Oh. Cute. You put this video here and I’m suppose to be like “that looks like a good vid”

He just likes to bind, and to be bound.

"Plus there's some weird semi-rapey subtext within these lines" It's just the Implication! He wouldn't do anything if she said no! But she won't because of the Implication.

If people who haven’t watched sunny saw this, they’d think sunny is a drama exploring the terrible people and what makes them bad, with hints of comedy. In reality it’s a comedy with hints of the other part.

They’re not “questionable” items in his car. They’re just his tools, no big deal really.

I just love the irony of one of the lowest budget *sitcoms* in TV history having some of the most profound and complex character development in tv history

"Doesnt like dogs" is an indicator that his dream of being a vet isnt because he likes animals, but because he just wants to cut them up. Interestingly, harming animals is a trait seen in some serial killers- they start off with animals and work their way up to humans.

"Of course not. Think of the smell. You haven't thought about the smell you bitch!" Is my favorite line from Dennis, psychopath or not

Regarding Dennis' weird outburst about dogs in the TV interview, I think it was actually a VERY subtle reference to an earlier episode. In the episode where Mac and Dennis move into the suburbs, Mac ends up killing their pet dog and tricking Dennis into eating it, which Dennis seems legitimately horrified by. Later, in the TV interview, Dennis makes a point about how there's nothing wrong with eating dogs and it's no different than eating any other animal. I think he was being defensive there, he probably developed that mindset as a way of justifying what he did in the suburbs episode. Just goes to show how much more deranged Dennis and the rest of the Gang have gotten over time as they constantly reinforce each other's worst traits and traumatize each other.

Dennis is definitely the most dysfunctional out of them all, he’s the character: that tries to act like the “normal one” but in the end, tends to be the most deluded too

The twist about Dennis wanting to be a dad actually made sense because he's a huge narcissist. Narcissists see their children as extension of themselves. It's really common that when it's a baby and not someone with an identity and personhood, the narcissistic parent thinks that baby is amazing and can do no wrong. Dennis, who won't admit he's peaked, wants to live vicariously through the child. And since it's his child, he thinks it's going to be the next golden god. But not surprisingly the novelty of having offspring wore off pretty quickly, since he's used to his lifestyle (and group dynamic) with the gang

My guess is that Frank is a sociopath, plus Dennis and Dee's mother was a narcissist. Presumably with Frank only around during Christmas to give them fake presents, Dennis and Dee's personalities primarily were shaped by the narcissistic mother. Dennis matured into a standard narcissist as the favored child, while Dee as the disfavored child became an inverted narcissist clinging onto Dennis due to her low self-esteem. The entire gang exists to provide Dennis with narcissistic supply so that within the gang Dennis gets to larp as the cool psychopathic mastermind he wants to be, but outside the gang Dennis is just a weird loser.

Dennis’s arc made him my favorite character, look i love Charlie and Mac but Glenn’s portrayal of a man completely slipping is incredible and terrifying

my psychology class did a little project where we diagnosed a fictional character and i chose dennis

Hell yeah, ready to relax and watch. You should cover Mac's gayness development too, Charlie's true intelligence or lack thereof, or Dee's narcissisms

I reckon (for some unknown reason) Dennis genuinely cares for Dee. You could pass the plane scene off as him lying, but when they were all about to drown in that boat, Dennis said he loved her and was genuinely hurt when she just shrugged it off lol.

"My cat just walked across my piano" Well you should of got some kitten mitten!

Ahh yes, the implication.

Glen would portray a perfect Ted Bundy

He’s a five-star man!!!!!

In that episode with the escape room, his bedroom door locks from the outside, implying that he keeps his victims in there against their will.

My friends in college always told me that I remind them of Dennis, someone told me that should be cause for concern and honestly I agreed; I definitely needed to find new friends. I mean, I cannot believe how incredibly ludicrous those “friends” were and I honestly have no idea why I wasted my time hanging out with those fools! I am way more handsome than Dennis and much smarter too. The only reason I hung out with those simpletons is because they worshiped the ground I walked on and did everything I told them to do and I mean, come on, why wouldn’t they? Such inane, asinine, wastes of space- I am nothing NOTHING like Dennis Okay!? NOTHING!

The development of the character was intentional. Glen has stated that he knew where the character would end up, but he didn’t want to go all in to begin with.

He doesn't like dogs because his mother loved her Pomeranian than her fam

There's a 3 episode arc and I'm positive Dennis actually killed Brian Lafev. Charlie's mom has cancer, he's having trouble with his lack of emotions, next episode he takes on the persona of Brian Lafev and the following episode he's almost manic in the way he's acting and comes to the conclusion that he is god.

I want a horror comedy where you see Dennis turn crazy

I disagree with fully disregarding BPD as a diagnosis because i think it is just one piece in the puzzle of Dennis's several personality disorders. It is actually incredibly common for people with personality disorders to have more than one of them, and it is very common for the PD's they do have to be from the same cluster, cluster A (paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal) cluster B (borderline, histrionic, antisocial, narcissistic) and cluster C (avoidant, dependant, obsessive-compulsive). Dennis is a cluster B mishmash for sure. His fleeting interest with things and attachment issues (fear of abandonment, etc) and mood swings - especially the all or nothing nature of them, his addiction and impulsive behaviours, all point at least vaguely towards BPD. His entire existence just screams NPD, especially when you factor in his crippling insecurities, and the rest of the traits which are sorted into the medically defunct psychopathy bin could instead be sorted into the ASPD bin. His exaggeration of events could even garner him some points in the Histrionic category, and he may also qualify just because PD's in the same categories often have some or a lot of overlap with each other. obviously I'm not an expert but I am very mentally ill and got hyperfixated on researching personality disorders for a while as I was trying to prove to the psychiatrist that I didn't have BPD, so here's my two cents from that anyway

This was in my recommended, dude the algorithm has chosen this video

Dennis didn't kill the crow, he was just putting it out of it's misery while also at the same time testing the tensile strength of a crows neck

My favorite part of always sunny is that originally it was supposed to be set in LA as and be about a group of people trying to become actors.

29:50 "I feel too much," and in the next episode, Brian Lefevre is dead. Coincidence?? I think NOT!!!

I think Dennis actually loves Maureen and he hates it. He hates that a golden god such as himself can have these pesky feelings for someone with flaws (since in his mind he has none). When we first meet Maureen she has her weird quirks but shes not the crazy cat lady she becomes after having to deal with Dennis. She seems normal and is attractive (though not to the standards Dennis holds other women to). Upon realizing the flaw that she has a dead tooth he didn't start hating her he hated the fact that he loved her. Which is why later on when her family didn't accept her cat transformation he was actually supportive. He claims its to take off 15 dollars in alimony but even when he tells the cop about her predicament you hear something in Dennis's voice that you don't hear often in the show... sympathy. If you think I'm looking to deeply into it maybe you are right but while crude from the outside the show has time and time again showed a tendency to allow small things make it deep and build their characters. And while they make it a point to be anti sit com and not have the characters have any personal progress this again is intentional and very meta. Dennis loves Maureen and he hates it which is why he can't stand to be around her. He feels he is above her yet he still has these feelings he hates so much. What do you think?

I can buy that he's a grandiose narcissist whose lack of empathy often verges on the psychopathic. "Malignant narcissism" might be the more appropriate term. Pure psychopathy would mitigate his need for constant narc supply from others; as dysfunctional as the Gang is, they do seem to serve that function for him, and he would probably crumble without them. Also an actual psychopath would be less bothered by the opinions of his high school "minions." But it's hard to tell with Dennis because he seems very deliberately written as a Dark Triad ink blot

Dennis is the linchpin that holds the show together. He adds a level of tension to every scenario, and the humor on it just wouldn't hit the same without him.

In my mind, the sensory deprivation represents a point at which Dennis has an irreversible break with reality. He's spent most of his life believing he is superior to everyone, but lately he's been forced to confront how reality doesn't support this view of himself. A healthy person would accept that they'd been wrong and they should be more humble. But instead the episode ends with Dennis rejecting reality in favor of a narrative where he is the unquestioned king, even though this is only his imagination. Really, this represents a break with all the main characters from accepting reality, but the bizarre and almost supernatural elements of how the show explores epistemology doesn't resurface until the Asskickers United episode, and doesn't come to a head until the awesome Clip Show episode. I guess to a lesser extent, the "Waiting for Godot" homage was also a continuation of this plot thread.

Howerton has created one of the funniest characters of all time. His facial expressions are hysterical.

Aside from the obvious narcissism, I wonder if his insistence on playing baby boy/dayman had anything to do with the fact he was also abused as a child, like Charlie.

As someone who has BPD I always found him being diagnosed with it hilarious, although it's not accurate. Also that shade at psychiatrists, so freaking true lmao. My genius psych had me on 8 antipsychotics when I was 16.

So, he's basically an human representation of the dark triad

I don’t get it. Dennis seems like a great guy to me. He keeps my mean angry anonymous neighbor at bay for me. And he even almost does it out of the kindness of his heart too 👍

I have a slightly different theory. He's sociopathic, he wasn't born having these issues he was bred to have these issues but the reason why he seems emotionless until he's not, and why he is bothered by the suicide attempt even though he's not bothered by death in any other context is because he is playing up his issues around the gang because it helps him keep his place as leader. He loves power and he studied psychology so we knew he's lucky aware of exactly what is wrong with him. I think he acts crazier than he actually is so the gang feels apprehensive about challenging him and they have no where to go so they can't just leave the group. And we do see this anytime they aren't willing to follow his logic his rage spirals out of control. It's partly real but also partly exaggerated. That general feeling of uneasiness people have around him does help him manipulate people. He definitely suffers from traits of the dark triad but they're not as severe as they seem. That's why for the valentines day episode He had to scream at the gang to remind them that He can feel pain. He was unloved as a child which lead to his vanity, he was raped which led to his perversion/lust for power, he was smarter than most of his peers and grew up rich which lead to both his disassociation and his pension for manipulation and to deal with the pain he felt early in life from being disconnected he developed sociopathy. But he cant block out the things that trigger him. Thats maureen has power over him that's why the reporter has power over him that's why the suicide bothers him because he probly felt that way before finding the gang that's why he was killing animals. Look at the reunion he goes to get his tools but does nothing with them. He never planned to He just wanted to be feared so he could hold power over tim Murphy and the crew, then he got his ego hurt. In the beginning he would talk to normal people differently from the gang but having only the gang around for so long he became comfortable being the way he is with them to pretty much anybody. Hence the golden god. So basically he is a dissociative sociopath who's borderline a little too kinky for his own good, but he's also playing it up a bit for the purposes of manipulation.

Although I like the idea for the video, I think for a diagnostic-type analysis, you should go through each symptom/trait and give examples of them rather than a summary of disturbing things Dennis does or says from every episode. I commend you for going through the entire series for this though. You're a mad lad

Dennis Reynolds is the single most important character on the show. I said what I said.

I think it's worth noting that his Machiavellianism is diluted by the fact that every main character in Always Sunny is also a scheming piece of shit. I think in the later seasons, Dennis is definitely the most attuned to it, but it is still sort of baked into the entirety of the show.

Can you please do all the characters. This show is a golden god, it's the finisher of shows.

I love the way you sound more and more inebriated as the video goes on lol

“Right we could smear the walls with their blood guys… there’s any number of twisted scenarios we could play out here.” 😂🤣

Anybody else feel like Glenn Howerton would make a great Joker? Like he could bring that psychotic Dennis rage to the character, that would just make the Joker utterly fucking terrifying. I’d pay good money to see that.

I love how this started off so articulate and clear, and ended up slurred and loose.

I listen to their podcast, and turns out Glenn is a big horror fan. And with the writing of the show, the spiral the whole gang goes through is fun to see their insight on. I don’t think he is sociopathic on a diagnostic point, he actually does fit a lot of the traits of borderline personality, and then he may have narcissist comorbidity and some anxiety. Like he is spiraling but they all are

You'd be surprised how many people in some way or another are just like Dennis, maybe not to that extreme but, surely show traits of it like it's normal. Which makes his character all the more real

37:27 "You haven't thought of the smell you BITCH!" I loved this moment so much lmao

He’s also giving himself a haircut Even though in reality he gets his hair cut at a barber That shows he views himself as completely self reliant

The crack cocaine episode is such a classic.

2 years since you uploaded a commentary on Always Sunny and then you upload a 52 minute analysis? I don’t know whether to hate you or love you right now.

The thing about this show is that although it's a comedy, it's the kind of comedy that's brilliant because it makes very dark and oftentimes very real concepts easy to understand, laugh at, and swallow so they're not so horrifying. Dennis is a great example of that, so with the dream sequence in specific, I think that although it Is an absurd comedy scene, it is there very intentionally for people to read the symbol behind it.

"he reveals that all he ever wanted was a rocket launcher" - Hasn't everyone once had that dream?

That Green Man cut was perfect.

His crazy moments make his normal moments seem even crazier. Like with the onions he uses to make it seem like he's crying, it reveals the facade he puts on. He talking as if its heavily rehearsed in his mind.

I’m pretty sure the point of Dennis choosing their food is also referred to in the episode “ the gang tries desperately to win an award. Frank says to the award guy “ ponder lettuce and shrimp” when trying to bribe him. This is the exact meal that Dennis always forces them to order, and right when frank said that Dennis starts nodding, as if he was the one who told frank to say that

I really like how as the video goes on, the sound of your increasingly frayed nerves comes through

I very much appreciate your ability to articulate all this info without sounding like you're just reading off the script, which a lot of these types of videos suffer from. It's so easy to follow along with every point you make

I’m surprised Dennis hasn’t been monitored by the FBI over the police situation when they thought he killed that weird cat lady 😂

Man I love this show so much. They way they deliver thier lines!!! Its not even what they’revsaying its how they say it. The body movements, the reactions to one another, just everything is so good

10:35 "He makes it quite clear that this aspect of it is his favorite part." Dennis: "It's the best god damn part"

In the Escape Room episode, you skipped over the fact that Dennis' bedroom is both inescapable from the inside and soundproofed to such an extent that no-one can hear Dee screaming and banging on the door to get out.

This was too interesting! I like to think the gang as being personifications of all that's wrong with Mankind lol. That at least one of them everyone can see themselves in in one way or the other. Do Charlie next! He's the one I Identity with the most.

“My cat just walked across my piano” 😂😂😂😂 That was so fricken random!

There’s a line in American psycho (the book) where he’s thinking about killing someone and he wonders if that will make the world a better place . He says “ it will make my world better, and there really is no other hand “ . The scene where Dennis blows himself always reminds me of that . “It’s your reality, and you are god “ therefore he can decide everyone else’s realities

I cannot believe you skipped how important Dennis leaving his kid was. Dennis for all his life was trying to fill the hole in his life and he tried everything he thought he could. Then he meets his kid and he thought maybe this would be it, but it wasn’t. At this point in the time line is that Dennis is Balding and his looks are deteriorating which made him more desperate to come back to Philly. In season 14 he’s now a shell of his former self and cannot even stay outside for more than 10 minutes without losing his composure. Mac is poisoning him through energy shakes, and No body even cares that Dennis was gone and it really messed with him. Next video you should do what will happen next in it’s always sunny. Here’s my take on what will happen. Season 15: the Waitress comes back, and she’s pregnant. Not with Charlie, but with Franks baby from season 13. If this happens then it’s definitely the stepping stone to season 13s clip show where Charlie says “I’m moving back with Frank cause I miss him.”

i’m so glad u said “autistic overanalysis” bc i was wondering. luv how in depth!!! it’s always sunny is my favorite thing and i have color coded comprehensive episode categorizing lists:)))) so glad to hear an opinion from someone who sat w the show and analyzed in a way i can respect and trust. subscribed🖤🖤

Dennis killed ponderosa with the laser pointer made her chase it off the roof.

this is such an amazing video i love this deep dive into the show !!! great job with the notes and everything about this video ! i love it !!

Theres a shit ton of foreshadowing in Its Always Sunny that people dont notice at all. Will prob always be my favorite show. Being from Philly makes it even better lol

Your statement about giving amphetamines to kindergartners is so true. I've been on Adderall since I was 6.

About the water park episode? My interpretation is that he was actually trying to _groom_ Abbey, albeit not consciously aware that he was trying to do so. It's made clear that Dennis is on the rare occasion genuinely capable of caring about others, and his kindness towards Abbey shouldn't entirely be written off as an example of that. But in a twisted way, I don't think Dennis abandoned his mission to get laid when he decided to follow Abbey instead. He sees Abbey as his intellectual peer even though she's a child, which is telling, and there's already a solid foundation laid that Dennis has an unhealthy fixation with underage girls. Even if he wasn't actively trying to seduce this twelve year old, it makes sense given everything we've already learned about his psychological profile, that he took some perverse satisfaction in roleplaying a mentor figure to this young criminal. That, or maybe the audience isn't aware of it yet, but depending on how much time has elapsed between the Wade Boggs episode and the Waterpark episode, it's possible Dennis already knew he had a son whom he was unlikely to ever meet. And this guilt over being a bad father drove his actions in this episode, who knows.

Easily one of the greatest characters in TV history.

When you said the development of his character I cackled. It’s Always Sunny is one of the only shows where character development means someone’s personal decline. The only other shows I can think of are Shameless, Seinfeld and Married with Children.

Really well thought out, thoroughly researched, 10/10 I expected to skip around and watch a few minutes here and there but shocked myself by watching the whole video all the way through.

40:53 I’m reminded of how surprised I was and still am at the level of accuracy in their crack pipe...and how they even had it tilted up to prevent the hot end from coming into contact with the carpet because right after a hit it’s hot enough to melt the fibers and ruin the pipe lol

I'm really listening to a man teach me something he has no idea about. anyways good vid I agree lmfao

the episode of dennis starting the badass cult and convinces paint chip man to kill himself by setting himself on fire is the most overlooked

honestly this whole video makes me realize that dennis is bassicaly the absuive shadow leader of the gang. and that they basically got no true free will due to him and how he basically takes advantage of them constantly

Commentator getting seemingly more intoxicated as the video goes on

Even if it's a fantasy the 'fisherman recognizes another fisherman' line from "The Gang Saves the Day" is still worth noting. Specifically because his daydream has not gone off the rails yet, this was most likely his first thought upon seeing a man with a gun

Dennis admitted to getting aroused when women are tied up and locked up without an escape. I think that's telling us something 😭

This is exactly what I needed at this moment. Amazing.

Was surprised you didn't mention that scene in "Dennis gets divorced" where he mock chokes out Maureen Ponderosa.

Writers have really taken the “flanderization” to a whole new psychological level

My mother has Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), and Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD). Dennis is literally an exaggerated version of my mother, just much more intelligent than her, as the only thing she's ever dedicated herself to is learning how to manipulate people and how to make me as miserable as possible. Admittedly, she's very good at both. However, if I was going to diagnosis him with just one disorder - difficult, as you noted, due to there being so much overlap between disorders - I'd go with HPD. It fits him pretty much to a T.

Great dissection! Loved it!

They definitely added a splash of Ted Bundy in this character.

My Mom just walked by listen to this not knowing who was about and goes, who are they diagnosing Darth Vader??

Not me clicking on this video and watching half of it before realizing it’s 50 minutes not 15

This guy sounds like he just got more and more drunk throughout the recording of this video lmao

I'm smitten with this video! This randomly came into my feed, and it's amazingly well done! 24:55 THANK YOU FOR THIS 🤣🤣🤣

20 seconds in and you’re dunking on the overdiagnosis of ADHD, instant sub

Your drunken-state was very apparent towards the end. I was so inspired that I decided to join in and pour a cocktail at 1130am! Aside from that, I enjoyed this immensely. "Sunny" is my favorite comedy show of all time and I thought you did it justice. Cheers, Bro!

This was a pretty good video. Because of the implication

This video was so good it made me cry. And I didn’t even need my pocket onions.