One thing that becomes clear, as you make your way through sixteen seasons of “Always Sunny,” is that the gang is awfully resilient. Not only are they all severe alcoholics who otherwise don’t seem to have any health problems, but they’re constantly falling into things and getting the s**t kicked out of them, only to be back to normal by the start of the next episode. When one YouTuber made a compilation of the gang’s injuries last year, the video was over 12 minutes long:
For Danny DeVito, who plays the show’s wise and dependable father figure Frank, one of his favorite moments from filming “Always Sunny” came in season 11’s “Frank Falls Out The Window.” In the episode’s very first scene, Frank falls out of his and Charlie’s apartment and gets a giant gash on the back of his head. We don’t see him hitting the ground, but the aftermath doesn’t look pretty. He can count himself lucky he only had severe brain damage for this episode alone.
“I love that, because I like falling,” DeVito explained in a 2019 behind-the-scenes video. “Backwards, out the window. Which is fun to do. I like things that are surprising, so I also could be surprised.”
Frank Falls Out the Window’ is one of Always Sunny’s bleakest episodes
Frank’s fall is surprising, mainly because of how little build up there is to it. He’s on the window in the first place simply because he’s been farting too much lately, and Charlie doesn’t want that bad wind stinking up the apartment. The way it all plays out, all viewers can do is wonder how Frank doesn’t fall out of windows more often, if this is how reckless he is on a regular basis.
Sheer slapstick comedy aside, “Frank Falls Out a Window” is a great look into just how doomed the Paddy’s Pub gang is. Frank’s head injury makes him lose his memory of everything that’s happened since he joined the show in 2006, and the rest of the gang (delusionally) sees this as an opportunity to improve their lives. Dennis and Dee plan to con him into giving them a ton of money, which they claim they’ll use to finally achieve their dreams. Of course, neither of them are serious about these goals, and they end up planning to spend the money on crack instead. Meanwhile, Mac tries to get Charlie to find a better roommate than Frank, only for Charlie to happily invite Frank back in anyway.
It turns out that even when a miraculous second chance comes along, the younger members of this group will still squander it. This is hardly the darkest sequence of events the gang has ever been through (remember guys, Dee was once waterboarded) but for the fans who still hope for a happy ending for these characters, it’s definitely the least promising. Dennis and Dee seem doomed to live in squalor forever. Frank, at least, seems fine with this.
