It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia roasts two of TV’s most acclaimed shows and absolutely nails it

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia somehow, by its 17th season, remains funnier and culturally more savage than almost any other comedy show on TV. Where most long-lived shows mellow with age in an attempt to court a wider audience base, the show has grown only more acidic in its satirical take on everything from cancel culture to cryptocurrency. This season, however, takes on the big shots, namely, two of the most critically adulated, awards-splattered shows of the decade: Succession and The Bear.

In two consecutive episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia — titled Mac and Dennis Become EMTs and Thought Leadership: A Corporate Conversation — The Paddy’s Gang has its way with what can be deemed smugness and an element of self-importance about these dramas, and does so with the leathery irreverence only It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia can muster. These aren’t parodies just for the sake of parody — they are a very funny (and accurate) observation about how seriously television has begun to take itself.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia roasted Succession, breaking a 17-year tradition

The episode titled Thought Leadership: A Corporate Conversation begins with a shocker: no peppy theme song, no title card. Instead, we have a cold open accompanied by music that is eerily reminiscent of the ominous piano thuds on HBO’s Succession. It is jarring, deliberately. The show ditches Temptation Sensation for full-blown prestige TV mimicry for the first time in 17 years, and it all falls perfectly in place.

The episode is a success in how we have seen Succession play out, as a distorted boardroom drama. The Gang decides which one of them should be the face of their latest scandal (an underground slap-fighting ring) while draped in Patagonia-style vests and muttering inscrutable business jargon. Dee is a bit like Shiv, Dennis has achieved Logan Roy levels of manipulation, and Mac is cluelessly loyal in the style of Greg. It’s not simply a parody, it’s a disassembly. By also aping the gravitas of Succession and applying it to something as absurd as slap-fighting, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia uncovers the inherent ridiculousness in which we take the corporate melodrama, or, as it turns out, the corporate slap.

The satire hits hard because of how deeply the show reaches. It isn’t just about costumes and musical cues. It is that the characters actually buy into the notion that a slap-fight league requires a fall guy and crisis PR. It holds a mirror up to Succession’s Roys, who turn family dysfunction into billion-dollar tribal cluster bombs. In the world of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the stakes are laughably low, but the commitment is 100 per cent.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia burns The Bear (but lovingly)

In Mac and Dennis Become EMTs, Charlie opens a ghost kitchen inside the apartment, becoming a self-important chef and insisting everyone refer to him as “Yes, Chef!” The vibe is unmistakable. It’s The Bear, FX’s cherished, stress-inducing culinary drama, as refracted through the madness of the episode.

Charlie is giving Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy role so much mock-justice it hurts. He barks orders, flips burgers with a brick and approaches dinner prep as though it were brain surgery. “Cooking is life or death,” he intones, deadly serious, then scalds The Lawyer’s face with boiling oil. It’s funny because The Bear itself carves a line between funny and earnest melodramatics, and the show takes that line and deep-fries it.

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The episode is campier in its level of self-awareness. The Bear and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are produced by FX. So the roast isn’t mean-spirited. It’s family competition. Charlie’s devotion to kitchen protocol is so excessive that it gently spoofs the fact that The Bear is classified as a comedy when it plays, at least much of the time, like a psychological thriller with knives.

The fact that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has yet to snag an Emmy, and The Bear has? The writers clearly noticed. This is their playful response.

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