GIFs | Les Fabian Brathwaite
For 11 glorious, horrifying, jarring, completely offensive seasons, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has graced television airwaves, making it the longest running show on cable. And for good reason. It's Seinfeld on crack. Endlessly watchable and quotable, this sitcom about five just reallyterrible people helped FX become the critical darling it is today.
Over the years, Charlie, Dennis, Mac, Dee and Frank have come a long way. Well, not really. They haven't grown much as human beings, if anything they regress each subsequent season to some more primal form. The lone exception might be Mac, played by series creator Rob McElhenney. A decade or so ago, Mac was ostensibly straight.
But around season four it became abundantly clear that the only straight Mac was--as Sweet Dee and McElhenney's real-life wife Kaitlin Olsen puts it--was "straight up gay."
So how did Mac get here? Get queer? And get used to it?
Well, there's always been an unspoken attraction between Mac and Dennis, well, at least on Mac's part.
But the biggest indication of Mac's proclivities has always been his obsession with the male physique.
And physique culture, as in his choice of activities on Mac Day, the one day a year when he can force the others to do whatever he wants. And he wants what any God-fearing Christian man wants:
Mac's obsession with religion is also a direct result of the guilt he feels for being gay, a guilt his cousin (played by Seann William Scott) does not share:
Because It's Always Sunny is far from your typical sitcom, Mac's homo guilt doesn't manifest itself in any typical ways. Instead, Mac's religion is hot dudes.
Just check out his vision of what Heaven is like.
Mac's internalized his homosexuality so much that he remains blissfully unaware of just how gay he is--that is, until the latest episode when all that innuendo came flying out of the closet and Mac realized what everyone has known all along.
In "The Gang Goes to Hell," Mac's religious fanaticism draws the gang to a Christian cruise, but it's the kind of Christian cruise that welcomes gays, as Mac finds out too late. Or just in time. When he sees a couple kissing on the shuffle board court, he seeks an answer from God and he decides to convert the gays--for their own good. The gays are having none of it, however, and suggest that they convert Mac.
Five minutes later:
Sometimes all it takes is the love of a good man. Or two. Following his high seas sexcapade, Mac also comes to the conclusion that there's no God, but before we can see what all this means for the gang, they apparently end up--as the episode title suggests--in Hell.
Sadly, this episode was part one in the two-part season finale, so we'll probably have to wait till next year for the Adventures of Gay Mac.
"The Gang Goes to Hell: Part Two" airs this Wednesday on FXX at 10pm.
