It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia/The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7

The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7
Season 15, Episode 2
Airdate	December 1, 2021
Production Number	XIP015002
Written by	Keyonna Taylor & Katie McElhenney
Directed by	Pete Chatmon
← 15x01 2020: A Year in Review	15x03 → The Gang Buys a Roller Rink
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia — Season Fifteen

The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7 is the second episode of the fifteenth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and the one hundred fifty-sixth episode overall.

Starring: Charlie Day (Charlie Kelly), Glenn Howerton (Dennis Reynolds), Rob McElhenney (Mac), Kaitlin Olson (Dee Reynolds)

and Danny DeVito (Frank Reynolds)

Guest Starring: Artemis Pebdani (Artemis), Marcuis W. Harris (Pepper Jack), Geoffrey Owens (Don Cheadle)

Co-Starring: Alixandree Antoine (Candy), Jane Dillon (Jane), Abigail Bankston (Lisa), Lauren McKnight (Anna)

Plot Overview

The gang set out to make Lethal Weapon 7 in a more socially conscious environment.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• The attempt to make Lethal Weapon 7 collapses until it's a documentary with no resemblance to a Lethal Weapon. Nevertheless, it's implies they're going to proceed to make a Lethal Weapon 8.

Referbacks

• The gang debated the use of blackface for Lethal Weapon 5 in "Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth" and we later saw them make Lethal Weapon 6.

• Dennis says he knows Pepper Jack. He is the pimp he and Dee encountered in "Mac is a Serial Killer" and, as Dennis notes, stole his Fraggle Rock thermos.

• The Don Cheadle actor the gang hires to play Murtaugh is the same actor who's played Donovan McNabb in "The Gang Gets Invincible" and was going by Tiger Woods in "Frank's Pretty Woman".

Trivia

The Show

• The gang's Lethal Weapon movies being pulled from the library parallels how the episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia had it's Lethal Weapon centric episodes pulled from Hulu due to the mentioned use of blackface in 2020 in light of the George Floyd protests.

• It's still in debate as to whether the actor the gang keeps encountering is actually Geoffrey Owens as the documentary he unveils has him using the name Don Cheadle.

Allusions and References

• In addressing "Don Cheadle", Dennis runs through his previous aliases, even Elvin, Geoffrey Owens's character on The Cosby Show - Cosby briefly mentioned in the list of sexual predators in Hollywood.

Quotes

• Dennis: You know, as we all know, guys, our Lethal Weapon movies were always intended to be a trilogy that followed a trilogy, plus a sequel, but the most important thing is making sure that this third movie in a series of seven can be seen and enjoyed by audiences of today's moral and ethical standards.

Mac: Right. Because the - the first time we made that one mistake, and that was...

Dennis: Well, uh, actually two because you did blackface in the sequel.

Mac: Ooh, right. The two mistakes.

Charlie: Yeah, well, uh, so did Dee, actually.

Dee: Okay, so three, we - Three mistakes.

Charlie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you've also done multiple insensitive characters in the past, you know, on and off-screen. I don't know if that's going into the conversation we're having here.

Mac: It should.

Dennis: Yeah, well, and Frank did red-face in...

Frank: What?

Mac: Oh, Christ Almighty.

Charlie: That's also frowned upon.

Mac: Okay, you know what? Let's not... Six, seven, eight, nine, ten mistakes. Guys, let's not get into it because Hollywood has a very clear moral code on mistakes. Okay, you get one, right? Like Woody Allen, right? Roman Polanski. One mistake and that was it.

Dennis: Uh, no, actually, those guys continued to make films for the next 40 years.

Mac: Oh. Uh, Bill Cosby.

Dennis: Well, he made about 50 mistakes. And - And I would actually argue that all these things we're talking about, they - they weren't so much "mistakes" as they were violent sexual crimes.

• Mac: Can we just talk about the elephant in the room? Right? Let's talk about Murtaugh. Now, uh, obviously, I will not be playing Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon 7.

(pause)

Charlie: Right.

Mac: Yeah.

Dennis: Oh, okay.

Mac: I will be magnanimously taking a step back.

(pause)

Dennis: Right.

Charlie: Yeah. I feel like you're talking really slow and taking a bunch of pauses. I don't know what's going on.

Mac: I - I'm waiting for you guys to praise me.

Charlie: Uh, what?

Frank: Why?

Mac: Oh, 'cause I'm doing something anti-racist and I think I deserve praise for that, do I not?

Dee: You don't get praise for telling people you're not racist.

Mac: Then why am I doing it?

• Dennis: Guys, we have to listen to the young. Otherwise, we are doomed to have sex with only old people for the rest of our lives and I won't do that.