It’s Always Sunny season 15, episode 2 recap: The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7

FX series It’s Always Sunny season 15 episode “The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7” begins in a way one might expect. Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito) describes something as “un-American.”

This time it’s because the gang’s racially insensitive phony sequels to the “Lethal Weapon” franchise have been removed from a local library. The gang accuses Mac (Rob McElhenney) of ruining their work through his use of blackface in his portrayal of the character Roger Murtaugh.

However, their “cancelation” only encourages them to make a new, perhaps more sensitive installment of the series. Mac says fear is a strong motivator to do the right thing, and Dennis (Glenn Howerton) wants to make sure their 3rd attempted movie sequel is for “today’s standards.”

This means no more blackface, no more redface, and presumably no more other offensive characterizations. However, Frank still maintains that, if he is to work on the project, he will still need a personally gratifying sex scene.

Additionally, the wiser Mac wants to be praised for being anti-racist and for no longer playing Murtaugh.

It’s Always Sunny walks the tightrope

Without further ado, It’s Always Sunny dives headlong into the production of “Lethal Weapon 7,” this time prominently featuring a child’s birthday party. Dee (Kaitlin Olson) is playing Mel Gibson’s character, Riggs, and there is a surprise return character, Pepper Jack the pimp (Marcuis Harris), playing Murtaugh.

The production looks chaotic. There is a literal toy doll in place of a child and in some scenes, Frank’s character gets a hand from a prostitute named Candy (Alixandrée Antoine) while talking on the phone.

The episode has a few revelations for the gang, such as Artemis (Artemis Pebdani) being Persian. However, we are reminded of a few things we already knew, such as Dee being a bad actress.

By Take 2 of a certain scene in the “Lethal Weapon 7” shoot, Pepper Jack seems to think the story was about his actual kid, and he pulls out a knife. Also, Frank, due to his old age (and probably additional factors) can’t get aroused.

Then Dee clumsily shows up as a second Riggs character.

Changes to the script

In an attempt to make the movie work, the It’s Always Sunny gang makes a number of changes. The Don Cheadle lookalike (Geoffrey Owens) shows up, and he turns out to actually be a quality actor.

The story uses that fact as a commentary on how a show like It’s Always Sunny itself might make people forget that comedic actors can sometimes have more range. Also, now Pepper Jack is playing Roger Murtaugh.

Dee tries her hand at playing the new villain: An entitled white woman named Karen White! However, the gang ends up noting how, as humans progress, it becomes harder to pin villainy on any one group.

So, they decide that it’s just as questionable to outright villainize “entitled white women” as any other type of person. After Dennis notes how any human villain could be regarded as “problematic,” the gang decides to make nature the enemy.

Thus, they explore threats such as a plague, bees, or a tsunami as the enemy (though they decide the term “tidal wave” is less racially charged than a tsunami). However, when they see moments from the disaster movie they created, they all agree with Frank that the movie is a piece of s**t.

What happened?

As usual, It’s Always Sunny puts an interesting spin on the issue of why trying to please literally everyone cannot work. Rather than stick only to the movie project, Dennis demonstrates how he learned to appear “woke” in order to have sex with self-proclaimed feminists, but then switches around to agreeing with whatever a conservative woman might say.

So, basically, his trick is to pretend to agree with them, to the absolute extent possible, and he can cynically take advantage of them. Though this is technically about Dennis womanizing, the idea could be applied to entertainment, politics, religion, you name it.

To drive the point home about echo chamber activists, Dennis generalizes that they aren’t more ethical than others, they just want to appear that way. So, Dennis will regurgitate back to them what they say in their echo chambers.

He refers to the process as “Finger on the pulse, finger on the p**s.” Still, after getting flustered with their lackluster production, the gang decides to give the Don Cheadle guy creative control.

Though Dennis assures him they are “allies,” the Cheadle man later reveals the movie as a documentary on the failed project, calling it “White Saviors,”. This prompts the gang to regress into making a Lethal Weapon 8 wherein they’ll go back to not caring about how offensive they are.

What are your thoughts on this episode of It’s Always Sunny? Let us know in the comments!