It’s Always Sunny season 13, episode 8 recap: Charlie’s Home Alone

In episode 8 from this season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Charlie’s stranded during Super Bowl LII weekend, left to (and in) his own devices at Paddy’s Pub.

It’s Super Bowl time on It’s Always Sunny, which is exciting enough for the gang. However, the stakes are raised higher because the Philadelphia Eagles are one of the competing teams (against the New England Patriots). The gang has tickets to the game, and there’s a standard debate over victory-related superstitions.

Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) posts a sign saying (in Charlie-speak) the bar’s closed for salmonella because of the Super Bowl. However, a debate arises. Charlie firmly believes his pre-game ritual is needed for the Eagles to win, which Mac (Rob McElhenney) dismisses along rational grounds — which he does sometimes, despite frequently being irrational himself.

However, there’s a little problem: After Charlie says, “I wish you would disappear,” his wish seemingly comes true before long. While looking for his Green Man costume (part of his ritual), someone else wears it in his place so they can hop into Frank’s (Danny DeVito) vehicle. This effectively leaves Charlie home alone, Kevin McCallister-style. It’s the first problem for his so-called Super Bowl “color ritual”: Wear green, drink yellow (beer), and eat brown (“milksteak with a little light char to it”).

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While the gang’s away, he goes through their stuff, learns that aftershave doesn’t hurt at all and grows scared of the basement’s furnace (all homages to Home Alone). Similarly, he assumes people outside are burglars and sets up traps. It turns out they’re not, despite looking vaguely like Harry and Marv from “Home Alone” (here Bryan Coffee is Harry and Andrew Hawtrey plays Marv). This inspires Charlie to set up traps throughout the bar, even writing up a “bear trap battle plan.” Of course, Charlie being inept, he quickly steps into the bear trap.

After being stuck a while, Charlie eats a rat (colored brown), then gets bonked in the head with his own paint cans to wear green. Then, when he fails to get the beer (despite being in a bar), he drinks something else yellow instead. Then, as he’s probably hallucinating from bear trap-related blood loss, two Philadelphia Eagles appear to inspire him. Yes, Beau Allen and Jason Kelce appear as themselves, telling him things like, “No pain, no gain.”

Rather than just being It’s Always Sunny athlete cameos, they remind Charlie that he’s human and can get out of the trap. They emphasize that there’s a release lever on the bottom which he can access with his thumbs. However, because he thinks everything a fan does has a direct impact on the game, he decides it may be bad luck to leave the bear trap, so actually steps back into it. It is indeed a painful scene, but what can you do? That’s what a fan does for their team.

That’s it for this It’s Always Sunny recap! What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!