“I guess that don’t leave me with no choice… but to be a mature-ass adult about this s—! I’m working on my temper. But know that I strongly disagree with this!” – Reggie
When you’ve been telling people that your brother died because a Jacuzzi jet sucked his innards out of his rectum instead of admitting he’s still alive – well, you must be Frank. When his brother Gino (guest-star Jon Polito) shows up at Paddy’s Pub looking to settle a score from their past, Frank joins him on a trip down memory lane through the Sunny Spots of their spin through the sixties and seventies.
Shadynasty and her huge set… of pipes!
When Frank meets the love of his life – a backup singer at the music club his brother got him a job – he vows to take her away from her violent manager-boyfriend, and to make her the star of her own, integrated jazz show at Frank’s dream club, “where blacks and whites can get along. No Orientals, though.” When Frank shoots Reggie “Hakim Mohammed” (guest-star Lance Reddick) for pulling a petition on his brother to stop slinging coke, he goes on the lamb to Colombia, losing Shadynasty (pronounced Shuh-dynasty) to his brother and cocaine.
“Those were the days.”
Telling a story about the sixties gives Frank a reason to re-immerse himself in the underlying racist ideologies that he definitely doesn’t yearn for – he’s just saying, “Those were the days” when black men were put in jail for getting shot or beaten with bats.
A history of baldness
Frank just goes through the motions while he’s in Colombia; after years of getting laid and doing coke, he decides to go back to America, leaving his hair behind to miss out on the end of the seventies. He arrives to find his brother and Shadynasty together, united by their drug habit. While telling their story, Gino reveals that he destroyed the letters that Frank wrote while he was in Colombia, which brings up the new string of letters that led him to Philly in the first place.
“Did you call that in? Nope, that just happened.”
In the end, no one gets Shadynasty. When Frank and Gino meet her at the airport to try and win back her love, they discover that Reggie has been the one writing the letters. The reunion is cut short when airport security drags Reggie away for being on the “no-fly list.”
Mouth Hoagies
When Frank and Gino aren’t fighting over the love of their life or who went bald first, they prove themselves to be gastronomic geniuses, shoving meats and cheeses into their mouths at random. I think my next dinner party is going to consist solely of rum-ham and mouth hoagies, served with beer and pickle wedges.
Some stats and info about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, “Frank’s Brother”
TV SHOW – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 7, Episode 5
AIRED ON – October 13th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FX, FXX, Hulu
GENRE – Comedy, Office Culture
CREATED BY – Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton
CAST – Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, Danny DeVito
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.