Frank vs. Russia - by Brianna Zigler
My coverage of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia season 16 continues with episode 4. Additionally, I am currently running a 30% off discount on paid subscriptions from now through the end of the month, which will get you access to the weekly “Brianna’s Digest.”
“Frank vs. Russia” has handily cemented itself as one of Sunny’s greatest late period episodes, an episode that had the virtue of expanding upon an already-existing news story that itself sounded like something straight out of an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Urgently, the Sunny writers took it upon themselves to create their own version of the scandal, one in which a scheme to keep Mac out of his and Dennis’s apartment concludes with Frank, roofied the night prior, having had vibrating anal beads inserted into his asshole in order to win a chess tournament against a Russian grandmaster and, I guess, show the country who’s boss what with everything going on?
As it tends to go, the logic behind the scheme is less important than the scheme itself and everything that goes into it, part of which involves a return of the D.E.N.N.I.S. System — with a twist. Sunny is wont to remix their old hits, and this one makes a lot of sense and maybe works the best out of all of them, too. Dee and Mac are having guy troubles, and Dennis happens to possess yet another system of seduction, this time for the opposite sex. Mac and Dee’s confusion over why Dennis, an assumed very straight guy, would have a system to seduce men, is very funny; as is Dennis’s reaction. Frank vs. Russia ends up being a masterclass showcase for Dennis moments, in fact: from him shouting a forceful “No” when the Gang is badgering him to help them, to his facial expressions as Mac explains the catfishing situation that Dennis has himself orchestrated, to the penultimate montage, which cuts back and forth from Frank, writhing in pain over his stuffed butt, to close-ups of Dennis’s euphoria over being able to control the contents of it.
Prior to this, Dee had informed Dennis and Mac that she “got her guts pumped” the night before, (beautiful, perfect, exquisite line of dialogue; the writing credit this episode goes to the great Megan Ganz), but needs to seduce the man again to get her phone back from him — she assumes he’s using a move out of her own “rapey” manipulative playbook. Mac, on the other hand, has fallen for a man named Johnny over the internet, whom he has never met and never seen, but who instructed Mac to insert vibrating, remote-controlled anal beans into his butt. Johnny uses the anal beads to alert Mac to go to a hotel and wait for him, though he never shows. See, Johnny consistently stands Mac up because Johnny is really Dennis. As usual, Mac was annoying Dennis, and Dennis needed a plan to get him out of the apartment. What else could he do? Still, Mac is undeterred and actually finds all the ghosting very romantic (in the end, Mac is unwilling to believe that Johnny and Dennis are the same person — another amusing development). So, Dennis walks both Mac and Dee through the S.I.N.N.E.D. System: That’s right, “Dennis” backwards.
Meanwhile, Charlie teams up with Frank and, reluctantly, Uncle Jack, to conspire to take down the Russian grandmaster. Frank carries a restaurant buzzer in his back pocket while Charlie watches over him with spy glasses borrowed from Uncle Jack (part of Jack’s extensive collection of “research materials”). The spy glasses allow Jack, in his ice cream truck sans ice cream outside, to observe Frank, play along on computer chess and buzz Frank to make the right moves. Somehow, this plan works, and Frank manages to move all the way up in ranks to go head-to-head with the Russian — the problem is, they can’t sneak in a big restaurant buzzer in Frank’s back pocket anymore. They need something that vibrates which can be completely concealed. Of course, Dennis has the winning solution.
Pretty much everything about this episode works; easily the best of the season so far and and quite frankly one of the best episodes in a few seasons of Sunny period. It’s a joke-a-minute spectacle, hardly a pause or moment that isn’t filled with something that comedically works, and works in the way the show works best. Everyone in “Frank vs. Russia” gets a chance to shine, gets their own absurd circumstance that masterfully feeds into the overarching plot, and, like “The Gang Inflates,” shows how the series works best when topical satire plays second fiddle (or, I suppose in this case, is barely there at all).
I literally don’t have the time to write out every single instance and line of dialogue that made me hoot with laughter during this episode: Frank’s insistence that he’s a gay ally because of Mac’s season 13 dance (“Once Mac did the dance then I get it”), until Mac explains to him the Johnny situation and the beads (“The dance never said anything about no beads!”); “You’re beyond help,” Dee says to Mac, “You let a stranger hack your butthole;” “I used to fuck Lebron James,” Mac confidently asserts to a date in an attempt at the S.I.N.N.E.D. System (“Oh, God,” Dennis blurts out in the background, monitoring the date nearby).
Of course, the pièce de résistance is watching legendary actor Danny DeVito squirm and howl and drool on himself to mime a man who’s had a vibrating sex toy shoved in his butt against his will and play chess at the same time. “Everything you need is already inside you,” Dennis calmly assures Frank as he’s shepherded into the stadium clouded by a post-roofie haze. There’s a superb blend of genuinely horrific sex crimes, heavily implied pedophilia, depraved emotional manipulation, and goofball absurdity at play in this episode — as it tends to happen, Sunny’s best episodes are usually the ones that tackle the darkest material. After watching this one, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind whether or not the Sunny writers still have the juice; if they ever lost it, one only needs to watch “Frank vs. Russia” to know that they’ve got it back with the force of one thousand vibrating anal beads.
I wrote in my review of the two-episode premiere how disappointed I was with Uncle Jack’s brief appearance in the second episode — thank god for “Frank Vs. Russia,” which keeps Jack in play as a major supporting character throughout. It’s also great how every appearance of Jack ramps up the pedophile implications more forcefully each time, until this episode the only thing left anyone has to do is to outright say it. Of course, they never will. It’s funnier if Frank asks Jack for a popsicle out of his ice cream truck and Jack has to say that, of course, there isn’t any ice cream. Of course.
Dee calling her roofies “Mommy’s Magic Beans.”
Despite what I believe to be his compromising physical appearance, Rob as Mac is particularly funny in this episode; though, I know he would be so much funnier a little heavier, with slicked-back hair, a bit of a beard, and a Hawaiian shirt.
If I had any doubt before, I have none now that the Sunny writers are definitely aware of the MacDennis community. This episode is such MacDennis fodder it’s ridiculous. Are those people even ok right now?
This episode will make longtime fans keenly aware of the absence of the beloved, fictional Guigino’s Restaurant, seen in a handful of classic Sunny episodes and most notably “The Gang Dines Out.” It was an off-set location for the series that the guys revealed in an episode of The Always Sunny Podcast was unfortunately shut down some time ago.
Charlie decked out in patriotic America garb, the dorky rectangular spy glasses, harassing the chess moderator over being unable to bring beer into the event — just great.
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