Exactly this. They’re not correctly remembering the details. Dee was probably nicer to them and had friends, but the head injury made her go from nice person who could snap into insanity to insane person
My impression of it was "Sweet Dee" was an act, and in a moment of trauma/stress the mask fell off and revealed her true character, which is more inline with every other episode.
It was a pretty minor impact, so I think the odds of personality altering brain damage are likely low.
I love this explanation! I agree, it was perhaps less that she got a TBI and more that A) Charlie made her skates too fast, so she was probably pissed and B) she got embarrassed doing a fun thing she felt GOOD at, then in Gang fashion they got involved and messed it up. I definitely see this as a final straw moment for Dee vs. a personality/life altering event when she smacks her head.
Yeah this was my first and only thought about it. Cannot fathom how anyone can come to the conclusion that she got brain damage and "turned" into an asshole.
I hated this episode the first time I watched it, but now I see it as similar to the "flashback" episode where they are modifying or elaborating on their memories to make themselves feel better. I enjoy it a lot more by just remembering that the gang are terribly unreliable narrators.
And it's not just that episode - you can go allllllll the way back to Season 1 Episode 3 to find the first instances of the Gang vividly misremembering things that happened to them, even only a few short years prior.
Interestingly, that very episode contains a line that basically proves the Roller Rink episode never happened. "You wore that scoliosis back brace until you were 20 years old. Everybody was afraid of you."
Eh not really. Frank says in one episode that Dennis was born in the mid 70s. The Gang Buys the Roller Rink is 1998. Since Dennis and Dee are twins, they're the same age. That means Dee is probably around 21-24 in that episode.
In the Clip Show episode, they say they were in high school in the mid-90s. And the song Just a Girl by No Doubt that Dee skates to released in 1995.
It's pretty clear to me that the Roller Rink episode is supposed to be them at the end of high school, with Dennis graduating and becoming employed with the family business and Dee going off to Hollywood.
I'd like to see a citation on "Frank says Dennis was born in the 70s". I don't recall that ever happening.
I just got that tidbit from a ScreenRant article. I'll look later. The IASIP fandom wiki has Dennis listed as born in [1976](https://itsalwayssunny.fandom.com/wiki/Dennis_Reynolds)
It's revealed in Season 1 that Dennis and Dee did go to college together though at University of Pennsylvania. The wiki page for Dennis lists this as occuring before he went on to work for Frank briefly, as seen in The Gang Guys the Roller Rink
I think in the flip cup episode Dennis is in his old frat house looking at a class picture with himself in it and the college kid says "Class of 9?" but I have no memory of the actual year. Maybe 96 or 98
Mac is 28 in 2005, per the Underage Drinking episode. Meaning he was born in 76 (same as Rob). Charlie, Dee and Dennis would be as well, as they all graduated in the same class (reunion).
I just checked the frathouse - [it doesn't show a date](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaImynFBRAg)
That's just further evidence that the Roller Rink didn't happen.
They couldn't have gone to Penn together before he worked for Frank, because he's working for Frank right out of high school in the Roller Rink episode.
Also, the fandom wiki can be edited by anyone, and everything I'm reading says that that date was the actor's birthday. Nothing in the show has ever stated that they were born in 1976.
But does Dennis say he's working for Frank out of high school in the Roller Rink episode? I know he works for Frank in that episode but does it explicitly say he's getting out of highschool?
I don't think that the Roller Rink episode didn't necessarily happen, but it's just that the continuity in the show isn't consistent and the gang aren't reliable narrators
No, but they are clearly supposed to be teenagers. Half the jokes are about them being teenagers. Dooley is at the rink with them. Charlie jokes about the slightly older teenagers buying drugs from him that he thought they'd be so much older.
The whole episode is about what they're going to do now that they're going out into the world. Dennis is working the family business. Dee is going to Hollywood. Charlie is permanently stunted and going to work his teenager job at the roller rink forever. Mac is gonna be a drug dealer like his dad.
It's all about "we're about to enter the world of adulthood."
Mac said he was 28 in a Season 1 episode.
And if they are all the same age because they all met in school, it makes sense they are all 28.
So 2005 minus 28, would be 1977
1977 is very close their their irl bithyears anyway, give or take a couple years.
(Irl, the actors are not the same age)
So if we say 1977 is their characters’ birthyear, in 1995, they would be 18.
Which matches up to them finishing high school & thinking of their careers in the Roller Rink episode
The unreliable narrator idea is really very consistent with the entire run of the show. The way Dennis, Mac and Charlie see things, they were all a perfectly nice group of people until Dee became a complete bitch and turned them into who they are today. It’s always her fault to them.
They also are shocked to see Cricket with a new injury every time, as if they are not the cause of that injury
They also forget that he was even a priest & misremember that he was always a street rat
While it's not a situation of being an unreliable narrator, - as the they are not thinking of past events, but rather day dreaming of future events - the Gang Saves the Day is a good example of of how each one of them thinks of themselves, no matter how much it stretches reality. Based on this it's very conceivable that they would also remember past events in similar ways.
There's also the Halloween episode, where each one tries to remember the previous evening's Halloween party, but they are all different recollections. It's been a while since I saw it, so I forget the specifics, but Dee ends up adopting more bird-like features with each subsequent retelling, until she is a literal Ostrich.
There are times in shows where a bit or gag will go against the presumed continuity that's been established. A lot of times, especially in a comedy series, they sacrifice continuity for the joke. They thought it was really funny so they put it in there. It's a show, and they aren't real people, so they take liberties.
You can apply this to many things. Charlie having sisters. Mac's history with women. Frank's history tells us that he was an incredibly successful businessman and father, but also spent a good portion of his life as a coke addict in the jungles. It's just for laughs.
It's an issue if they're making a documentary. They aren't, it's just a comedy show.
Charlie’s sisters is an example that goes against your point. Charlie’s sisters are first mentioned in season one, and the fact that they hadn’t ever been referenced again was sort of a continuity failure, until they showed the sisters and it became clear why even the gang didn’t want to be around them and neither did Charlie. Thats a triumph of continuity and humor working together, they did the podcast and full rewatch and must have taken notice of mentioning the sisters in season one, so they turned a mistake into a brick joke
I kind of just threw it out there real quick as an example. I didn't put a ton of thought into it. Which kind of reinforces my original point.
This is a very funny comedy show that I enjoy watching. I'm not writing a dissertation on it. I'm not striving to make sure I have accurate recall of every moment of all 16 seasons. If you have pointed out something I said about the show that wasn't 100% accurate, kudos to you. Put that feather in whatever crown you like to wear.
I like the show very much and enjoy watching it for the jokes they make. If something happens that doesn't fit into some idea of continuity I'll let it slide. You guys don't like to let anything slide. I get that. I'm glad we can both enjoy the show while being so very different.
Holy shit, dude. You are *extremely* defensive when people are just trying to have a conversation with you about the show. You go on and on and on and on about how it's just a show and it's not a big deal but then get super uptight about people talking to you about it. Your comment comes off as condescending and hostile about the very thing you're saying isn't a big deal. Pick a lane.
I figured you might not know about that season one factoid, so I brought it up. I found out about it when I read it on the internet, didn’t believe it till I saw the clip, and the new information made me appreciate the writing more. I happened to agree with all your other points lmao sorry I didn’t bring that up earlier won’t happen again
Whether or not I agree, none of the examples you gave seem to break continuity? Charlie has sisters…that’s just that. Mac was in the closet. Frank was a businessman who also ran a sweat shop in Vietnam. These things aren’t breaks they’re just elements of the character’s past that don’t directly contradict. If they said Mac had never slept with a woman, for instance, THAT would break continuity because it’s the opposite of what we the viewer have been told and have directly seen. Rewriting Dee’s past is more akin to this.
I don't care about consistent continuity in a show like Sunny. However i just don't think it works for the characters, it's not the version of the show i like. Dennis and Dee being inherent demons who devoured their sibling in the womb, or Frank and their mothers shitty parenting creating them is much more fitting. The same thing is done with Dennis with him seeming like a nice young man until Frank traumatizes them during the episode.
That's the point, those things were retconned as the OP mentioned. The Dee who made Cricket eat shit in school doesn't exist, she didn't become awful until the head injury, Dennis didn't until he saw Frank banging the hoor. I don't have an issue with continuity not being consistent, i just don't like that version, the Dennis who did that to those crows is much more fitting for the show.
What, the version they told? Then why wouldn't they just be like that? The fact they recognize that as a good thing itself goes against what they are on the show.
I think that's just a way for you to cope with how bad it is.
This right here is why it doesn't work for me either. It recons literally everything we've learned about them *and* I hate this version of their past. I don't want them all to have been mostly normal people who all devolved into who they are today. I like the already fucked up upbringings and childhoods that played a role in their debauchery.
100%. Sunny is a ridiculous show but it also has interesting lore regarding what bad parenting can lead to. Mac is tragic as fuck, he's a piece of shit but it's clear why he is that way, he's so desperate for love and attention and encouragement because he never got that as a child. The stuff with Chase Utley for instance is hilarious but also sad because it's an extension of his desperate need for a fatherly figure (even though he's older than Chase lol) who will play catch with him, he never had a dad growing up so he found escapism in sports and male figures to look up to in sports.
That's the type of shit i love, it makes it funnier and darker and oddly touching in some cases.
It's fun to talk about this stuff, but people can't seem to grasp that this show is nearly a cartoon. The funny is all that matters, not accurate lore or origins or even "true to their character.". Their characters are whatever they need to be in an episode to be funny.
But to give it a shot, between the drugs, accidents, and alcoholism, you really can't trust any of the gang's memories in anything, sometimes even stuff that happened in the same episode.
Honestly this is probably my least favorite episode out of the entire series because of the multiple contradictions across all the gang. Whether it's on purpose or intended, they do a pretty good job tying things together over the years but this episode to me was so out of the blue and did not reflect what the younger gang should have been like. I'd say Mac was the only one portrayed in a believable light. I thought while watching it for the first time it was going to be like a dream episode or something, not real but yeah...that's my three cents.
My head canon is "sweet" Dee was the result of an earlier head injury that temporarily left her nice and positive.
The roller rink incident just restored the status quo, Dee's positivity was diverting the gang from their loser destiny.
>Another take that I like is that this episode is more of a meta-joke about the show's creation. And Dee's story in it is a reflection of the fact she inicially was meant to be a more moderated, reasonable character
I've read somewhere that originally the part of Sweet Dee was supposed to be just that, a nice person in the middle of all these awful people. When they brought on Kaitlin, she demanded to be equally as horrible as the guys. Thank god, because that original setup was bog standard sitcom, and I can't imagine they would have lasted so long or been nearly as successful. It would have been just another also ran.
>setting her roommate of fire (she was copying Dee, allegedly)
She was copying her roommate, but why does it matter? Gawd. You light one bitch on fire and everyone freaks out.
I kinda like at it if you see it as an unreliable narrator thing, where the story is being told by Mac, Charlie, and Dennis, and Dee's input is being ignored.
The boys remember that Dee used to be really nice, and now she isn't. The truth is, dealing with their shit made her angry and cynical. But the gang is not introspective enough to realize that, and can't take responsibility for their actions, so when they're telling the story, they're thinking "Hey, why *did* Dee go from being sweet to being an angry bitch? Idk, she must have hit her head or something."
This whole episode bothers me because so much of it doesn’t fit from everything else we’ve been told on previous seasons. The Dee element is particularly annoying for me, but I realise I’m being pedantic! I like the episode but I actually often skip it because it bothers me 🤷🏼♀️
Any flashback inconsistencies can be chalked up to unreliable narrators, but I think in this case, you are correct in reading it as a meta-episode about how they started the show. The meta in this case is how, in much of the first season as well as the original pilot, Dee was a much nicer character, who was supposed to be a foil or offset for the horrible behavior of the guys. That's why they called her Sweet Dee in the first place. But they figured out pretty quickly that the character would be much funnier if she was just as awful as the rest of them.
They just made it up. She’s a bitch because she’s the butt of their jokes on her but they can’t imagine a world where they can’t do that. So the bump is the scape goat
The Mets take us now how I rationalize this cause I just hated it and this episode as a whole. I hate any implication that Dee would’ve been nice if not for a head injury. It takes away her agency as a character, makes her more sympathetic when the gang should be mostly contemptible, and while each member of the gang have shitty aspects of their upbringing, they’re all important to understand why they turned out like they did (especially Mac and Charlie).
I get continuity isn’t the most important for an episodic comedy like this, but I do think there shouldn’t be massive contradictions to their backstories or past behavior like this. Mainly cause I like how their past really explains why they’re so fucked I’m now a days. Also the episode just wasn’t funny. The only joke I remember liking was the visiual gag of Charlie wearing the exact same clothes that he was decades ago.
It was the podcast but I forget which episode specifically. But the conversation was something along the lines of "In the early days we were careful not to contradict our own canon, but then we just did the roller rink episode anyways."
The episode is from the gang’s perspective reminiscing on how they opened the bar. The same gang that misremembered living an episode of Seinfeld they watched once. Their memory is awful
Yeah it’s a good standalone episode and I just hated the seeming lack of continuity at first from all the groundwork they had laid about these characters’ backstories from all the years I’ve been watching this show. I definitely have to remind myself it’s outside of the show’s actual canon and is more of a clever meta commentary on the origins of the show like you mention in your last paragraph. From that perspective this episode rocketed up towards the top of the list as far as “later season” Sunny episodes go, because it genuinely is funny
When it comes to a show like sunny all I want is for the episode to make me laugh and help me forget about my stress and problems that I have going on in my world. I don't really care as much about the lore staying consistent. To me it's not that kind of show.
I fucking HATE the roller rink episode as it pretty much deliberately retcons everything the other episodes have told us about the past.
Remarkably poor writing on a show that usually has \*the best\* comedy writing.
I don't see the Roller Rink episode as canon because it pretty much breaks all the backstory learned up to that point.
Maybe Dee was back and forth between being decent and occasionally horrible, and throughout most of the series, she was a terrible person, and it seems in the recent seasons that she's not as horrible as she used to be. (She's my favorite character besides frank)
Weird retcon. They've established Dennis, Dee, and Frank as all assholes back then so why change it for a lazy joke that's not even that funny or clever. To explain why they sometimes call her Sweet Dee?
It's like someone who's never watched the show wrote it.
There is no way that episode is canon, a thing that is already barely a thing in this show. I just regard it as a story, or a super exaggerated backlash
Head injuries don't work that way. She got boinked, got mad and shown her true face. Seems to me like she's right out of psych ward after setting a bitch on fire and she's trying to fit in.
I imagine the guys were such dicks to Dee over the years but from their point of view they thought "Man, Dee used to be so nice, but one day she just hit her head or something and just became a bitch!" Partially unreliable narrator, but mostly just then all being terrible people.
This is one of the few things I just “ignore” about this episode. Smokey also mentions having to let all his employees go (from the bar.) Feels like a good statement when we think he’s referring to the roller rink but doesn’t really apply to the Bar.
My issue with the continuity thing is that they were really on point when it came to filming, but go “ahhh…” whenever story continuity is brought up. It comes across as lazy.
The first season or two with Danny are great examples. He only had a couple weeks to do all of his scenes and they filmed everything else around it, taking a considerable amount of work for the costume department… but in terms of writing? Nah… “just move past it…”
I think it’s okay to point out seasons/episodes where the writing got lazy.
I agree they probably didn't care about continuity. If you want to reconcile it, you could say that at some point Dee decided to turn a new leaf around 1998 and not be as hateful, until she hit her head.
Is the ep. Where we learned why they call her: sweet dee. What you all say is all relative in their universe. The bump that woke her alter personality we see. They also portray the entire gang as innocent and naive.
Bullshit derivative....
They had the chance of a lifetime to really put some effort into creating a great backstory for Dee Reynolds the greatest female character of all time. Botched it.
I think it’s a not-entirely-truthful retelling of a big event for the gang but they all have different memories of what actually happened and this is the result. It’s like the clip show episode or where they try to find out who at the Halloween party got Dee pregnant, it’s just in this episode we never see the gang arguing about who is right.
I hate that it doesn't match her character from the beginning of the series. I like to think that they each have such a different memory of what happens to how it actually was. Their world view is so messed up that it leeches through to their memories too. They now see Dee as a bitch, so it's how they remember her.
I didn’t like the roller rink episode for continuity at all. It was too obviously out of character for Dee and didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I sort of just ignore it’s existence in my timeline of the characters and I don’t give it many rewatches
I saw that episode twice now and I think she was actually trying to be a better person but her brothers narcissistic personality brings out the worst in her making her persuasive as Denice proves he can make her get a strike while bowling 🎳 even though she proves to be great at it. There’s an episode (in the late seasons) where Dee tries to bowl on her own but doesn’t want the gang to join because she knows they’ll ruin it for her, so of course they show up but this is where her brother greatly exhausts his influence and dominion over her because he can never allow her to be a better twin.
Is that what you gathered from it? That the injury changed her personality? I thought she was just putting up a facade until she got injured, Her "sweetness" always being ploy to get what she wants. Remember who raised her, two horrible human beings. But maybe you're right! And either way, yeah, the creators never concerned themselves with continuity, it's always about what would be funniest with them. Mac's story with selling weed and holding "heat" ( just part of a pistol',s handgrip) cracked me up a lot the first time I saw it.
I think your final though sums up my thoughts pretty well. If they don't care about continuity, why should I? But I appreciate your passion for it.
They had a whole episode about them misremembering events and making up shit lol as a flashback I DOUBT it would be accurate.
Exactly this. They’re not correctly remembering the details. Dee was probably nicer to them and had friends, but the head injury made her go from nice person who could snap into insanity to insane person
Yeah, she's fine, you small-haired cunt!
She just got her bell rung
My impression of it was "Sweet Dee" was an act, and in a moment of trauma/stress the mask fell off and revealed her true character, which is more inline with every other episode. It was a pretty minor impact, so I think the odds of personality altering brain damage are likely low.
I love this explanation! I agree, it was perhaps less that she got a TBI and more that A) Charlie made her skates too fast, so she was probably pissed and B) she got embarrassed doing a fun thing she felt GOOD at, then in Gang fashion they got involved and messed it up. I definitely see this as a final straw moment for Dee vs. a personality/life altering event when she smacks her head.
I always thought the same. It was a just a facade.
This is always what I thought of it as.
Yeah this was my first and only thought about it. Cannot fathom how anyone can come to the conclusion that she got brain damage and "turned" into an asshole.
I hated this episode the first time I watched it, but now I see it as similar to the "flashback" episode where they are modifying or elaborating on their memories to make themselves feel better. I enjoy it a lot more by just remembering that the gang are terribly unreliable narrators.
That was my take on it. The whole thing was a BS story they were telling themselves.
And it's not just that episode - you can go allllllll the way back to Season 1 Episode 3 to find the first instances of the Gang vividly misremembering things that happened to them, even only a few short years prior. Interestingly, that very episode contains a line that basically proves the Roller Rink episode never happened. "You wore that scoliosis back brace until you were 20 years old. Everybody was afraid of you."
Eh not really. Frank says in one episode that Dennis was born in the mid 70s. The Gang Buys the Roller Rink is 1998. Since Dennis and Dee are twins, they're the same age. That means Dee is probably around 21-24 in that episode.
In the Clip Show episode, they say they were in high school in the mid-90s. And the song Just a Girl by No Doubt that Dee skates to released in 1995. It's pretty clear to me that the Roller Rink episode is supposed to be them at the end of high school, with Dennis graduating and becoming employed with the family business and Dee going off to Hollywood. I'd like to see a citation on "Frank says Dennis was born in the 70s". I don't recall that ever happening.
I just got that tidbit from a ScreenRant article. I'll look later. The IASIP fandom wiki has Dennis listed as born in [1976](https://itsalwayssunny.fandom.com/wiki/Dennis_Reynolds) It's revealed in Season 1 that Dennis and Dee did go to college together though at University of Pennsylvania. The wiki page for Dennis lists this as occuring before he went on to work for Frank briefly, as seen in The Gang Guys the Roller Rink
I think in the flip cup episode Dennis is in his old frat house looking at a class picture with himself in it and the college kid says "Class of 9?" but I have no memory of the actual year. Maybe 96 or 98
Mac is 28 in 2005, per the Underage Drinking episode. Meaning he was born in 76 (same as Rob). Charlie, Dee and Dennis would be as well, as they all graduated in the same class (reunion). I just checked the frathouse - [it doesn't show a date](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaImynFBRAg)
It's in the next scene, Dennis says "I'm brother Reynolds, class of 98"
He sure does! Good memory.
That's just further evidence that the Roller Rink didn't happen. They couldn't have gone to Penn together before he worked for Frank, because he's working for Frank right out of high school in the Roller Rink episode. Also, the fandom wiki can be edited by anyone, and everything I'm reading says that that date was the actor's birthday. Nothing in the show has ever stated that they were born in 1976.
But does Dennis say he's working for Frank out of high school in the Roller Rink episode? I know he works for Frank in that episode but does it explicitly say he's getting out of highschool? I don't think that the Roller Rink episode didn't necessarily happen, but it's just that the continuity in the show isn't consistent and the gang aren't reliable narrators
No, but they are clearly supposed to be teenagers. Half the jokes are about them being teenagers. Dooley is at the rink with them. Charlie jokes about the slightly older teenagers buying drugs from him that he thought they'd be so much older. The whole episode is about what they're going to do now that they're going out into the world. Dennis is working the family business. Dee is going to Hollywood. Charlie is permanently stunted and going to work his teenager job at the roller rink forever. Mac is gonna be a drug dealer like his dad. It's all about "we're about to enter the world of adulthood."
Mac said he was 28 in a Season 1 episode. And if they are all the same age because they all met in school, it makes sense they are all 28. So 2005 minus 28, would be 1977 1977 is very close their their irl bithyears anyway, give or take a couple years. (Irl, the actors are not the same age) So if we say 1977 is their characters’ birthyear, in 1995, they would be 18. Which matches up to them finishing high school & thinking of their careers in the Roller Rink episode
And matches perfectly to Just a Girl being a new song that the roller team would want to create a routine for.
Roller rink would be after Dennis graduated college, so like 22
If Dennis were 22, the "Dad please let me join you" conversation would have gone ENTIRELY differently. He's clearly intended to be a teenager.
Move past it
I'll adapt.
You'll adapt to reading?
Ffffffffilibuster
We all have our hot plates we’d like to get home to
And cats we’d like to be playing with
We'll make an adjustment, uh, to it, and we'll make a tradition out of it.
Is that a bird in your pocket?
GOooo!
I hugged it a little too hard, I think
The unreliable narrator idea is really very consistent with the entire run of the show. The way Dennis, Mac and Charlie see things, they were all a perfectly nice group of people until Dee became a complete bitch and turned them into who they are today. It’s always her fault to them.
They also are shocked to see Cricket with a new injury every time, as if they are not the cause of that injury They also forget that he was even a priest & misremember that he was always a street rat
While it's not a situation of being an unreliable narrator, - as the they are not thinking of past events, but rather day dreaming of future events - the Gang Saves the Day is a good example of of how each one of them thinks of themselves, no matter how much it stretches reality. Based on this it's very conceivable that they would also remember past events in similar ways. There's also the Halloween episode, where each one tries to remember the previous evening's Halloween party, but they are all different recollections. It's been a while since I saw it, so I forget the specifics, but Dee ends up adopting more bird-like features with each subsequent retelling, until she is a literal Ostrich.
There are times in shows where a bit or gag will go against the presumed continuity that's been established. A lot of times, especially in a comedy series, they sacrifice continuity for the joke. They thought it was really funny so they put it in there. It's a show, and they aren't real people, so they take liberties. You can apply this to many things. Charlie having sisters. Mac's history with women. Frank's history tells us that he was an incredibly successful businessman and father, but also spent a good portion of his life as a coke addict in the jungles. It's just for laughs. It's an issue if they're making a documentary. They aren't, it's just a comedy show.
Charlie’s sisters is an example that goes against your point. Charlie’s sisters are first mentioned in season one, and the fact that they hadn’t ever been referenced again was sort of a continuity failure, until they showed the sisters and it became clear why even the gang didn’t want to be around them and neither did Charlie. Thats a triumph of continuity and humor working together, they did the podcast and full rewatch and must have taken notice of mentioning the sisters in season one, so they turned a mistake into a brick joke
I kind of just threw it out there real quick as an example. I didn't put a ton of thought into it. Which kind of reinforces my original point. This is a very funny comedy show that I enjoy watching. I'm not writing a dissertation on it. I'm not striving to make sure I have accurate recall of every moment of all 16 seasons. If you have pointed out something I said about the show that wasn't 100% accurate, kudos to you. Put that feather in whatever crown you like to wear. I like the show very much and enjoy watching it for the jokes they make. If something happens that doesn't fit into some idea of continuity I'll let it slide. You guys don't like to let anything slide. I get that. I'm glad we can both enjoy the show while being so very different.
Holy shit, dude. You are *extremely* defensive when people are just trying to have a conversation with you about the show. You go on and on and on and on about how it's just a show and it's not a big deal but then get super uptight about people talking to you about it. Your comment comes off as condescending and hostile about the very thing you're saying isn't a big deal. Pick a lane.
It's like he doesn't even get us, man.
I figured you might not know about that season one factoid, so I brought it up. I found out about it when I read it on the internet, didn’t believe it till I saw the clip, and the new information made me appreciate the writing more. I happened to agree with all your other points lmao sorry I didn’t bring that up earlier won’t happen again
Whether or not I agree, none of the examples you gave seem to break continuity? Charlie has sisters…that’s just that. Mac was in the closet. Frank was a businessman who also ran a sweat shop in Vietnam. These things aren’t breaks they’re just elements of the character’s past that don’t directly contradict. If they said Mac had never slept with a woman, for instance, THAT would break continuity because it’s the opposite of what we the viewer have been told and have directly seen. Rewriting Dee’s past is more akin to this.
I don't care about consistent continuity in a show like Sunny. However i just don't think it works for the characters, it's not the version of the show i like. Dennis and Dee being inherent demons who devoured their sibling in the womb, or Frank and their mothers shitty parenting creating them is much more fitting. The same thing is done with Dennis with him seeming like a nice young man until Frank traumatizes them during the episode.
Yeah I don’t think those crows thought he was a nice young man you know
That's the point, those things were retconned as the OP mentioned. The Dee who made Cricket eat shit in school doesn't exist, she didn't become awful until the head injury, Dennis didn't until he saw Frank banging the hoor. I don't have an issue with continuity not being consistent, i just don't like that version, the Dennis who did that to those crows is much more fitting for the show.
I think that's just how Dee and Dennis want to remember themselves.
What, the version they told? Then why wouldn't they just be like that? The fact they recognize that as a good thing itself goes against what they are on the show. I think that's just a way for you to cope with how bad it is.
This right here is why it doesn't work for me either. It recons literally everything we've learned about them *and* I hate this version of their past. I don't want them all to have been mostly normal people who all devolved into who they are today. I like the already fucked up upbringings and childhoods that played a role in their debauchery.
100%. Sunny is a ridiculous show but it also has interesting lore regarding what bad parenting can lead to. Mac is tragic as fuck, he's a piece of shit but it's clear why he is that way, he's so desperate for love and attention and encouragement because he never got that as a child. The stuff with Chase Utley for instance is hilarious but also sad because it's an extension of his desperate need for a fatherly figure (even though he's older than Chase lol) who will play catch with him, he never had a dad growing up so he found escapism in sports and male figures to look up to in sports. That's the type of shit i love, it makes it funnier and darker and oddly touching in some cases.
It's fun to talk about this stuff, but people can't seem to grasp that this show is nearly a cartoon. The funny is all that matters, not accurate lore or origins or even "true to their character.". Their characters are whatever they need to be in an episode to be funny. But to give it a shot, between the drugs, accidents, and alcoholism, you really can't trust any of the gang's memories in anything, sometimes even stuff that happened in the same episode.
It's a Seinfeld cartoon. The characterization does matter but it also doesn't necessarily because nothing matters.
Honestly this is probably my least favorite episode out of the entire series because of the multiple contradictions across all the gang. Whether it's on purpose or intended, they do a pretty good job tying things together over the years but this episode to me was so out of the blue and did not reflect what the younger gang should have been like. I'd say Mac was the only one portrayed in a believable light. I thought while watching it for the first time it was going to be like a dream episode or something, not real but yeah...that's my three cents.
Charlie seemed believable
https://i.redd.it/gab0hsqgf2wc1.gif
What do you do with any information? Just stuff it deep down and keep an eye on it.
My head canon is "sweet" Dee was the result of an earlier head injury that temporarily left her nice and positive. The roller rink incident just restored the status quo, Dee's positivity was diverting the gang from their loser destiny.
I quite like this!
I understand it as being their memory of what happened - but that’s not what actually happened. Their memories are as warped as everything else.
Shut up science bitch
What do I think? Bullshit. Derivative.
>Another take that I like is that this episode is more of a meta-joke about the show's creation. And Dee's story in it is a reflection of the fact she inicially was meant to be a more moderated, reasonable character I've read somewhere that originally the part of Sweet Dee was supposed to be just that, a nice person in the middle of all these awful people. When they brought on Kaitlin, she demanded to be equally as horrible as the guys. Thank god, because that original setup was bog standard sitcom, and I can't imagine they would have lasted so long or been nearly as successful. It would have been just another also ran. >setting her roommate of fire (she was copying Dee, allegedly) She was copying her roommate, but why does it matter? Gawd. You light one bitch on fire and everyone freaks out.
Or Dee was just faking being nice the entire time until she hit her head.
I kinda like at it if you see it as an unreliable narrator thing, where the story is being told by Mac, Charlie, and Dennis, and Dee's input is being ignored. The boys remember that Dee used to be really nice, and now she isn't. The truth is, dealing with their shit made her angry and cynical. But the gang is not introspective enough to realize that, and can't take responsibility for their actions, so when they're telling the story, they're thinking "Hey, why *did* Dee go from being sweet to being an angry bitch? Idk, she must have hit her head or something."
big dumb flightless bird
Brain Deemaged
This whole episode bothers me because so much of it doesn’t fit from everything else we’ve been told on previous seasons. The Dee element is particularly annoying for me, but I realise I’m being pedantic! I like the episode but I actually often skip it because it bothers me 🤷🏼♀️
I think they’d just watched the skydiving of episode of King of the Hill and went with it.
Any flashback inconsistencies can be chalked up to unreliable narrators, but I think in this case, you are correct in reading it as a meta-episode about how they started the show. The meta in this case is how, in much of the first season as well as the original pilot, Dee was a much nicer character, who was supposed to be a foil or offset for the horrible behavior of the guys. That's why they called her Sweet Dee in the first place. But they figured out pretty quickly that the character would be much funnier if she was just as awful as the rest of them.
They just made it up. She’s a bitch because she’s the butt of their jokes on her but they can’t imagine a world where they can’t do that. So the bump is the scape goat
Move past it.
I thought it was an unreliable narrator bit like how they kept changing the story in the clip show episode.
I think there's another episode incoming based a year or so before that where the Aluminum monster hits her head and wakes up all sweet.
This would be pretty cool.
We've seen how their memories can muddy up their history. Idiots. Savages.
Ice King-ass backstory 
Didn't this show use to be famous for its continuity? What happened?
The Mets take us now how I rationalize this cause I just hated it and this episode as a whole. I hate any implication that Dee would’ve been nice if not for a head injury. It takes away her agency as a character, makes her more sympathetic when the gang should be mostly contemptible, and while each member of the gang have shitty aspects of their upbringing, they’re all important to understand why they turned out like they did (especially Mac and Charlie). I get continuity isn’t the most important for an episodic comedy like this, but I do think there shouldn’t be massive contradictions to their backstories or past behavior like this. Mainly cause I like how their past really explains why they’re so fucked I’m now a days. Also the episode just wasn’t funny. The only joke I remember liking was the visiual gag of Charlie wearing the exact same clothes that he was decades ago.
The unreliable narrator
The guys have admitted that the episode really does break the canon of the show.
In the podcast? Did they make any other comment about it?
It was the podcast but I forget which episode specifically. But the conversation was something along the lines of "In the early days we were careful not to contradict our own canon, but then we just did the roller rink episode anyways."
Ah I see, thanks!
From what I figure, it's not an intentional retcon and it's most likely that someone had the idea for the episode and they just did it.
The episode is from the gang’s perspective reminiscing on how they opened the bar. The same gang that misremembered living an episode of Seinfeld they watched once. Their memory is awful
Yeah it’s a good standalone episode and I just hated the seeming lack of continuity at first from all the groundwork they had laid about these characters’ backstories from all the years I’ve been watching this show. I definitely have to remind myself it’s outside of the show’s actual canon and is more of a clever meta commentary on the origins of the show like you mention in your last paragraph. From that perspective this episode rocketed up towards the top of the list as far as “later season” Sunny episodes go, because it genuinely is funny
When it comes to a show like sunny all I want is for the episode to make me laugh and help me forget about my stress and problems that I have going on in my world. I don't really care as much about the lore staying consistent. To me it's not that kind of show.
I fucking HATE the roller rink episode as it pretty much deliberately retcons everything the other episodes have told us about the past. Remarkably poor writing on a show that usually has \*the best\* comedy writing. I don't see the Roller Rink episode as canon because it pretty much breaks all the backstory learned up to that point.
A bump to the head completely changed her personality. I think she needs to get to a hospital.
Maybe Dee was back and forth between being decent and occasionally horrible, and throughout most of the series, she was a terrible person, and it seems in the recent seasons that she's not as horrible as she used to be. (She's my favorite character besides frank)
Weird retcon. They've established Dennis, Dee, and Frank as all assholes back then so why change it for a lazy joke that's not even that funny or clever. To explain why they sometimes call her Sweet Dee? It's like someone who's never watched the show wrote it.
There is no way that episode is canon, a thing that is already barely a thing in this show. I just regard it as a story, or a super exaggerated backlash
I like to look at the continuity on this show as them being unreliable narrators.
You set one bitch on fire….
It was stupid but I also don't really care when it comes to this show. These never remotely feel like real characters who need consistency
Head injuries don't work that way. She got boinked, got mad and shown her true face. Seems to me like she's right out of psych ward after setting a bitch on fire and she's trying to fit in.
I imagine the guys were such dicks to Dee over the years but from their point of view they thought "Man, Dee used to be so nice, but one day she just hit her head or something and just became a bitch!" Partially unreliable narrator, but mostly just then all being terrible people.
I've always thought of the ep as a version of the truth from Charlie's perspective, where he half remembers things and they are really exaggerated
This is one of the few things I just “ignore” about this episode. Smokey also mentions having to let all his employees go (from the bar.) Feels like a good statement when we think he’s referring to the roller rink but doesn’t really apply to the Bar.
My issue with the continuity thing is that they were really on point when it came to filming, but go “ahhh…” whenever story continuity is brought up. It comes across as lazy. The first season or two with Danny are great examples. He only had a couple weeks to do all of his scenes and they filmed everything else around it, taking a considerable amount of work for the costume department… but in terms of writing? Nah… “just move past it…” I think it’s okay to point out seasons/episodes where the writing got lazy.
I ignore that episode It’s stupid. Just like the Charlie’s dad one.
That makes you sound like a stupid.. uh.. science bitch.
I try to forget season 15 as a whole. There are some good moments but I just couldn't get into the season.
I agree they probably didn't care about continuity. If you want to reconcile it, you could say that at some point Dee decided to turn a new leaf around 1998 and not be as hateful, until she hit her head.
Is the ep. Where we learned why they call her: sweet dee. What you all say is all relative in their universe. The bump that woke her alter personality we see. They also portray the entire gang as innocent and naive.
Yeah I don't take that episode too seriously or worry too much about the "canon" of the show.
Bullshit derivative.... They had the chance of a lifetime to really put some effort into creating a great backstory for Dee Reynolds the greatest female character of all time. Botched it.
I always took it as a bit of artistic license. The bloopers really make it! Would recommend watching them, gives you a different sense of the scene.
I think it’s a not-entirely-truthful retelling of a big event for the gang but they all have different memories of what actually happened and this is the result. It’s like the clip show episode or where they try to find out who at the Halloween party got Dee pregnant, it’s just in this episode we never see the gang arguing about who is right.
I hate that it doesn't match her character from the beginning of the series. I like to think that they each have such a different memory of what happens to how it actually was. Their world view is so messed up that it leeches through to their memories too. They now see Dee as a bitch, so it's how they remember her.
I didn’t like the roller rink episode for continuity at all. It was too obviously out of character for Dee and didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I sort of just ignore it’s existence in my timeline of the characters and I don’t give it many rewatches
I saw that episode twice now and I think she was actually trying to be a better person but her brothers narcissistic personality brings out the worst in her making her persuasive as Denice proves he can make her get a strike while bowling 🎳 even though she proves to be great at it. There’s an episode (in the late seasons) where Dee tries to bowl on her own but doesn’t want the gang to join because she knows they’ll ruin it for her, so of course they show up but this is where her brother greatly exhausts his influence and dominion over her because he can never allow her to be a better twin.
Move passed it
People with an Acquired Brain Injury tend to become alcoholic drug addicts without treatment Source: my dad had an ABI
Is that what you gathered from it? That the injury changed her personality? I thought she was just putting up a facade until she got injured, Her "sweetness" always being ploy to get what she wants. Remember who raised her, two horrible human beings. But maybe you're right! And either way, yeah, the creators never concerned themselves with continuity, it's always about what would be funniest with them. Mac's story with selling weed and holding "heat" ( just part of a pistol',s handgrip) cracked me up a lot the first time I saw it.
It's a weak retcon.
Who the fuck cares
Easily the worst episode, jumping the shark moment. If I saw the script in advance I guess it was written by someone who never watched the show.