Following a fourth episode that was about as typical an episode of Always Sunny as you could get, ‘Mac & Dennis Move To The Suburbs’ is an interesting trip into horror territory. To suit their excessive living demands and get out of Dee’s apartment, Mac and Dennis decide to move to the suburbs. Unconvinced it will last; Frank proposes that if they don’t last out there, they have to sleep with an old man. It’s a pretty dumb set up but what follows is a dark, horror-laced trip.
Mac and Dennis’ overly dependent relationship is placed at the forefront in this episode, reminiscent of season five’s, ‘Mac and Dennis Break Up’ and the usually loose and spontaneous pairing are instead placed in a domesticated simplicity. The generic small-talk about the weather with a neighbour falls on deaf ears and immediately both seem out of place.
As they try to adapt to this life we see Dennis’ commute but for once actually don’t see any activity in Paddy’s Pub. Vague references to Charlie and Frank doing stuff with hats (something that is never fully explained) is enough to grab our attention, and show that the episode is heading in a different direction than it normally would. As a viewer we’re not shown Paddy’s Pub and there’s not really a B plot present either, therefore we feel just as displaced as Mac and Dennis, removed from any familiarity.
The relationship becomes more and more strained as a simple middle-class American life wears them down and they decide to invite the rest of The Gang over to try and improve things. When they arrive, with ‘Old Man’ in tow just to remind them of the bet, Dee too gets roped into the deal but the episode still retains its focus on Mac and Dennis.
Mac is gifted a dog to try and cope but hilariously it only lives for as long as a montage to Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’, accompanying the duo’s descent into madness. It’s actually pretty compelling how the gang can be worn down by the most mundane of things and, as Dennis hallucinates stripping off on his lawn to yell at a neighbour, things reach a David Lynch level of surreal. Haunted house movies are being invoked here and on that part this episode is very successful at creating an eerie atmosphere in general. To cap things off Mac feeds Dennis the dog in his homemade mac and cheese and after that things are absolutely off the rails. Just as we’re about to hit breaking point the rest of the gang show up again and the bet is lost. As we end on a sad sleeping Dee, Dennis and Mac with Old Man curled up at the foot of the bed, it’s a strange end to a very strange episode.
8/10 – We’re now half way through season eleven and it’s certainly not peak Always Sunny yet but this was an interesting episode. Less outright comedic, the attention was turned to creating a surreal menace that is surprisingly effective and leads to its own absurd comedy.
