It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia - A Woman’s Right to Chop & Waiting For Big Mo - Reviews

We have arrived at the season 14 finale, and this year is a double-episode finale! As we dig into haircuts, dogs, laser tag and existential questions, let’s recap what happened!

In A Woman’s Right to Chop, we begin with the gang at the bar as they argue about the new hair salon that opened down the street and how women have been getting short haircuts - which Charlie thinks they’re hats and not their actual hair. Dennis seems really angry about it, as well as Frank, while Dee tells them “it’s their body, therefore their choice.”

Frank and Dennis stand outside the hair salon giving out fliers to women telling them to not cut their hair. Dee comes along and tries to stop Dennis but he refuses, and she says that she will get a haircut because she can just to defy Dennis, which makes him angrier in return.

Dennis puts Frank in charge of convincing Dee of not going through with the haircut, so he takes Dee to a car lot where he explains that he used to have long hair back in the day but he cut it all off and never grew back, and his hair is now a toupee that the manager of the car lot wears.

Dennis goes in and confronts the hair salon owner but he completely froze after he saw the woman crying. His plan was to ask for a haircut and then claim discrimination but turns out they also cut men’s hair. We then see Dennis stumble on his words into what’s another funny and awkward encounter where words failed him.

Meanwhile all of this happened, Mac’s dog Poppins came back from wherever he was, and Mac is so happy. He and Charlie take Poppins to the veterinarian because he’s so run down. Turns out Poppins is not a he, it’s a she, and she’s pregnant! But if she has the babies there’s a big chance she’ll die because of how old the dog is.

During this scene, we see a callback to last season’s episode The Gang Solves The Bathroom Problem with Mac saying they don’t do gender at their bar anymore, as he continues to call Poppins a he despite the doctor telling them it’s a she.

Mac tries to find someone who can abort the babies so Poppins won’t have to die, but he and Charlie have no luck until Frank hooks them up with his friend Z (guest star Chad L. Coleman). Turns out he’s a dog breeder, but Z says he could try to do it. While he goes to find the tools to do it, the real Poppins comes back. Turns out Mac had the wrong dog all along!

Now that Mac knows Poppins is in no danger of dying, he leaves the other dog alone, and at the end we find out that Dennis gave the dog back to the hair salon owner since it was her dog after all.

At the end, Dee walks into the bar and turns out she got the haircut after all and it’s hideous. She says that the hair stylist was too busy with the dog exchange and couldn’t cut her hair so she did it herself and it turned out awful. Both her and Dennis freak out over it, while Mac and Charlie could care less. Luckily Frank knows someone who can fix Dee’s hair, his friend Z, who gets Dee a wig that looks like her old hair.

This episode was a loaded one touching on topics such as abortion again and women’s right to choose, and they managed to make it a fun one with several one-liners and just the actor’s reactions to what was going on, like the bar scene after Dee cut her hair, the freak-out between Dee and Dennis was too funny and it’s all because of their reactions.

Now, for the next episode in this one-hour finale called Waiting For Big Mo, we see Charlie and Dennis guarding a base where they’re playing laser tag. Since the beginning we already know this is going to be a good episode since it begins with The Shining theme song playing. Turns out the gang has strategically spread out with their own missions with the goal to win the game like past years, and Charlie and Dennis’ mission is to wait for Big Mo, a skilled player who’s their main rival right now.

Most of the episode is spent with Charlie saying he’s done following the plan and he just wants to have fun, and Dennis trying to convince him and the rest of the gang to go along with the plan. Dennis admits that he constantly withholds compliments from Mac so he would get angry and focuses on the plan, and Dennis gives Dee undeserved compliments so she’ll get angry as well.

As for Frank, Dennis turned off his pack so the team doesn’t lose points whenever he inevitably gets shot. Dennis admits that Frank is a distraction because he frightens the kids so Mac and Dee can shoot them from the vents. This makes Frank visibly upset and Dennis pretends to turn on his pack so he can continue doing his mission.

The riddles continue, as well as the game, until Mac and Dee come back and say they started to play the game for fun instead of how Dennis wanted it. This is where things begin to get existential, since Dennis tells them that life isn’t about having fun, it’s about surviving, just like the game.

So the gang is out of Dennis’ control, Mac and Dee continued playing for fun, Frank comes back announcing he bought chicken wings and Charlie turns on his pack, and this has Dennis on edge. Dennis says they still have to wait for Big Mo. When Charlie asks him why he cares so much about some kid, Dennis says it’s what the kid represents.

What follows is a big speech that if you analyze it, you can see the message they’re trying to give: in reality, the creators of the show are talking about how they “keep playing the game but never win anything”, which translates to the show. Sunny has been on air for fourteen seasons and never gets recognized, never gets any awards.

By the end of the episode, fans who caught on to the episode’s message might’ve held their breath for a while, because as Dennis defeatedly says “time to end the game” to the gang, we could’ve thought they meant the show, as it has yet to be renewed for a season 15 by FXX. But the fear only lasted a minute, because as Big Mo walked in the base, the gang came back and said they were never leaving and they started shooting the kid.

This episode has a lot of existential metaphors, and overall they go too meta about the show in general, and how long they have been on air. It is one of those episodes that as you rewatch, you find new things, just like Sunny. With that we conclude season 14, and here’s to hoping the show gets renewed for another season!

Thank you for reading the reviews, and comment below what are your thoughts on this double-episode season finale, as well as your favorite moments of the season!