In SEASON 3 , we were introduced to a new character, Charlie Day’s Mac, an exaggerated version of himself played with pretty much as much lack of acting ability as his actual one. This season we find out he is in jail, with the show’s celebrated antisocial conceit serving as his introduction and a plot device to be used throughout each episode.
Mac’s storyline was written entirely by Rob McElhenney, and focused on him leaving Frank’s company and becoming corrupt and living off of his differences from his co-workers.
At first we see Mac working as a truck driver and comedy act before his folks find out. There’s a laugh about the fact that Mac is at the mosque every Friday of the month. Of course this makes Mac a bit crazy but it’s only because he sees himself as religion as a means to attain fame. The very funny Mac is able to see his change as merely a thing of confusion or a lapse in his judgement rather than the understanding and need to con these stereotypes. He dismisses the feelings of the group of Muslims he’s with and also of the child he’s his roommate with. Mac learns to manipulate. It makes sense why Mac is what he is. The Internet is used to distract him from thinking too much or to teach him not to be sensitive. As the jokes often they will ask and give questions on whether Mac is listening. Frank’s son Danny starts to try to use his brother, Frank, as a foil to the show’s prison theme.
This season also has the introduction of “Timm” as an early employee at Frank’s company, getting fired from his post after Frank offers him a bribe. It quickly becomes obvious that the subversion of so much that comes to mind with the stereotypical pop culture references have finally been left in the dust. The show actually jokes about and gives comic relief to today’s news media. In the first episode, Jimmy McNulty, a fictionalized version of Baltimore police officer Will Chase, comes in the door after the city mayor had gone into hiding from surveillance. He offers Mac a job and a really bad case of marijuana on his request for his interview.
In an episode that takes place in prison, the staff start to notice that their activities are affecting the prisoners’ behavior. Most of the in-jokes are easily missed without getting too nostalgic. The show provides so many good ones that they almost get to outshine the inside jokes. Now that we are in the sixth season, the show has slowly begun to look like the show it used to be back in season one.
In season four the show introduced characters that were used sparingly. This is no more evident than with Dennis and Mac’s father. In season two, the race of the characters’ fathers was pretty much incidental to the show’s comic quality. It was one more element that made the show just different, or perhaps separate from other shows. But in season four, The Imposter Pathetically Realising He’s Only Making People Excited About a Lawyer Guy Was incredibly jarring, as well as when Dennis’ father, Richard (played by Mac Kirwan) finds out that Dennis’ baby was not his. No one else was a big part of the season. Now, in the sixth season, Mac, Dennis, Frank, and Dee’s fathers are already scheduled for two more seasons, and they aren’t in the show very much. But Mac’s father shows up just a few times. This is much better than previous seasons where he was left out. There’s been a subtle increase in the number of crazy characters that come onto the show and a corresponding decrease in the number of people who are alone in their portrayal. It’s entirely different as the show gets a lot more mature. Dennis, Mac, and Dee’s family changes so subtly that the audience barely notices.
Before SEASON 5, I never really cared about any of the story arc. Sure, there were main threads where the main characters are tied together, but these threads felt quite random. I wasn’t really invested in the personal connections on screen. With each episode, I find myself missing things more and more from my own life. Maybe it’s the same thing that is going on with the Twitter generation today, where many of us were once the only ones in the room. The show creates fake friendships and fake news. It is fun to sit back and watch all of these people interact without thought of how people can be racist, fat, or ugly. It’s like watching people