mr. Excellence"

"Golden God"

"Hugh Honey"

"The Daiquiri Man"

"Five Star Man"

"Daddy" (of Daddy and the Boy)

"Brian LeFevre"

"Dane Brass"

"The Vain One" Family

Dee Reynolds (older twin sister) Frank Reynolds (step/adopted father)

Barbara Reynolds (mother; deceased)

Pop-Pop (grandfather)

Bruce Mathis (biological father)

Donna (aunt)

Max (uncle; deceased)

Gail the Snail (cousin)

Charlie Kelly (possible step-brother)

Brian Jr. (son)

Relationship Maureen Ponderosa (ex-wife; deceased) Mac (homoerotic life partner, possible romantic interest) Birthday August 18, 1976 (age 44) Job Co-owner, Paddy's Pub Images of Dennis Reynolds

Dennis Reynolds is the co-owner of Paddy's Pub, and Dee Reynolds' twin brother. Dennis is best friends with Charlie and Mac. Dennis is an extreme narcissist and it is hinted that Dennis may be a serial killer, but this remains ambiguous, as does his sexuality. [1]

Throughout most of the series, Dennis is shown to be a psychopath who only cares about himself and has no feelings. But by the season twelve finale, Dennis actually begins to display feelings and begins to become empathetic and compassionate by clearly showing love for his son, Brian Jr. and wanting to raise him with Mandy. This is short lived as he returns to Philadelphia and resumes his old life.

Dennis is portrayed by Glenn Howerton.

Dennis is comically vain, selfish, superficial, hyper-sexual, deranged, and delusional about himself. Dennis also has an extreme temper (most notable in later seasons) and will blow up in rage whenever his image is called into question, he doesn't get what he wants, or just plain gets irritated.

Dennis is frequently hinted to be an emotionless sociopath but later seasons have taken a more sympathetic approach. Prior to season 10, it was hinted that Dennis was very mentally ill, and was later diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder by a psychiatrist and was given medication for it ("Psycho Pete Returns"). In season 12's ("The Gang Tends Bar"), the notion that Dennis doesn't have feelings (something even he has said) is said to be untrue when Dennis reveals he's possibly the most sensitive in the Gang. This is likely another delusion, but hypersensitivity is common in people with Borderline Personality Disorder.

One of Dennis's most predominant traits is that he is extremely status obsessed and has incredibly grandiose, deluded and distorted image of himself that causes him to believe himself to be physically perfect and irresistible to others. He often "pops off" his shirt in inappropriate situations in attempts to impress others with his physique. He frequently obsesses over any possibility that he may have a visible physical flaw and often spends the remainder of the episode trying to correct it. ("The Gang Exploits A Miracle") ("Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack") ("How Mac Got Fat")

Dennis has chronic feelings of emptiness that distress him and cause problems in his interpersonal relationships ("Charlie's Mom Has Cancer")​​​. He states that he combats this (dubbing it his 'God hole') by having sex with a lot of women. ("Sweet Dee Gets Audited")

Dennis's delusions of grandeur extend to his relationships with others. In high school and college, Dennis believed that he was a legend that others looked up to. He later found out that he was wrong on both counts ("The Gang Reignites the Rivalry") ("The High School Reunion, Part 2: The Gang's Revenge")​​​. He often claims to be a God and believes he should be the leader in all cases of decision making. Dennis is also shown as unable to connect with people on any meaningful level. His romantic relationships are cynical, and his closest friendships are both codependent and homoerotic (though he believes them to be incredibly cool and masculine).

Arguably the most depraved member of the Gang, Dennis routinely destroys others' property and casually mentions committing disturbing acts of violence which include (but are not limited to):

— “ I'll tell you what buddy, I can help you out. I'm gonna toss a frame-bang your way. Here's how that works: I slip into your house one night while your wife is sleeping... and I ease into her real nice. That way you're both cheating on each other and she can't clean you out (" Paddy's Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens ") ”

Dennis is obsessed with sex - the perfect example of a sexual deviant. He has had sex with many women, and has both audio and video recordings of these sexual encounters. He has allowed Mac to watch these tapes (which Mac didn't enjoy due to the angle - a close-up of Dennis's "weird" balls) ("Mac's Banging the Waitress")​​​​​​​​​​ ("Thunder Gun Express"). He's also claimed that, in his sexual encounters, the words "no", "don't", and "stop" never stop him from following his intentions ("The Aluminum Monster vs. Fatty Magoo"). Members of The Gang comment on his attraction to teenage girls when he ends up being tricked by an eighteen-year-old high school senior into plowing her at her high school prom ("Underage Drinking: A National Concern"). Dennis also has a fascination with anonymous sex, even going so far as to install a glory hole in the men's room at Paddy's. When Charlie and Mac try writing a movie, Dennis's suggestions for how to "improve" the movie mostly involve hardcore penetration scenes (though Charlie says "I think the audience is gonna be very uncomfortable seeing Dolph Lundgren's naked penis going into this young girl that you're talking about") ("Mac and Charlie Write a Movie").

Dennis is fond of BDSM. In ("The High School Reunion, Part 2: The Gang's Revenge")​​​​​​​​​​ he states, "I like to bind, I like to be bound" while pulling duct tape and zip ties out of a hidden compartment in his car during a furious rage.

Dennis enjoys flirting with men who compliment his appearance ("The Gang Gets Racist"). He believes he has a comprehensive understanding of the mechanics of gay relationships. He knows what it means to be a bear or a twink and understands how a "top" differs from a "bottom"; he explains to The Gang that "speed is the name of the game" when defining the role of a "power bottom" ("The Gang Sells Out"). He also states that he could "never satisfy" a twank versatile ("The Gang Recycles Their Trash"). He is very excited about seeing someone "hang dong" in the movie Thunder Gun Express. Dennis used to stick the tip of his penis in his frat brothers' mouths, and his photograph at his frat house is graffitied with the words "I chug dick" ("The Gang Reignites the Rivalry"). He also was prepared to have sex with a "tiny Asian boy" as Brian LeFevre, before it is revealed that the boy was a caddy. ( Frank's Back in Business). Regularly, his relationships with his best friends, Mac and Charlie, are portrayed as homoerotic. The ambiguous nature of Dennis's sexuality has been explored in other episodes and is usually connected to his vanity and need for peer approval. He refers to himself as a "straight man" (The Gang Solves the Bathroom Problem).

It is revealed that Dennis had sex with the school librarian, Ms. Klinsky, when he was 15. Ms. Klinsky was far older (probably at least 40-50 years old), and is described as looking like Rick Moranis (Dee Made a Smut Film). Despite his insistence that he was not raped, the experience seems to have been very traumatic and has left scars ("PTSDee"). This is possibly the reason for his hyper-sexuality and treatment of women.

Need for acceptance [ edit | edit source ]

Dennis insults and demeans his friends on a regular basis, particularly Dee and Charlie, and never hesitates to draw attention to their flaws, shortcomings, and past failures while remaining oblivious to—or rather in denial of—his own.

Dennis's psychotically-extreme vanity, selfishness, callousness and exploitativeness belie a deep, crippling insecurity, self-loathing and fear of abandonment. Much of Dennis's inflated self-image is fueled by others, whether through their attention and admiration or through providing him with schadenfreude at their own misfortune. Any critique of his looks, however mild or trivial, deeply distresses Dennis and often leads him to extreme behavior. When Dee countered Dennis's insults by claiming that he has a "fat face," it triggered his anorexia to the point of not eating for three days ("The Gang Exploits A Miracle").

As of season seven, he says he does not eat lunch anymore and on odd days doesn't eat breakfast, and as of season fourteen he claims he is ‘allergic’ to sugar and gluten. Blood work indicates that he is severely malnourished ("Frank's Pretty Woman")​​​​​​​​​​. He frequently becomes incredibly upset when he is unsuccessful at sleeping with women, feeling like their rejection is directly responsible for triggering his ever-present fear that he is actually worthless. This fear of rejection and abandonment also manifests prominently in "The Gang Broke Dee" and "The Gang Group Dates." Dennis's idea for getting his sister out of her depression is to find her a man with no self-esteem, like her, and by putting them together he will be able to continue controlling Dee and preventing her from ever leaving him. He becomes disturbed when Dee becomes successful and initially tries to tear her down verbally like always, but by this point Dee has regained too much self-esteem to listen. Believing that his sister was soon going to leave him behind and go onto a better life that was more successful than his, a blow to both his ego and his fear of abandonment or rejection, Dennis becomes increasingly upset and desperate. When discovering that he, along with Dee, was actually on the receiving end of an elaborate prank by Charlie, Mac and Frank, Dennis tries to deny the hurt and trauma of the ordeal through hysterical laughter, though the others think that they "broke" him as well and that "he might go kill himself" ("The Gang Broke Dee").

Glenn Howerton has said in interviews that he believes that Dennis is not actually a complete sociopath; and, deep down, Dennis is actually very fragile and has very strong emotions and is in fact the most sensitive and insecure member of the Gang. However, the only way he knows how to show it is by getting really angry. This suggests that Dennis's frequent outbursts of rage, particularly in later seasons, are actually a dysfunctional defense mechanism to cover up how vulnerable he is to any sort of perceived criticism, social rejection, or emotional upset.

The above comes to its height in "The Gang Tends Bar." The Gang believes that the reason why Dennis avoids Valentine's Day festivities and focuses on work is because he doesn't have any feelings, before he finally blows up and admits that he has big feelings, which have been hurt over the years when the Gang neglects to think of him on Valentine's Day, causing him to put "anthrax" (powdered sugar) in the Valentine box. The fact that Mac shows him affection and gifts to him an RPG, the exact thing Dennis has always wanted, causes Dennis to revert back to a cold and emotionless facade even though it's obvious that he's holding back tears while thanking Mac. Similarly, the thought of his illegitimate son growing up without a father around, much like he did, causes him to renounce his life of debauchery with the Gang under the roof of the bar and causes him to leave for North Dakota to tend to his new family. ("Dennis' Double Life"). However he soon was back at Paddy’s, forgetting his son, and went back to his old ways.

Skills and Abilities [ edit | edit source ]

Dennis has some artistic talent that he expresses by drawing cartoonish large-breasted women (which pretty much describes his crude behavior), which Charlie finds enticing ("The Aluminum Monster vs. Fatty Magoo") ("The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis").

Dennis claims that he is going to look twenty forever, asserting that "the older [he] gets, the more vigilant [he] becomes". For instance, he professes that he does not eat lunch anymore (and on odd days he doesn't eat breakfast). Also, Dennis's body is constantly in motion. For example, he is capable of doing leg lifts that are "imperceptible to the human eye" while standing (a technique which he calls "hummingbirds"). He perseveres with these actions despite the misery they bring him ("Frank's Pretty Woman")​​​​​​​​​​.

Dennis can turn his penis from flaccid to erect in a moments notice, and vice versa ("The Gang Gets Quarantined").

Along with Mac and Dee, Dennis has been shown to be an excellent skier (though the rules are different on the mountain) ("The Gang Hits the Slopes").

Due to his emotionally and psychologically abusive upbringing, it is demonstrated throughout the series, and outright stated in Chardee MacDennis, that Dennis, along with his sister, has an extremely high tolerance for emotional battery and public humiliation, hence why he is always able to rebound from the Gang's constant failures and disappointments and the various traumatic things that occur to the him throughout the series, such as his father figure disowning him and later trying to pimp him out.

Dennis has a distinct gift for manipulation, a skill in which he takes tremendous pride. He takes the process of conning very seriously, even referring to it as an "art" ("The Gang Goes to a Water Park") and himself as an "Artist." An extension of this gift is his relative ease in creating false identities for himself. Strangely, he does not seem to use these aliases for money or other material gain, but rather for the pure pleasure he derives from deceiving others, or "getting off."

Mr. Tibbs

Mac

Rick Moranis

Vanity

Huge breasts

His mother

Crack cocaine

Laser Beams

Feelings/Feeling

Rick Astley

Paddy's dollars

Sugar and Gluten

Defending "the implication"

Alimony

Cereal

Dating apps

Dancing guy

High School Librarians

People criticizing his Range Rover

Brian Leferve

The Family Fight buzzer sound

buzzer sound Rude Men who "shush"

Little Asian boys

Tim Murphy

Apple skins

Charlie Kelly

Chewing gum

His son Brian Jr.

Dee insulting or rejecting him

Saying something nice to Mac

Cats

Dogs

Animals

The suburbs

Early Life [ edit | edit source ]

Dennis was born on August 18, 1976, an unknown amount of time after his sister Dee, to Barbara and Frank Reynolds. Dennis's grandfather was a decorated officer in the Nazi Party ("The Gang Finds a Dead Guy"). Later, Dennis and Dee discover that he took them to a neo-Nazi camp when they were small children ("Pop-Pop: The Final Solution").

Dennis had a well-loved stuffed elephant named Mr. Tibbs ("Charlie Gets Crippled").

There was an incident in his childhood when Dennis killed four crows in a row in front of Dee ("Making Dennis Reynolds a Murderer"). It's unknown if this was an isolated occurrence or one of multiple acts of animal cruelty Dennis committed throughout his youth.

It was revealed that Dennis went to Waldron Mercy Academy for elementary school ("Sweet Dee's Dating a Retarded Person"). Dennis started a psychological dossier on his sister Dee when he was in the second grade ("The Gang Gets Analyzed").

Dennis believed himself to be extremely popular in high school, but his prom date had sex with another student ("Underage Drinking: A National Concern"). Mac told Dennis that the other student had been Tim Murphy, but later Tim revealed to Dennis that it was Mac who had had sex with his prom date. Dennis also learns that the rest of the students never considered him cool as he would always hang out with Charlie and Mac while declaring himself a "golden god." ("The High School Reunion, Part 2: The Gang's Revenge")​​​​​​​​​​

When Dennis was 14, he had sex with his 50 year old librarian. Dee correctly identifies this as rape, but Dennis is in denial about the whole thing saying that you cannot rape a man. ("Dee Made a Smut Film") This has some unfortunate-in-hindsight implications due to Dennis in an earlier episode saying that he has not had feelings since he was 14. ("Mac Fights Gay Marriage") Later, Charlie and Dennis discuss the latter's trauma about the incident, with Dennis reluctantly being more open to the idea that the event was somewhat traumatic. ("PTSDee")

Dennis was once dismissed from a counselor position at a summer camp because he was accused of the statutory rape of an underage teenage girl, although he maintains he just kissed the girl, who was only a year younger than him ("The Gang Runs for Office").

He earned good grades at the University of Pennsylvania and minored in psychology ("Charlie Got Molested"), though his original ambition was to become a veterinarian ("Dennis and Dee Go on Welfare"). Later on Dee suggests he wanted to be a veterinarian so he could keep the skins and he does not deny this. ("Frank Falls Out the Window") However, he does seem to sometimes like cats as he had a cat as a child and showed fondness for Agent Jack Bauer (a cat he found in a dumpster). ("Dee Made a Smut Film") ("Bums: Making a Mess All Over the City") He has no problem suggesting that Dee let her cat die in a wall rather than rescuing it so she would pay attention to him, so clearly his views on them are situational. ("Mac and Dennis Break Up") Dennis is also a self-proclaimed "dog hater", despite having appeared comfortable with buying Mac a dog without being provoked to do so in "Mac and Dennis Move to the Suburbs". He says that he fairly strongly dislikes dogs, and that if "[people] can eat a bucket of fried chicken, then [he] should be able to eat a bucket of fried dog" ("Wolf Cola: A Public Relations Nightmare"). Despite this, he seems disturbed at the implication that Mac fed Dennis the dog in "Mac and Dennis Move to the Suburbs".

While at Penn, Dennis was a member of the Delta Omega Lambda fraternity, where he considered himself a legend and a "king of that place". However, when he goes back to the frat house, no one there knows who he is, and he finds that someone has written "I CHUG DICK!" over his picture in a gallery of former members. They also taze him and think it is hilarious. ("The Gang Reignites the Rivalry").

Dennis is an atheist, as he has stated that he doesn't believe in God, as mentioned in "Sweet Dee Gets Audited" and "Mac Day."

Living Situation [ edit | edit source ]

In Mac and Charlie Die, Dennis says that he and Mac had been living together for approximately a decade. This seems to be correct as he and Mac were 28 in season 1, which would put them at 32 for season 4 and thus would have them moving in together right after Dennis graduated college. They then live in Dennis and Mac's apartment together until season 9, putting them at around fifteen years living together. Dennis briefly lived with a European roommate while Mac was pretending to be dead, and he lived with Maureen for a few days when they were married. Mac and Dennis moved in to Dee's apartment after their apartment burned down in "The Gang Squashes Their Beefs" and they are still living there after living in the suburbs for one month. ("Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs") As a result of a bet they made with Frank that they could not last a month in the suburbs, he, Mac, and Dee have to sleep with an old man (known only as Old Black Man) for a year. By Season 12, their old apartment has been rebuilt and refurnished to it's original design, which disturbs Dennis, except Mac's bedroom only contains the Ass Pounder 4000; he expected them to share Dennis' room. Dennis later elects to leave the Gang and Paddy's to move to North Dakota and take on his responsibilities as a father to Brian Jr (Dennis' Double Life). He later returns to his old living situation.

From his sex tape drawer ("Mac's Banging the Waitress"):

Solana

Svetlana

Vivian

Victoria

Victoria Z

Veronica (mailman)

Vanessa Z

Wanda

Wende

Tracy Wilson

Weather Girl

Waitress (Italian)

Waitress (Surf n Turf)

Wendy

Waitress (Airport Bar)

Waitress (Bar and grill)

Waitress (Coffee Shop)

Waitress (French)

Waitress (Indian)

Waitress (Chinese)

Waitress (Vegan)

Waitress (Korean)

Waitress (Steakhouse)

Waitress (Mexican)

Waitress (Japanese)

Waitress (Deli)

Samantha W.

Yolanda

Yolanda M.

Yental

Yazmine

Yoga Instructor

Zookeeper

Zoe

Zenia

From his sex tape box in his car ("Thunder Gun Express")

Allison

Amanda

Brenda

Collette

crissy

Crystal

Leah

Mary Jane

Rebecca

Samantha

Stacey

Vanessa (it is unclear if this is the same as Vanessa Z)