I may be in the minority, but I was always incredibly disappointed with Sunny's fourth-season finale, "The Nightman Cometh." It had some good bits, but overall just felt like a strained attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the Nightman/Dayman songs. But with last night's finale to a very solid season five, "Sunny" not only proved that it's still one of the funniest shows on TV, but also went out on such a high note that I'm probably going to be sitting in a corner rocking back and forth, suffering from post-Sunny depression next Thursday.

Remember in "The Nightman Cometh," when Charlie told the gang that he wrote a musical? Dennis and Mac wanted to know who they were "doing it versus," and Dee wanted to know "whose face they were gonna rub it in." They were pretty bummed to find out that it wasn't that kind of thing. And why not? After all, the gang is expert at cultivating pointless rivalries, even if they ignorant of their own abilities to create enemies wherever they go.

But there is nothing unintentional about their rivalry with the staff of Molly's Bar, against whom they competed in Flipadelphia (a giant flip-cup contest, of course) ten years ago. After they poisoned their opponents (not enough to kill, just make them really sick), the gang was banned from the game. But the ban has been lifted and it's Flipadelphia time again, so the gang wants to…well, do exactly what the episode title says. Problem is, Molly's has changed, as has the owner, Art Sloane. He's done something the Paddy's gang would never dream of - he grew up. So even after the gang descends upon the newer, classier Molly's and wreaks havoc (manhandling customers, urinating behind the bar, that sort of thing), Art still refuses to compete in the childish flip-cup competition.

The gang just assumes that they'll wear down Art eventually, and continues to plan for the big game. Much to her disappointment, those plans do not include Dee, whom the guys are convinced will choke like she did in '98. When they tell her she can join the team if she can get her "bison fingers" under control, she goes off to hone her flip-cup skills. In the meantime, the guys want to look for a replacement, and Dennis suggests they try his old Penn frat house because "he's a legend" there.

But just like Dennis warned Mac and Charlie back in season one that they didn't remember high school accurately (and hey, there was a flip-cup contest in that episode too!), Dennis didn't remember college accurately. Either that, or it changed so much since he was there that trying to go back was a huge mistake. When "the legend" shows up at the frat house, he finds his old class picture defaced, and a new class of disaffected, bullying "savages" who think flip-cup is lame. Their favorite game is nailing people (namely, Dennis and Frank) with a stun gun. After being repeatedly tased and chased from the frat house, Dennis returns to the bar and raves to anyone who will listen about the disrespect he just suffered at the hands of those idiots. I'm not sure how many times he screamed, "IDIOTS!" but each time was funnier than the last.

Image © Fox Broadcasting

Wanting to help, Mac and Charlie go to the frat house and immediately realize that college is better than they ever could have imagined. Turns out, the house is having a "body paint party" that night, and a couple of young coeds tap the guys as their very happy painting partners. The girls paint Mac and Charlie up, but before they can return the favor and collect on the girls' promise of a post-painting shower, those idiot savages catch them and throw them out.

Meanwhile, Dennis and Frank get cranked up on something called "riterall" and step up the Molly's/Paddy's rivalry by destroying Art Sloane's house. Dennis goes for the immediate thrills of nailing all of Art's shoes to the floor and burning a message into his lawn, while Frank gets into some "long term shit" by doing Art's taxes so that he'll get audited next year. Dennis, once again, runs away with this scene as he goes on a stream-of-consciousness ramble about proper college behavior, which he feels should include plenty of disturbing homoerotic pranks but NO tasing.

When everyone meets back at Paddy's, they all realize that they're not really feeling the Molly's rivalry anymore. Not wanting to live in the past, they pick a new rival: the frat boys. When Dee proves her worth by flipping 10 cups in a row, the gang heads to Penn to challenge their new opponent to one game of flip-cup. The terms of the bet are: if the frat wins, the brothers get to drink at Paddy's for free for life, and if the Paddy's gang wins, they get to party at the frat (with nubile young girls) whenever they want. The gang puts Dee in first position and, just as the guys suspected, she chokes big time. However, when the frat boys finish their game first, Dennis, Mac, and Charlie calmly explain that they actually won because they poisoned the beer! The frat boys start vomiting, as does Dee, who had unwittingly taken one for the team.

The next day, as the guys were reveling in their victory and Dee was recuperating, Art Sloane burst in, demanding to know why the gang didn't show at Flipadelphia. ("Oh, that was today?") Realizing that these people had sucked him in to their madness just in time to stop caring about the rivalry, Art angrily stormed out. The gang was left to disapprovingly chatter away about Art's childish behavior, and poor, sick Dee even managed to climb up on her high horse to wonder, "Who slams a door?"

Grade: A

I didn't touch on it in the recap because it really had nothing to do with the plot, but I have to mention one of my favorite moments of this episode. In yet another example of how Charlie's mind works, he explained to Frank that he always keeps poison in his refrigerator, in the relish jar. He keeps mayo in the poison jar (as a decoy), and shampoo in the mayo jar. When Frank asks, "You're telling me that I've been putting shampoo on my sandwiches?" Charlie matter-of-factly responds, "If you're using the mayonnaise, then yeah. Probably."

I'm so glad that the season ended with this brilliant episode instead of "A Very Sunny Christmas," which had its moments (most notably Charlie getting medieval on Santa Claus) but was rather uneven. I would have buyer's remorse about that DVD if it weren't for the hilariously bizarre Christmas sing-along in the special features.

So, looking back at this spectacular season, what were your favorite episodes? Do you think I got it right with my grades? I feel pretty comfortable with them, although I would probably bump the first episode ("The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis") up to a solid A.

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It's Always Sunny stars: Kaitlin Olson / Danny DeVito / Charlie Day / Glenn Howerton / Rob McElhenney


"The Pop Eye @ Starpulse" is a column written by native Pittsburgher and current New Yorker, Becky Broderick. You may contact Becky directly at beckeyeam@gmail.com, or check out her other ramblings on The Pop Eye.

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