That’s quite the achievement, especially for a show that breaks most of the established conventions and tropes of the sitcom genre. Indeed, one of the greatest deviations by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is its commitment to making its main characters as deplorable as possible. They’re the opposite of moral, upstanding citizens—and their unethical shenanigans are (strangely) fun to watch. Every member of The Gang is toxic in their own way, but when they come together as a group, that’s when their heinousness really shines. Which has us wondering: just how low can they go? Let’s revisit their greatest misdeeds! Here are the worst acts committed by The Gang in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
10. The Gang Breaks Dee
The internal toxicity of The Gang always rears its head at the slightest provocation, as they’re quick to turn on each other whenever it’d benefit them individually—or simply when it’s fun to do so. Within their in-group, Dee Reynolds tends to be the butt of their jokes, and they have no problem being cruel towards her. In Season 9, with her spirit broken after years of insults and torment, Dee has given up on all of her life aspirations. While eating some cake that she found in the garbage, The Gang rips into her. Of course, Dee has thick skin that she’s grown over the years. Despite her low spirits, she’s able to ignore their barrage of insults. So, in an effort to really wound her, The Gang resorts to Machiavellian methods. When your friends try their hardest to make you hit rock bottom, perhaps it’s time to find new friends.
9. The Gang Gets Crippled
The showrunners of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia were certainly more carefree during the show’s earlier seasons. That’s evident in this Season 2 episode, when Charlie ends up in a wheelchair due to an accident and winds up earning sympathy from a pair of strippers—which gets Mac and Dennis thinking. In an effort to gain some more sexual attention for themselves, Mac and Dennis find wheelchairs and incorporate them into their own lives. However, not to be outdone, Dee then appears in the mall on crutches and with a back brace. A truly shameless bunch!
8. The Gang Steals Frank’s Blood
In Season 10, we once again see the toxic qualities of The Gang on display as they turn on each other for personal gain. When Frank decides to retire, there’s a desperate bid to see who will emerge as the owner of their bar. In order to win the inheritance, they need proof of lineage—they need Frank’s blood. While he’s asleep, The Gang repeatedly gushes Frank’s veins into a bucket. Later, when Frank appears at the end of the episode, he looks as though he’s suffering from severe anemia. As part of a ploy, Dennis tells Frank that he has a long lost son, which actually excites Frank, who wants to rekindle a relationship with his apparently forgotten and abandoned son. Realizing that his scheme is backfiring, Dennis reveals that it was all a hoax, crushing Frank’s hopes.
7. The Gang Poisons the Frat Boys
Here we have a case where The Gang isn’t just doing something unethical but flat-out illegal. After having their egos bruised when a group of college frat boys kick them out of a party, The Gang decides not to take it lying down: they challenge the frat boys to a game of Flip Cup. However, knowing they don’t possess the skill to win using honorable means, The Gang resolves to poison the opposite team (which ends up poisoning an unsuspecting Dee in the process). The fact that they can be so cavalier about poisoning people—especially one of their own—says a lot about their “values.”
6. The Gang Lies About Psycho Pete
Psycho Pete is someone The Gang knew from high school, who was accused of killing and eating his entire family, which landed him in the mental institution. When he appears in Season 10—after several mentions throughout previous seasons—Psycho Pete is, surprisingly, calm and timid. As it turns out, Peter’s reputation as a psycho was entirely concocted by The Gang, and their lies affected his life to such an extent that it amplified his social anxiety and caused him to fall into depression. Instead of righting their wrongs, however, The Gang simply puts Peter on a train to Los Angeles. Mental health is no joke, but they don’t care. They’re blind to their self-centered, myopic behavior.
5. The Gang Fakes a Baby’s Funeral
After Dee gives birth, she claims child support, despite the fact she already gave the child away. Though scamming social welfare is immoral in its own right, The Gang’s dedication to it is… something else. After an IRS auditor catches Dee in her scam, The Gang fakes the baby’s funeral in an irreverent scene that really highlights their depravity. The moment when the rotting carcass of a dead dog splatters out onto the ground is the wonderfully sick icing on top of their degenerate cake. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is sacred to the gang.
4. The Gang Kidnaps People
The Gang is no stranger to felony charges. Back in Season 4, The Gang kidnapped a critic who (rightfully) wrote that their bar is the worst of all Philadelphian pubs. However, they do it again in Season 11, this time holding people at gunpoint and forcing them to hand over their phones and wallets. Although they start their kidnappings more through clumsiness and unruliness, towards the end of the episode, they’re taking people out into the woods and forcing them to cough up. Yikes.
3. The Gang Destroys Rickety Cricket
Before Rickety Cricket knew The Gang, he was a respected priest named Matthew Mara. Over the course of the show, his repeated interactions with Dennis, Mac, Charlie, Dee, and Frank ruin his life. In Season 2, Dee lures Cricket to leave the priesthood, only to savagely reject him once he had done so. Since then, Cricket has been homeless, force-fed drugs, kidnapped, tortured, and crippled by the Mafia—and all of that is just in Season 3! Across the rest of the show, Cricket has also been lacerated, shot, disfigured in a house fire, and chased as the subject of a manhunt. Why? Simply because he had the fortune of crossing paths with The Gang.
2. The Gang Burns Down a Home
The Gang is a loud, pestiferous scourge on everyone they run into. It doesn’t matter if you’re quietly sitting in your home, just minding your own business—they will find a way to ruin your life. In this misguided attempt to “pay it forward,” The Gang not only terrifies a random family, but they end up putting axes through walls and eventually burning the entire building down. Though they end up paying for their mistake with Dennis losing his house, the trauma put on the victims is unimaginable.
1. The Gang Traps Everyone in a Fire
This is, by far, the very worst thing The Gang has ever done. In Season 9, after The Gang invites all of their enemies to Thanksgiving dinner in an effort to squash their beefs, a fight breaks out in Dennis and Mac’s apartment. Who could have predicted that?! The Gang soon realizes that there’s a large fire burning its way through the apartment, so they quickly come up with a plan of action. Obviously, The Gang only cares about their own well-being, so that plan of action doesn’t take into account everyone else at dinner. Without much hesitation, they decide to abandon the fiery apartment. But they want to make good on their escape, so they prevent everyone else from following—by trapping them inside. Surely this counts as attempted murder? Even Frank points out that they are “definitely going to burn to death.” But that’s not enough to dissuade The Gang, who leave without an iota of concern. Despite all of The Gang’s most egregious acts of depravity, nothing tops this. Trapping people in a blaze simply to save their own skin is the worst thing they’ve ever done. Read next: The Best and Most Iconic TV Sitcoms of the 2000s, Ranked
