I was not particularly impressed by season 1 of this show but did seem some potential in its roughness and dark comedy. Season 2 was a massive jump in quality and I ripped through most of it while sitting in Paris CdG airport waiting for a connection onwards. I enjoyed it a lot and was very happy to find that season 3 continues this high quality with barely a weak episode (or even significant period) in the whole season. The plots continue to be things of madness and they could easily be just silly and tiresome to watch, indeed I did keep waiting for them to have a bad idea, but they don't. Each plot allows for the same thing to happen – the group of amoral and repugnant characters to makes things worse and worse by virtue of their stupidity and inability to let anything happen unless it somehow personally benefits them (or better yet, benefits them while also hurting one of the others). In a sense it is the comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm force fed crack and left to live on the streets like Rickety Cricket.
The reason it works is because it is consistently hilarious – and I don't mean "funny", I mean hilarious. The contrived complexity of the plots is part of the joke (try explaining what has happened to someone coming into an episode after 15 minutes) and it is a show where even the delivery of episode title is a well timed and funny gag. The best episodes for me were the one where they try out for the Eagles and the one that sees them finding a baby in a dumpster. These are both hilarious and perfectly capture the selfishness and cruelty inside the seemingly "normal" characters. The rest of the episodes are not quite as good but are all very good and funny in the same ways. The only aspect that seemed new that didn't seem to work quite as well was the occasional pop culture reference (such as the gang "being" the panel from American Idol) as, while still funny, didn't seem as clever or as funny as the other material.
The cast have grown on me as well – and the fact that most of the main players are also the writers is just one of the reasons. Day's Charlie is great – his shouting and his awkward stupidity looks easy but he really delivers it with skill. McElhenney's Mac is similar but he is also very good. Howerton's Dennis lets his looks and apparent normality play in as part of the joke while Olson also does well to be the butt of jokes as the others continually see her as unattractive. DeVito continues to be a great addition to the cast and he really gets into the style of humour without any sense of it being below a Hollywood star such as him – those in doubt should witness him wallowing in a bin on an acid trip and pulling his gun with a second's provocation – he is great. Ellis, Hornsby, Stewart and a few others all give good support.
Overall, Always Sunny continues to be essential viewing for me as I order season 4. Not quite sure why something this funny hasn't made it to the FX UK yet, but it is well worth seeking out and I will look forward to season 4 with the hopes that the standards set here and in season 2 will be continued.
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