Review: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, "Frank is in a Coma" | Season 17, Episode 2
Is it Coma?
“I think our organization is at a bit of a crossroads.”
After Dee vindictive-tickles Frank into a seeming catatonic state, I spent the bulk of this second episode thinking it was nice that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia found a way to give their 80-year-old co-star an easy one. After all, as Dee, Mac, Dennis, and Charlie all gather around the unmoving Frank’s bedside, all the impressively still Frank has to do is sleep through the resulting and inevitable chaos. Little did I realize.
Danny DeVito’s place on Sunny is a lot like Frank Reynolds’ position at Paddy’s. Brought in by former network home FX largely against the wishes of the show’s creators to secure a then-third season, DeVito was the show’s outsider big gun, enabling Sunny to blossom like the comedy corpse flower it remained for the next 15 seasons. Similarly, Frank barreled in to his estranged children’s lives, pockets overflowing with enabling cash and his increasingly addled brain brimming with a unique madness to add to the Gang’s toxic brew.
Over his time on Sunny, there’s been precious little respected actor and director DeVito hasn’t been up for, tossing his diminutive, elderly body into every sordid, grunting, rutting, outrageous act in pursuit of Sunny’s inimitably filthy comic excellence. So if the guy needs a lie-down right out of the Season 17 gate, he’s earned it.
Frank’s decline has been a theme since the beginning, with the rich old warthog’s many appetites seemingly the only things sustaining his blunt assault on life. Episodes like “Being Frank” confronted the reality of what exactly is going on inside Frank Reynolds’ fevered, sundowning brain with a still-shocking insight into just how Frank perceives his world, even if his actions are writ in bodily fluids, booze, heedless chaos, and the occasional gunshot wound to the only four people who can stand to be anywhere near him. “Frank Is in a Coma” toys with Frank’s role as father, friend, sort-of father, and—most important to the Gang—bottomlessly wealthy enabler with sly introspection and a twist so dumb it may be brilliant. Or just dumb. It’s certainly cruel.
