Yep, it now definitely has a "story is winding down" feel to it. The season didn't live up to expectations for me. I'm worried that we could get a Community / The Office situation where a main character leaves and causes there to be a clear delineation in quality.
Is Glen Howerton Leaving 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia'? Really good interview with Glenn The fact that he's still talking about what they're gonna do next season is a good sign
I guess "Well, fuck" is the only rational reaction to all this. Extended hiatus between season 12 and season 13 could allow Glenn to come back, once he's done filming his new series. That new series sounds awesome, but it wouldn't make up for him torpedoing Sunny. The whole dynamic of the show would be fundamentally altered without him. It's crazy, but removing any one of these pieces at this point would send the whole thing toppling over Jenga-style, when you really start to think about it. They're under contract for two more seasons regardless; at this point it doesn't look like them going to 15 and breaking the record is in the cards. Hopefully Glenn does the right thing and finds a way to stick it out through to the end. If not, one of the greatest comedies in television history will be going out on a way more sour note than I would ever have expected from this crew.
Hilarious episode, great season, I don't see Glenn actually leaving forever but crazier things have happened
Agree with basically all of this. I don't think they've ever made a creative choice I've disagreed with though, so I really don't see them trying to do it without Glenn. He said himself that it would be a creative choice for his character to leave and not a logistics reason, and the creative choice to go without Dennis just makes zero sense to me.
Yeah that sounds like PR damage control to me, more than anything. It seems like he just doesn't want to do it anymore for whatever reason. Problem is that he's just as essential to the show as all the others are. From a structural perspective this doesn't really fly as an artistic choice. Also it makes zero sense from a character perspective for him to actually want to stay in North Dakota forever. It makes sense for him to THINK he wants that, because it wouldn't be the first time he tried to plug his God hole with a family (see: Maureen Ponderosa). But we all know how fast that fizzled out. It would make a ton of sense if the next season opened with him walking right back in like two days later and saying he got bored and left. But yeah, for a show where the point is that the characters never actually grow, this doesn't make sense as an artistic decision.
Yeah that too, in addition to the fact that he has such utter disdain for what he called "Midwest trash" in the Boggs episode. How could he stand living amongst them?
Getting over the shock of the ending, I think this was a very strong season overall. Some really great episodes came out of it, specifically the water park, Old Lady House, "Hero or Hate Crime?" (an instant all-time classic episode, in my opinion), and "The Gang Tends Bar." My least favorite episode, now that it's over, was probably the premiere, but even that one was still good. I'll always look forward to the next season of this show, at least until we see what it looks like without Glenn (if he does leave), so I'm hopeful for season 13 even if I'm not totally optimistic. I guess we'll just have to see.
In a different season, we would've nixed A Cricket's Tale and gotten a whole episode called Charlie Bangs the Waitress. But enough of my bitching, I really liked this season and The Gang Turns Black is up there with The Gang Broke Dee as one of my favorite premieres.
1) Really good episode. 2) This stuff about Glenn leaving smells like complete BS to me. These guys love each other and created this show together, I don't buy it one bit. Feels like spin to try and keep people wondering if Dennis is staying in Fargo for life. Maybe he'll be gone for 2-3 episodes and then have a triumphant 'surprise' return that surprises nobody. I just don't buy it. 3) If I'm wrong and it IS true, it's both really really strange when they're at the finish line of such a great run and also really sad. 4) This show does not work without all 5 of them, or at least the 4 of them (minus Frank). Would be a terrible way to go out if true.
Also - agree that a full season of the Waitress stalking Charlie would be really funny, whoever said that above.
Just have gotten around to watching last night's and reading this thread and this is all very upsetting and doesn't make any sense. Hope it's just a gag.
one thing that would be fun, seeing how much disarray Paddy's gets into without Dennis in charge, so many rats
Replace Dennis with the Waitress for most of the season, bring him back at the end of 13. Or just pull a Larry David. "We'll be back when we want to and you'll receive basically no notice."