It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang’s Revelations on a Christian Cruise

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia consistently pushes the envelope, fearlessly tackling controversial subjects and adding their unique comedic spin. In a recent episode, the show delved into religion and Mac’s not-so-secret homosexuality, as Mac took the gang on a Christian cruise ship. Hoping for a break from their usual antics and the deadly sins they frequently commit, the gang agreed to join Mac on this voyage. The result was a series of intriguing revelations from Mac and an overall entertaining episode of It’s Always Sunny.

Confronting the Deadly Sins on a Christian Cruise

For Dee, Dennis, Frank, and Charlie, the Christian cruise represented an opportunity to confront and overcome three of the seven deadly sins they’re most guilty of: wrath, lust, and gluttony. Although they weren’t entirely on board with the religious aspect of the cruise, they saw it as a chance to take a vacation and temporarily attempt self-improvement. However, as we’ve seen time and time again throughout the show’s run, old habits die hard, and the gang can never truly change their core selves.

Dee’s battle against wrath was arguably the episode’s highlight, as she tried to control her anger when another woman took the chair she wanted by the pool. Believing she could manage her wrath more effectively if she stayed away from the gang, who constantly mocked her, Dee attempted to keep her distance. However, they always end up back in each other’s orbits, and this episode proved that even when Dee isn’t being ridiculed or called a bird by the group, these things will always haunt her. Fate can’t be stopped, as demonstrated by a real bird actually defecating on her, in the episode’s best comedic moment. In the end, she couldn’t control her wrath towards the woman who took her chaise, causing all of this to happen, and ultimately punched her in the face. Kaitlin Olson’s portrayal of Dee’s wrath is always spot-on, as she teeters on the edge of psychotic. And, unsurprisingly, Dee was the first one sent to the ship’s prison.

Dennis, Charlie, and Frank: Falling into Old Habits

Dennis soon joined Dee in the ship’s prison due to his uncontrollable deadly sin of lust. Glenn Howerton’s performance in this episode, as he creepily flirted with someone barely legal, was a perfect example of how Dennis’s lust always gets the better of him. Despite his efforts to appear nonthreatening, his inherent creepiness always emerges, and there’s no doubt that in this instance, it should have landed him in the boat’s prison.

Charlie and Frank quickly followed the two siblings, making no real attempt to curb their biggest sin: gluttony. Despite the cruise being dry, they smuggled their own beers on board and stored them in their jackets for easy access. Of course, their puffy jackets seemed out of place on a cruise ship, and they were eventually caught. Undeterred, they tried to drink actual gas from the ship, landing them right next to Dee and Dennis in cruise prison. Out of everyone, Charlie and Frank are probably the most accepting of their sins because they genuinely don’t care. There’s no need for them to deny or change who they are because it simply doesn’t matter to them. Dee, Dennis, and Mac want to believe they’re not terrible people and hide their dysfunction, but Charlie and Frank don’t care enough to.

Mac’s Journey: A Deeper Look into His Beliefs

Mac’s journey in this episode was by far the most fascinating of the gang’s. While Frank and Charlie represent the least concern about being good people, Mac probably cares the most because he has always considered himself a religious person. The issue is, Mac doesn’t truly understand religion. He’s excellent at blindly following people and concocting wild ideas about religion in his head, but he never genuinely grasps it. When his beliefs are challenged, his initial response is to argue against it, but ultimately, he’s easily willing to change his opinion to fit whatever his worldview is at any given moment. So, despite entering this episode with a strong belief in God and the need for punishment for sins, he left with a completely different perspective.

After meeting the two men leading this ‘religion’ and realizing they were gay, Mac finally acknowledged that he, too, was gay. The only conclusion he could draw from this that could fit into his desired worldview was that God must not exist because God would never make Mac gay. He was willing to flip his beliefs so easily, which is unsurprising based on what we’ve seen from Mac in the past. With the group all coming to these different realizations about themselves, the episode ended with all of them trapped in the ship’s prison as a terrible storm approached. We’ll have to tune in to the season finale to see if they can escape their own version of hell and to find out if Mac has truly given up on religion altogether.