4 out of 5

Created by: Rob MacElhenney

While season 1, 2 and 3 each had their questionable moments, the overwhelming simplistic genius of the show’s characters and formula helped propel it to great five star heights. Season 4 was the first dip in quality, by my opinion, where it seemed that the show stumbled into formula and coasted through some episodes in order to get to its pinnacle music episode. Some have mentioned that the show started to veer earlier, when it brought in more ridiculous plot elements; I’ve always been fine with that – it’s the same type of bizarre cartoon logic that populates my favorite cartoons and TV shows. Rather, I feel the slight decline (it is slight – the season still has awesome highlights) was due to letting the balance get off-kilter. While mean-spirited, It’s Always Sunny has …mostly… focused its wrath on its main characters, or a small circle of repeat offenders. This gives the mean-spiritedness a childish feeling, a sort of ignorant exuberance which is a core aspect of the show. But it takes more focus to have a joke wrap back around on the teller; the simpler way to tell it is to just have the punchline end with the listener. And that’s how season 4 feels – ‘we know you find our style funny, so we’re just going to go with it.’ Moments of genius shine through – the bank scene in the gas episode is gorgeous, and Mac and Charlie getting jobs makes me die laughing – but yeah, popularity spike because they went on tour with a musical. It just seems they were a little tired through the season, that’s all. Thankfully the quality went back up to awesome for season 5 and 6, so if this is a low point, it’s very relative to surrounding greatness.