Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Season 5 Blu-ray Movie Review

“I’m the Trashman!”

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater September 22, 2010

The motley, hard-drinking misfits who run Paddy’s Irish Pub in the FX original comedy It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia have one thing in common: they’re all completely self-obsessed. They’re schemers and cheats, irresponsible citizens with zero regard for their fellow man. And this, of course, is why the show is so funny. The Gang, as Paddy’s crew is called, lives in an insular world of their own making, where common decency, politeness, and cultural norms like personal space and privacy simply don’t exist. There’s a reason FX has deemed the show “Seinfeld on crack.” Where Seinfeld points out the sometimes bizarre social rituals that people follow to succeed in modern day life, the barflies of It’s Always Sunny are completely oblivious to the way the world usually works. In season five—which originally aired between September and December of 2009—The Gang offers their skewed perspectives on, amongst other things, the mortgage crisis, the great recession, surrogate motherhood, road trips, supporting the troops, interventions, the D.E.N.N.I.S. system for picking up chicks, and, yes, kitten mittens.

The Gang

For those of you who may have missed out on the first four seasons of It’s Always Sunny—I just finished playing catch up recently, myself— the show follows the harebrained exploits of five tactless friends who co-run a dive bar in Philadelphia. At the core of this crew are fraternal twins, Dennis (Glenn Howerton), a self-described ladies man and utter narcissist—known to frequently “pop off” his shirt for no apparent reason—and Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson), Paddy’s main bartender and the brunt of many of the boys’ jokes. (“You look like a bird,” is a common insult.) Their “legal” father, Frank, brilliantly played by the diminutive powder keg Danny DeVito, is a seemingly rich bastard who prefers to live in squalor with his maybe-biological son Charlie (Charlie Day), a loveable slob who eats cat food and is constantly teased for being illiterate. (These two are known, collectively, as “The Gruesome Twosome.”) Filling out the quintet is Dennis’ best friend Mac (show creator Rob McElhenney), a tribal tattooed wannabe tough guy who, as Dennis points out, only works on his “glamour muscles.” The Gang spends much of their time setting up elaborate schemes—frequently against one another—that almost always end up self-sabotaged.

Season five finds The Gang in top form, and by “top form,” I mean hilariously depraved, unethical, irreverent, and surprisingly timely. In the season opener “The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis,” Mac and Dennis try to flip Frank’s newly acquired foreclosure home—they start a “good real estate agent/bad real estate agent” team called Honey and Vinegar—while Dee offers to rent out her womb to a rich couple who can’t conceive. Later, in “The Great Recession,” Frank attempts to hang himself over financial woes—don’t worry, his neck is too thick for the rope to strangle him—and Mac and Dennis try to stimulate the local economy by offering “Paddy’s Dollars” to the “new poor” who now live on the street outside the pub in their RVs. (Oh, and the pub gets saved by a government bail-out!) Frank definitely goes to a darker place this season, especially in “The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention,” where he starts drinking wine from a soda can, becomes more slobbish and animalistic than usual, and tries to seduce his newly dead brother’s wife. 24’s Mary Lynn Rajskub also shows up here in a memorable turn as Dennis and Dee’s disgusting, clingy cousin “Gail the Snail,” so-called because the only way to rid of her is to throw salt on her. (Rajskub is great—here’s hoping Gail the Snail returns in season six.) In the comically patriotic episode “The Gang Wrestles for the Troops,” the boys take inspiration from a washed-up wrestler played by “Rowdy” Roddy Piper—looking conspicuously like Mickey Rourke—and hold a charity match where they dress up as “eagle men” and face off against returning character Rickety Cricket (David Hornsby) as the Tali-bum, a headscarf-wearing, sand-blowing villain.

Of course, not all of the episodes have to do with current events. Season five drops some of the divisive gimmickry of the fourth season—like the Colonial-era period piece episode “The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell,” which I thought was great—in favor of character-driven stories that revolve around The Gang’s usual squabbling. You’d think the profane outbursts and frequent yelling would get old after five years, but the show’s writing and the actors’ improvisatory skills seem to improve with each season. The absurd situations and spitfire dialogue are at an all-time high here, and each character gets several standout moments of ridiculousness. Dee lands a “featured extra” role in an M. Night Shyamalan film, starts an online relationship with a returning troop—her screen name is “Desert Rose”—and gets several cats stuck in her apartment wall. Frank stabs his foot trying to trim his toenails with a steak knife—then stuffs trash in the cut—and tries to impress women by flaunting his Magnum condoms. Mac invents a penis towel, Denis explains his patented method for getting sex and breaking hearts, and the two friends—who spend almost every waking hour together—“break up” when they realize that they act like an old married couple. Fan favorite Charlie gets some of the season’s best moments, from inventing “Kitten Mittens” to discussing the intricacies of “bird law.” Bar none, though, my favorite moment this year is when Charlie gets set up on a date with a lawyer. Mac and Dennis tell him to claim that he’s a philanthropist—it sounds a lot better than “bar janitor”—but when the lawyer asks what Charlie does for a living, he replies, “I'm a full-on-rapist. You know, women, Africans, children.” It’s a moment that sums up It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia—gleefully idiotic, impossibly irreverent, and always a riot.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Season 5 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Season five marks It's Always Sunny's second appearance on Blu-ray, after the Very Sunny Christmas special in 2009. Diehard fans of the show are aware that seasons 1-5 were shot on standard definition video, but I can envision plenty of casual viewers picking up this Blu-ray set— expecting, as the back of the case claims, "the ultimate high definition experience"—and being severely disappointed by the blurriness of the upconverted 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation. While A Very Sunny Christmas had a small "1080p upconverted" disclaimer on the back of the Blu-ray case, there's no warning at all on this set. To be honest, I'm more upset about the lack of honesty in the marketing than the poor picture quality. Even compared to other standard definition shows, It's Always Sunny has always looked soft, so it's really not fair to lambaste season five's PQ, which makes the most out of its low-res source material. It is what it is. That said, be aware that the image is extremely soft and smeary, with no fine detail whatsoever—not even in close-ups. The picture might look decent on a very small screen, but no one would ever confuse it for a native high definition production. As you'd expect from standard definition video, color is realistic but muted, black levels are slightly hazy, and white highlights are often completely blown out. You'll also notice occasional aliasing and shimmer, especially anytime there are close parallel lines or tight patterns. Season five looks moderately better than A Very Sunny Christmas, but that really isn't saying much.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Season 5 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While the picture quality leaves me looking forward to season six—which is being filmed natively in high definition—I have no real complaints about the show's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 presentation. It's Always Sunny, like most sit-coms, is almost entirely dialogue driven, and the characters' yelling, screaming, and squabbling is always clean, centered, and easy to understand. That's about the best you can ask for this kind of show. The rear channels are rarely used for anything other than music; there are a few directional effects, but nothing noteworthy. In fact, you probably wouldn't even notice if someone switched over to the also-included Dolby Digital 2.0 track mid-episode. This season does show improvement, however, in dynamic range. I thought the Very Sunny Christmas special sounded conspicuously shrill—too much high end—but that's been fixed in season five with a better-balanced, grounded, more natural mix. Sure, It's Always Sunny is no Iron Man 2 in the sound department, but it really doesn't need to be.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Season 5 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Commentaries A highlight of any Always Sunny home video release is the frequently hilarious commentary tracks featuring the cast and occasional guest stars. Here, pop psychologist Dr. Drew joins in on two tracks to help psychoanalyze the characters.

"The Gang Hits the Road" - Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, and Danny DeVito
"The Gang Gives Frank and Intervention" - Danny DeVito and Dr. Drew
"The Waitress is Getting Married" - Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, and Glenn Howerton
"The Gang Wrestles for the Troops" - Danny DeVito, Glenn Howerton, and Kaitlin Olson
"Mac and Dennis Break Up" - Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, and Dr. Drew
"The Gang Reignites the Rivalry" - Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, and Glenn Howerton

Blooper Reel (SD, 7:47)

Deleted and Extended Scenes (SD, 19:40)
There's some great stuff here that didn't make the cut, although since the majority of these are "extended" scenes, you'll be seeing a lot of material that was already included in the original episodes.

Kitten Mittens Endless Loop (SD)
This is like cat-nip for cat lovers—about four minutes of footage of cats trying to walk around wearing mittens, accompanied by kazoo music, looped to repeat endlessly. (Actually, my Blu-ray player shows that the clip is finite. It's encoded to loop for 95 hours, 7 minutes, and 45 seconds.)

The Gang's Dating Profile (SD, 4:30)
Faux dating profile videos for Dennis, Mac, Dee, Artemis, and The Waitress.

Schwep Dream Sequence (SD, 4:54)
This time-lapse production video of the gang's fifth season was created using 23,793 stills.

Archer Season 1 - Pilot Episode (1080p, 21:33)
The first episode of FX's hilarious "James Bond meets Arrested Development" animated spy comedy.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Complete Season 5 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

With precious few comedies on TV that are actually funny anymore—I can't tell you how much I miss Arrested Development—it's good to see the irreverent Paddy's gang back to their usual self-centered antics in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's consistently hilarious fifth season. One word of warning: season five was the last to be shot on standard definition, so what we have here is a simple upconvert. Still, this Blu-ray set has all the Sunny special features goodness of its DVD counterpart, with the addition of lossless audio tracks and the convenience of having all 12 episodes of the season on two discs. Recommended!