Recap: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Episode 8.01 – Pop-Pop: The Final Solution

Mac has an announcement. Due to his “sudden and unfortunate weight loss,” the bar is at a security risk. So as head of security, his first move is… his new pair of glasses to be used during his ocular patdowns. He’ll now be able to determine a subject’s threat level without them feeling his retinal assessment. Charlie thought the glasses were so the subjects won’t see how scared Mac is.

The Gang doesn’t care.

Just then, The Attorney (yes, the Attorney, capitalized) arrives to tell Dennis and Dee that their grandfather, their mother’s father, is in a coma. And being they are the only living blood relatives left, it is up to them to decide whether to keep him on life support.

They head to the hospital and Frank says he visits “Pop-Pop” every week to bring him soup. They enter the room and are overwhelmed by the smell and the mess. Frank has not taken care of Pop-Pop. But the real reason he even cares is Pop-Pop might have Nazi treasure stashed away and hopes it’ll be left to Frank when Pop-Pop dies.

Dee says they’re just going to pull the plug on the Nazi right? But Dennis says they might have to think about it first since it is a man’s life here.

Charlie breaks the seriousness by making the decision to eat the “rancid soup.” Dee agrees they need to think about it more. Charlie, though, takes Mac aside and asks him to remember when they had burned the box of Nazi stuff Pop-Pop gave Charlie back in season one. (Yes! It really happened! Well, Charlie found it.) Actually, Charlie had kept a painting of a dog from that box which he hung on the wall. Frank asked Charlie to take it down as he felt its “smug aura” mocked him and is evil.

Now Mac is eating the soup, which he says tastes horrible, but he and Charlie agree that they’ve made the decision, they have to stick with it. Charlie thinks the painting might have something to do with the treasure. They run away.

Back at Charlie’s apartment, he tries to look for the painting as Mac researches how Hitler loved painting German Shepherds. This could be an actual Hitler original. This could be huge, Mac thinks they could be famous treasure hunters and he could finally play Indiana Jones in a movie. They call Frank to ask where he put it. Frank, stuck in a window at Pop-Pop’s house, says he threw it out and that Cricket took it.

They go to Cricket, Mac with his duster and Charlie rocking the ocular patdown glasses. Cricket’s doing community service at a dog pound after he got into a fight with one. Cricket remembers the dog painting, very evil vibes, so he sold it to a man who just had to put down his own German Shepherd.

Dennis and Dee pull Frank out of an empty trunk at Pop-Pop’s. Now, they think maybe they aren’t going to pull the plug just yet. He was a nice old man to them and he turned his life around.

They find some old film reels and see one labeled Summer Camp 81. They fire up the film projector and watch the two of them with Pop-Pop heading to summer camp. They fondly remember their time with Pop-Pop and the very enthusiastic camp director, but things take a turn.” They turn the sound on and hear their Pop-Pop say “These g-ddamn n–gers and Jews are tryin’ to take over this country and we’ve got to take it back!”

That makes them want to pull the plug, but Frank asks them if they’re sure they want to watch Pop-Pop die. They decide to go to Cricket at the pound and choose a dog to put down to see what the full weight of a decision like taking a life would feel like.

They walk by the dogs in the cages to see which one to pick. In the last cage, Cricket, who really wants to be put down. But Dennis and Dee decide they should just let Pop-Pop and the dogs and Cricket die as nature intended, “slowly and painfully.

They take the dogs and Cricket and let them out onto the streets.

Charlie and Mac head to the office of the man who bought the painting, he’s a dentist. They walk in and find the waiting room filled with pictures and paintings of German Shepherds. Mac comes to a realization, maybe Hitler’s madness stemmed from him losing his dog as a child.

Exactly right, Charlie says. The assistant comes out and thinks one of them is Mr. Miller who has an appointment for braces. They play along and head inside. Mac thinks this is amazing like the Da Vinci Code and that Ryan Gosling will eventually play him in a movie. Charlie just wants the cool painting back on his wall.

Mac says no, this is all about uncovering historical facts and having a movie made with Ryan Gosling playing him. Okay, cool, Charlie says. He’ll play Hitler and it could be a time traveling buddy caper.

Mac can’t take it anymore. Frank calls and wants help convincing Dee and Dennis not to pull the plug on Pop-Pop until he finds the treasure. Mac decides to work with Frank on the painting instead and ends up pumping laughing gas into Charlie to “take him out of the picture.”

The Attorney meets with Dennis and Dee who tell him they aren’t going to do it. The Attorney wants to do it because he wants to end all connections with them. He then offers to take the responsibility by having them give him power of attorney so he’ll be the one to pull the plug. That sounds great they think.

Back at Paddy’s, Charlie is there with a tank of oxygen and a drooling mouth filled with braces. Turns out Mac took the wrong painting and Charlie has the real one.

But actually, turns out Charlie painted that dog, not Hitler, and only wanted it back. But since it’s made them all crazy about keys to Hitler’s madness and the Holocaust and Ryan Gosling, he’s going to burn it and no one can stop him.

No one wants to stop him actually. No one cares about his dog painting.

At the hospital, The Attorney, Dennis and Dee watch as the doctor turns the life support off. But Pop-Pop then starts breathing on his own. They can’t believe it. The doctor leaves them to go tend to a large number of stray dog attacks in the city.

Dennis and Dee tell The Attorney, who cares, since Pop-Pop had nothing to leave them anyway. But actually he did, The Attorney says.

In the alley, Charlie and Mac are setting fire to the painting. Charlie, just now, tells Mac he had actually painted over a painting Pop-Pop did give him. Mac can’t believe how convoluted the movie will be and they head inside.

Close-up on the painting as Charlie’s dog painting melts and reveals Hitler’s signature beneath it.

Episode Thoughts
Oh Sunny. You never fail to disappoint. The hilarious, inappropriate and random Sunny we all know and love was definitely present. And at season 8, season 8! the show is still as funny as ever.

As always, Sunny did what it does best. I can’t think of any other show on TV right now that has created such a full world of stories and recurring characters that they can easily pull from whenever they want and make something new out of them.

Just like the neverending suffering of Cricket. Just when you think it can’t get worse for him. But actually, Cricket looks a little better now than he has been. A little calmer now too. No crazy bridge dwellings or strange sex parties. But his thing with dogs still in tact.

The family Attorney is back. But what’s more impressive, they draw from all the way back in season 1 with Pop-Pop and his Nazi background. Not a particularly memorable episode (episode 6) on its own, but plenty of moments like Charlie dressing up in the clothes and Dee’s first expression of being afraid of hospitals.

Just amazing.

Now I actually hate writing long recaps for Sunny, because the show should be enjoyed by actually watching it yourself. Because words can’t accurately describe the awesomeness of this cast and how they hilarious bring the writing to life.

Welcome back Sunny!

A detailed recap is nice and all, but you know what’s even better? Actually watching the full episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia!
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It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - Season 8.

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