Brian VanHooker
·
Slimy, vaseline-covered and crawling out of a couch naked, or waving a gun around and firing wildly — those are the two images that tend to come to mind when you think of Danny DeVito’s character Frank Reynolds on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. But while Frank is the craziest member of the Sunny gang, which is really saying something, he does have moments of true lucidity.
Here, in fact, are five times where Frank was entirely sane on It’s Always Sunny…
A recent episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “The Gang Inflates,” revolves around the concept of inflation. Dennis and Mac are so stupid that they hatch a scheme around inflatable furniture, but Frank uses his financial know-how — he provides an entirely coherent explanation of what inflation is and what causes it — to scam them out of their money. Frank is dastardly here, but everything he does makes sound financial sense.
When Frank joined the gang in Season Two of Sunny, he wasn’t quite the lunatic he’d later become. He was lonely and rich and just wanted to have fun. That said, he did find the time to buy half the bar out from under the gang in “The Gang Goes Jihad.”
For much of the episode where the gang competes on a Family Feud-type show, “The Gang Goes on Family Fight,” Frank is as nutty as usual, especially when he talks about having seen a pig eat a man. But when the fast money round arrives at the end, Frank fires off the number one answer for all five questions, scoring 195 points. Of course, this is done to contrast with Dennis, who needs to get just five points to win but absolutely blows it.
The most touching episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia has got to be “Mac Finds His Pride,” where Mac puts on an interpretive dance to come out to his father. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work, and he doesn’t receive his dad’s acceptance. Conversely, although Frank doesn’t entirely understand Mac, he clearly accepts him, serving as the surrogate father figure Mac needs.
For all of Frank’s insanity, he usually has a pretty sound business sense, which is on full display in “Frank’s Back in Business,” where Frank rejoins the company he built before coming to Paddy’s. He spends most of the episode getting back into the groove of running a business and pampering himself. Then the episode ends with Frank revealing that he’s stripped the company and sold it to the Chinese, which is pretty much capitalism (and Frank) in a nutshell — it’s horrible, but entirely sane in a business sense.
