It’s Always Sunny season 14, episode 6 recap: The Janitor Always Mops Twice

Episode 6 of FX series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia sees Charlie and crew in a film noir setting. Why was Frank diarrhea poisoned?

After returning from the zoo, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia switches things up again. This time we’re treating to an expertly conveyed film noir-style story involving maraschino cherries and diarrhea. It also begins with Charlie (Charlie Day) apparently bleeding (or “spilling my guts on a dive bar floor,” as he puts it). Dennis (Glenn Howerton) comes in with a stern attitude, urging him to mop up his mess, with Mac (Rob McElhenney) acting as an enforcer. Of course, fans of the series know Mac isn’t really an enforcer of anything, as he and Dennis merely have a strange, co-dependent relationship. Even more, the substance on Charlie’s shirt isn’t blood…but we’ll get back to that later.

How it began

The flashback begins when Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson) enters the picture, telling Charlie that Frank (Danny DeVito) has been “diarrhea poisoned.” If she can address the mess and solve the mystery, she promises to get the lowly janitor a new set of cleaning rags. That is enough, so Charlie gets started. As the ball starts rolling, we get some choice lines like “Quit flapping your gums, goon” (directed to Dee), “brown lightning” and “enough beef to open a hamburger store.” The plot thickens when the Waitress (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) showed up with a boyfriend named Vince (Wass Stevens). What do these two know about Frank’s condition? For that matter, what do Dennis and Mac know?

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How it ends

Oddly, Rickety Cricket (David Hornsby) also shows up, covering Dee’s shift. Before long it appears that Cricket (AKA “street rat”) may be contaminating maraschino cherries. Between this and Charlie’s cat food-infused cocktails, the question may be, “What didn’t give Frank diarrhea poisoning?” It’s learned that Frank bribed a city official to ban red-40 dye in the cherries, then stockpiled them for the black market profit (prohibition-style). Over time the cherries became fermented alcohol, which the Waitress (increasingly deviant herself) sold in cherry pies to old folks homes, parties, teetotallers and people from her AA meetings.

So the Waitress poisoned the pie, poisoned Frank, and even sent Vince to knock out Charlie!
Fortunately, due to Charlie’s regular exposure to ammonia-bleach cocktails, he’s immune to Vince’s tricks. Ultimately, Charlie’s “blood” stained shirt is because he drank bleach and vomited up the poisoned cherries! The end result is a gross mess. However, it is stylishly depicted through the black-and-white, class “noir” lense. While we don’t specifically know why Charlie’s seeing things in this style, he is known to have a wild imagination. Unfortunately, it all too often gets tangled up and warped by the gang, who is clearly a bad influence on his otherwise innocent and easily influenced mind.

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