It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Season 4

There are a lot of funny television shows out there today, and one thing all the best ones have in common is, ironically enough, an uncommon uniqueness. The Office has its ensemble cast of zany characters and deadpan mockumentary style. Curb Your Enthusiasm works because it extracts humor from every day situations. South Park is incredibly topical. Arrested Development teemed with self-references and inside jokes. So what's so special about It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia? Nothing. It's just a show about five truly terrible people and the awful situations they put themselves (and others around them) through on a day-to-day basis. And that's what makes it so awesome. Not one of the characters has any redeeming qualities whatsoever. No topic is too sensitive for the show to tackle, be it a current event (the housing crisis), a controversial topic (abortion), egregious racism, or even taboo subjects like teenage drinking and faking cancer. Every episode of Sunny is a guilty pleasure. The first DVD release had the tagline "Good clean fun" written across the top, but with the words "good" and "clean" crossed out. And really, there's no better way to describe it. Sunny appeals to the awful person in us all while making us feel good about our own moral compasses, however weak they may be. So let's talk about Season 4. In my personal opinion, I think the show pulled off the incredibly rare (but slightly unfortunate) feat of peaking right off the bat. Many shows have a shitty pilot, take a few episodes to get going, or even suck for an entire season before working through the kinks. That simply wasn't the case with this gem. In fact, if I had to name the greatest four-episode run in the show's four seasons so far, I wouldn't even hesitate to call it episodes one through four. That's how I fell in love with the show; I gave the pilot a chance, loved it, and then found each of the next three episodes to be better than the last. Simply amazing. Now, that isn't to say it's been all downhill since then; many other individual episodes have surpassed the first four. But the show hasn't been as consistent - for me - since the first season. Again, at times, it's been better. The addition of Danny DeVito at the onset of the second season definitely added veteran talent and depth to the cast, and the move has found paydirt many, many times. As far as Season 4 was concerned, I guess I'll just break it down for you. There are 13 total episodes in the season, making for 45 cumulative through the show's first four years. For me, two of Season 4's episodes - "The Nightman Cometh" and "Mac & Charlie Die: Part 1" could be described as amazing (top 10 overall). Five more episodes were solid, but the remaining six ranged from "so-so" to "eh" - by Always Sunny standards, at least. I mean, the show's first attempt at historical fiction ("The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell") was cute, but I wouldn't necessarily call it successful. And come on, "Who Pooped the Bed?" It's exactly what it sounds like: a twenty-two minute "mystery" surrounding a fecal incident. The show might not have the most ingenious writing, but it's typically far more clever than that. Anyway, the bottom line is that Season 4 is full of intermittent hits and misses. Inconsistency is the name of the game here. But hey, it's still one of the funniest shows on television today. Watch it if you haven't. Seriously. You won't regret it.