Mac and Dennis Become EMTs

The spirit of early sunny with the budget of success. Our boys (and gal) have grown up! Probably the spiciest episode in years.

Great callback to the last episode with the cake. Dee is a physical comedy genius.

The A story starts about Dennis and Mac wanting to be paramedics, but quickly evolves (devolves) into a spicy pepper B story that takes over the episode. Charlie has minimal screen time, but makes the best of what he has, poking fun at modern foodie television. Frank has a fun story and it's fantastic to see the Lawyer again. Honestly, funny all the way through. This season is starting super solid - only down side is so few episodes.

I'm always skeptical going into new Sunny seasons, but this is one of the funniest episodes they've put out in years. Although it would be impossible to capture the essence of the early seasons, I think this is as close as you can hope to get. It feels very natural and fun without feeling forced or too self-referential, which I felt weighed down the last few seasons.

You have almost four episodes worth of funny premises packed into one, brought together by the tenuous connection of getting off on spicy peppers. This definitely could have been multiple standalone episodes, but it feels like the writers really went all out on this one.

I love the running Bamboleo and pepper dosing gags, the callback to Frank suspecting everything is cake, Dee's road rage, and the jabs at pompous food shows like The Bear. Hopefully the rest of the season will live up this standard. Looking forward to Frank's dating show episode.

And of course it should be. Some of the best episodes of this show have the last scene be the funniest one.

But I feel like this season is mostly punchlines and not much laughs throughout the episode itself.

This episode is definitely the best of the season so far and one of the best episodes of the show. I just feel like the first two acts of the episode, much like episode 2, is mostly setup for the final joke. Which works great because both have a great ending and are very funny.

But the problem I have with it, is that you have to wait until the reveal to make you laugh.

Now like I said, this episode is actually way funnier from the beginning till the punchline than the previous one, especially the first episode, but the punchline is mostly the thing that is funnier and made this episode go from a 7 to a 9 to me.

Like remember the Water Park episode which still has the funniest ending of any episode for me? Or the Suburban episode? Those had very funny scenes throughout the entire episode. But season 17 feels like they mostly forgot to make the whole episode funny, and they focused on the punchline ending much more.

I know this sounds like I'm complaining a lot and nitpicking, so I mustn't have liked the episode at all, it's not that. I actually really liked it and the ending was great, I think they still got it after 17 seasons which is crazy to think about. I'm just sensing a pattern here with the episode structure of this season, that's all.

Great episode nonetheless.

Rarely has a recent Sunny episode felt this fresh, yet so authentically reminiscent of the show's early days.

The early Gang was defined by its inspired, chaotic madness. That specific brand of delightful unpredictability slowly faded in the later seasons with the characters and stories hitting the same predictable beats.

This episode brought it back. It starts slow and unremarkable, but things start getting spicier around the midway point. From there, it builds like a manic crescendo, each member of the Gang spiralling to new heights of deranged energy before exploding into a memorable finale.

This is the most sheer joy I have felt watching a new Sunny episode in a long time. If that is not convincing enough, let me add that the Gang's old foe--the Lawyer--shows up as an antagonist.

This episode is what could best be described as a fever dream. I absolutely love it. There's no theme, no premise. It's just full on ridiculously hilarious satire with the boys, it's so much like old sunny I'm having a blast. The lawyer is a pirate now. The guys are getting hopped up on peppers and becoming EMTs. Dennis is more of a mad man than I've ever seen him. The references to the bear are truly amazing and having worked in a restaurant them screaming about having to say "corner" is actually killing me. This honestly feels like season 5 of sunny and I'm here for it. Charlie is a Michelin star chef and Dennis is a five star man. Bamboleoooo.