Last night marked the return of one of Sunny's best recurring characters - the unnamed waitress. And where the waitress goes, Charlie is sure to follow. Yes, kids, it was the first true "Charlie-heavy" episode of the season and it...was…glorious.

Although it seems like a weird plot point introduced strictly for laughs, the discovery of a beehive in the bar is an important one - and not just to showcase Charlie's lack of knowledge of ANY subject. For whatever reason, Charlie wants honey. Even though he's decided that the bees are actually honey-less hornets, he rigs up a cardboard box with a tube to "smoke out the honey." I really don't even know. All I know is that I want to spend a day inside Charlie's head. Moving on…

The bombshell that the waitress was getting hitched allowed the whole gang to work on something together: making sure Charlie didn't find out and go berserk. Well, actually, Mac and Dennis were the only two really committed to that plan. Frank was too busy getting all "9½ Weeks" with his new paramour, the one and only Artemis, while Dee was bent on breaking up the waitress's engagement for her own selfish reasons - namely, jealousy over someone "less hot" getting married before her and that said 'less hot chick' was marrying one of Dee's high school boyfriends.

This episode peeled away some more layers of both Charlie and Dee, revealing more disturbed people than we initially thought. In Dee's case, we discover that she is obsessed with getting married. The opening scene finds her trying on wedding dresses for sport, apparently for the umpteenth time, prompting the fed-up saleswoman to ask her for proof that she's actually getting married. As is usually the case when Dee is caught in a lie, she refuses to bail out gracefully and opts instead to uncomfortably tangle herself further. Although, if I were that saleswoman, I might think that Dee's assertion that her fiancé is a "salt seaman" is too stupid to NOT be true. I mean, really, who could make something like that up?

It's at the bridal shop where Dee learns of the waitress's impending nuptials, after unknowingly chatting up her husband-to-be, who turns out to be the aforementioned ex-boyfriend, Brad. Like Rickety Cricket, Brad is a guy Dee treated badly in high school, only to discover that he's grown up quite nicely. In Brad's case, Dee dumped him because of his acne, fearing that he would "grow up to look like Edward James Olmos." (Boy, for someone dubbed "The Aluminum Monster" in high school, Sweet Dee sure did break a lot of hearts.)

Season 5 Episode "The Waitress Gets Married." © Patrick McElhenney / FX

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Despite Mac's warning to "save herself the embarrassment," Dee plows ahead with her plan to break up the couple. She offers to throw them a party, and although the waitress wants no part of it (as Dennis explains, "she doesn't really get [their] sense of humor") but Brad accepts, hoping to meet some of his betrothed's friends. (I'm pretty sure the waitress has no friends.)

The party is just a ruse to try to make the waitress look bad in front of her new man, for which Dee enlists the help of Frank, Artemis, Charlie's mom, and probably my favorite recurring character, Mrs. Mac. We discover two interesting things: 1) Artemis likes to put bacon bits in her hair when she and Frank have sex ("It makes me feel like a Cobb salad!") and 2) The waitress actually went to high school with Dee, a fact that surprises Dee ("You are very forgettable!") more than anyone. Of course, this means that the waitress also went to school with Charlie, so perhaps his obsession goes back further than any of us realize!

Dee's fake party ultimately seems to work, as Brad returns later to profess his love. (But come on, that declaration had "prank" written all over it.)

While Dee is trying to ruin the waitress's life, Mac and Dennis are trying to prevent Charlie from ending his (or theirs, by "going postal"). Not only do they want to keep Charlie from finding out about his beloved's wedding, but they also plan to find him a girl he would like better - a prospect Charlie can't even imagine. The onion that is Charlie is peeled away further to reveal someone who might not even be of this world. Observe his Match.com questionnaire responses:

Favorite food - milksteak
Favorite hobby - magnets (not playing with them or anything, "just magnets")
Likes - ghouls
Dislikes - peoples' knees.

Adorable, funny and totally bizarre. I would contact that Match.com profile in a heartbeat.

Having no imagination, Mac and Dennis say, "Let's pretend you're not who you are and attract a woman." They take him to a fancy restaurant to meet his first date and coach him to say that he is a philanthropist. But as with all 50-cent words, Charlie can't "say it no good," and he ends up telling his date that he's a "full-on rapist…Africans, dyslexics, children," explaining that he "helps people," before giving up and admitting that he's "a janitor at a bar." When Dennis and Mac give Charlie conflicting advice on how to salvage the date (Dennis suggests thoughtful conversation, while Mac advises him to just ask her to have sex, because it's a 50/50 shot), Charlie sweats through his shirt and makes a confused grab for his date's boob. Date over. Out of sheer frustration, the guys tell Charlie about the waitress getting married. And it's a little hard to laugh when Charlie looks genuinely destroyed.

Stung, Charlie decides to exact a little revenge on the waitress's fiancée by stopping by his place to give him a wedding present - the box of hornets tied up neatly with a bow. Much to Charlie's relief, Brad tells him that the wedding is off. But as a happy Charlie is about to leave with his box, Brad reveals that his engagement was all part of a plan to get revenge on the girls who screwed him over back in his days as a pimple-faced teen, and that he's moved on from the waitress to Dee. And this is where we see it again - Charlie's heart. Realizing that the waitress must have been very hurt by this, he gives Brad the hornets' nest anyway, clearly relishing the fact that he's just avenged his ladylove.

With all of his crazy scheming, his fixation on the waitress often seems like the misguided obsession of a socially awkward guy. But every once in a while, we're treated to a glimpse of Charlie's true feelings. He genuinely cares about this girl. He may even love her. Why, we don't know, but I, for one, would like to find out.

Grade: 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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