It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The series follows a group of self-centered, heavy-drinking misfits, referred to as "the gang", who run a struggling Irish dive bar called Paddy's Pub in the neighborhood of South Philadelphia. In season one, the gang consists of janitor Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day), self-proclaimed bouncer Mac (Rob McElhenney), and bartender Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton), the three of whom own Paddy's Pub, in addition to Dennis' twin sister Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson), a struggling actress who works as a bartender there. In the second season, they are joined by Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito), an eccentric multi-millionaire and the neglectful father of the Reynolds twins, who takes over most of the ownership of the bar. He soon becomes the financial catalyst for the gang, funding many of the gang's convoluted schemes and urging them to go further with their brazen depravity. The main characters in IASIP are generally depicted as ignorant in individual ways, often in both main plots and subplots of episodes. Episodes usually find the gang hatching elaborate schemes and regularly conspiring, against both outsiders and one another, for personal gain, revenge, or simply schadenfreude; these schemes fail in various ways with consequences that characters fail to manage, or exploit. The show has been described by critics as satirizing racism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia in various depictions of the gang failing to handle everyday situations or to negotiate with comparatively adjusted members of society. Some of the subjects covered for the purpose of satire on the show include masculinity and misogyny, Catholicism, classism and income inequality, racism including blackface, sexual coercion and stalking, child sexual abuse, homophobia, transphobia, American nationalism and substance abuse. The show frequently satirises American domestic and foreign policy stances and debates with its depictions of gun violence, abortion rights, climate change, torture, police brutality, the Israeli occupation of Gaza, the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 recession. The show also skewers lighter topics such as social norms, using the gang's stupidity as a vehicle to poke fun at conventions. Class and class conflict is a recurring theme throughout the show as Mac and Charlie Kelly are shown to be from working-class backgrounds, while Dennis and Dee Reynolds had an upper-class upbringing, even if they are no longer upper class. Frank Reynolds, who originally came from a working-class background, is shown to be a multi-millionaire, potentially even a billionaire, who made his money through fraud and exploitative business practices, including running sweatshops in developing countries, cheating his business partners and setting up shell companies for tax evasion. IASIP also frequently engages in absurdist and meta humor, pulling from a variety of television, film, theatre and musical references. Some episodes see the gang in different settings, genres or even time periods.

Plot from It's Always Sunny in PhiladelphiaCC BY-SA 4.0