Scientists finally have a name for what’s going on inside the mind of Charlie Kelly. He doesn’t want to hear it, and he certainly can’t spell it.
In some ways, tonight’s new episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “The Gang Gets Tested,” is a spiritual sequel to the classic 2013 plotline “Flowers for Charlie.” Both feature scientists and members of intelligentsia marveling at the machinations in Charlie’s special head, but tonight’s installment, written by Charlie Day himself, takes a much gentler approach to untangling the psychology of dear Trundle.
Tonight’s installment of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia tackled familiar subject matter with a mature and, dare I say it, even healthy outlook on the peculiar mental faculties of the least literate member of the Gang. But that was just Charlie’s plotline – the rest of the crew did plenty of damage, brain or otherwise, during their own adventures.
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“The Gang Gets Tested” had a little bit of everything – a Rodney Dangerfield homage, synesthesia revelations, seduction, crack, and, very possibly, another fatality to add to the Gang’s already-lengthy rap sheet.
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The episode opens up Dennis, Dee, Charlie and Mac as they read the results of a ADHD screening they all took. Dennis and Dee come back positive for the common condition, Mac is negative and Charlie’s sheet comes back inconclusive, as the testers understandably want to probe more deeply into his unique brain.
Mac, Dennis, Dee and Frank argue over the true reason why the Reynolds twins never finished their studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and the four resolve to crash a local college course in order to prove some points and reenact some classic comedies. Dennis, Dee and Mac commit themselves to passing the class, but Frank immediately breaks off from the group to rope a shy student into his own plan to recreate the plot points of Dangerfield’s 1986 film Back to School.
Frank’s arc in “The Gang Gets Tested” proves to be the darkest of the bunch, despite its light, jovial and respect-lacking inspiration. Frank breaks his protégé into the dean’s office (while tearing open his hand on broken glass), he humiliates him at a frat party after teaching him some of Frank’s famous “moves” and he pressures him into pulling off a high dive, à la the finale of the aforementioned Dangerfield flick.
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Mac’s plan to pass the course is straightforward. He devotes himself to rigid study, enlists a tutor and tries his hardest not to break his pencils along with everything else in the library. However, Dennis cruelly sabotages his roommate by taking a page out of Mrs. Mac’s book of abuse – Dennis sneaks a filthy Tootsie Roll into Mac’s ear to make him think he has “sh– for brains.”
Naturally, Dee develops an escalating drug habit almost immediately upon returning to school. What starts with some prescription stimulants ends with Dee twitching through her final exam while high on her old friend crack – but she had to do something to get through the constant mental lapses and attention loss that plagued her all episode long.
Dennis pulls another old trick out of his hat when he seduces the elderly instructor for their course in an attempt to bang a passing grade out of her. The lovers recreate the iconic shot from “The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby” as Dennis slowly thrusts while dripping with sweat, only with far less sinister euphoria than the first time around.
All the while, Charlie is off on his own kind of study as the professors of this unspecified college’s psychology department submit him to a series of basic cognition tests. Charlie fails these tests so creatively while revealing so many quirks of his mental faculties – for instance, how he can smell colors and count objects that are hidden from his view – that the staff label him a medical marvel and seek name the unique condition from which he must suffer.
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But Charlie, for all the inhalants, failed abortions and head injuries that have whittled away at his brain cells over the years, has no interest in a diagnosis. “I don’t need some teacher talking a bunch of words at me, telling me what I am, because I’m good, dude!” Charlie declares to his friends in what might be the most emotionally healthy statement in Always Sunny history.
Of course, not everyone passes the health test – Frank’s Back to School buddy is knocked on conscious by the “big dive” that the “whole school” was supposed to watch, and Frank abandons him while he floats face down in the pool. Mac, Dennis and Dee don’t succeed in their schemes either, as they realize too late that, in order to get a final exam graded by a college professor, you have to first enroll at the college. The Gang leaves the school having learned absolutely nothing.
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Every individual arc in “The Gang Gets Tested” treaded familiar territory – Dee’s drug addiction, Dennis’ manipulation of Mac, Dennis seducing his way through a scheme, Frank struggling to differentiate real life from a movie – but Charlie’s story here hit the hardest because of how it recontextualized what is arguably the most tortured mind in the core Always Sunny cast. Charlie has long been a trauma magnet, starting literally before he was born, and his perceived stupidity in comparison to a not-particularly-bright friend group reinforced his low status among the fringe class.
In “Flowers for Charlie,” the stupid science b—es exploited Charlie’s ignorance to mock him for his arrogance, as if the illiterate janitor with a “lady of the night” for a mother wasn’t mocked enough by the world. But in “The Gang Gets Tested,” we learn that all the digs at Charlie’s traumatized, childish mind have done nothing to lower Charlie’s opinion of himself. If Charlie he can walk away from a diagnosis knowing exactly who he is, then he’s the healthiest member of the Gang, which is basically the same as being the best-smelling sewer in Philly.