‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘ Review: “Charlie Rules the World”

Though this may not be a peak season of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,‘ there's been some great episodes this year, even if the batting average is lower. Last week's episode "Frank's Back in Business" was a little weak, so we're hoping this week's episode, "Charlie Rules the World" puts them back on their A-game.

The episode starts at 10:30 AM on a Tuesday with Frank and Mac watching reality television, while Charlie holds the (faulty) wiring. Dennis suggests they go out dancing. Dee comes in saying she's spent the latest couple days gaming - so she hasn't showered or slept much - and she wants Charlie to watch her only crops. Charlie then gets electrocuted, and takes Dee's offer of five bucks, and threatens he might rule the world.

Dee shows him her game "Techpocalypse" where her character is 23-year-old bikini-wearer where she's also created derogatory avatars for the whole gang. Frank, Mac and Dennis go out dancing, but they're the only ones at the bar dancing when a gamer shows them Dee's "Techpocalypse" avatars for them, which pisses off Mac and Frank, Dennis suggests they keep the party going, so he does three shots of whiskey, starts dancing and vomits. Back at Dee's Charlie has mastered the game, and gives Dee a dressing down for not being good at the game or spending money. Dee then relents and teams up with Charlie in the game, which has them getting married. Sex jokes ahoy. Mac and Frank both have signed up for "Techpocalypse," and created characters designed to represent who they want to be (maybe, Frank becomes a beautiful lady). Dennis gets upset at their desire to stay online, so he shows them a sex tape he made of himself giving a "haircut," and Mac notes that it too is a virtual reality, and Frank suggests everything could be a outer space turtle's dream. Dennis says this is lunacy and storms out.

Back at Dee's, Charlie is doing wonderful, while Dee just spends money on plastic surgery and the like. Frank calls Dee to taunt her that he's been getting a lot of gifts in the game because he'll have virtual sex with anyone. Dee storms in on Charlie, who gets upset that she interrupted his game, and uses his gift at the game to turn Dee into his servant. Mac shows up, and Charlie get Mac to distract Dee while he meets a real girl. Dennis goes to the mall looking for a real experience, and goes into a sensory deprivation tank where he has a conversation with British Dennis, who cuts his hair .British Dennis tells Dennis that he's god, and then BD gets Dennis to give himself a BJ.

Back at the bar, Charlie meets the online girl Julie. She's attractive and offers him a cheese-steak. He offers her a box of spiders, and says that he destroyed her community while they met, but she just wanted to have lunch. At Frank's game party Dee shows up and gets insulted, and when Charlie shows up Dee tells him that she's teamed up with Frank because she thought he teamed up with Julie. Charlie yells at her again, and then sits Frank, Mac and Dee down on the couch and chews them out when Dennis comes in with a terrible British accent denouncing "Techpocalypse" and says he's a God of his own universe. Then he tells them that he's deleted all their online accounts because they all have the same password. The episode closes with a shot of the space turtle, and includes a link to Techpocalypse.

In situations like this, you have to directly compare the episode to something like the one 'South Park' did about "World of Warcraft," and you can see that the 'Philly' crew figured out how to do their own version of it with totally different takes and beats on online gaming. This was a very funny episode, though the Dee abuse felt like something they knew they could get away with because we know the characters, even though it was rooted in sexism. But Dennis having sex with himself and the turtle made this a pretty great episode.