Following tonight’s Abbott Elementary episode featuring the main characters of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, we’re starting to think that Riot Punch might just be an old Schemmenti family recipe.
Well, it’s finally here — the first part of the crosstown collaborative comedy event between Philadelphia’s top two sitcoms is, much like Charlie Kelly, on the books, and Abbott Elementary fans must be pleasantly surprised by how little chaos the Paddy’s Pub Gang managed to create during their week doing court-ordered volunteer work at Willard R. Abbott Elementary School. Followers of ABC’s family-friendly, feel-good, smash-hit sitcom were understandably nervous going into tonight wondering what fresh hell Mac, Charlie, Dennis, Dee and Mac would unleash on their favorite underfunded school, but the Abbott crowd seemed to ignore the fact that they’ve had a hell-raiser in their midst since Episode One.
Early on in part one of the Abbott Elementary/It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia crossover, an episode titled “Volunteers” by the former sitcom, The Gang’s completely unbelievable cover as average do-gooders volunteering out of their charitable nature falls apart when a certain Abbott character recognizes them as the low-lifes they are and correctly assumes that the Gang’s community service was court-ordered.
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Not only has Melissa Schemmenti seen The Gang before in the middle of a brawl at a Philadelphia Eagles game, but she’s actually been to Paddy’s Pub — and, for all the aspersions she cast on The Gang, maybe that’s where she belongs, too.
In what Principal Ava Colman hilariously described as a “Caucasian cultural exchange,” Ms. Schemmenti sniffs out exactly which kind of Philadelphian white trash the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia cast really is — her kind. Not only does she love an Eagles-inspired riot just as much as the Gang does, but, canonically, she ventured all the way from West Philadelphia to the South Side to get plastered at Paddy’s Pub, despite it being “the skeeviest bar” she’d ever visited.
Also, for someone who finds The Gang’s obvious criminal history to be a deal-breaker for their participation in Abbott’s day-to-day activities, Melissa sure does have a seemingly endless list of connections to the criminal world. I mean, in this episode alone, we learned that she has a sketchy, law-breaking, exotic-bird-loving “egg guy” — what could possibly be more It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia-esque than that?
Sorry, Melissa, for all your reservations about The Gang, you would be right at home in an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia — and you will be, once Season 17 comes out. Can I offer you a nice egg in this trying time?