It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia arrived on FX on August 4, 2005, with five people yelling at each other in a bar. Twenty-one years later, the show has run 18 seasons and 187 episodes, and closed its run on September 14, 2026. That is a strange fate for a comedy about narcissists and a dive bar in South Philadelphia. It is also earned.
Trailer, via FX Networks.
Charlie Kelly, Mac and the ownership of Paddy’s Pub
The premise is almost aggressively small. Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day) is the janitor. Mac (Rob McElhenney) calls himself the bouncer. Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton) tends bar. Dennis’ twin sister Dee (Kaitlin Olson) tends bar too, between auditions she does not book. The three men own Paddy’s Pub, a struggling Irish dive bar in South Philadelphia. In season two, Danny DeVito joins as Frank Reynolds, an eccentric multi-millionaire and the neglectful father of Dennis and Dee, who takes over most of the ownership and becomes the gang’s financial catalyst.
That last piece is the show’s engine. Frank’s money funds the schemes, and his appetite pushes the others to go further than they would alone. The gang schemes against outsiders, against each other, for money, for revenge, or for no reason beyond boredom and drink. The show’s own synopsis puts it plainly: their warped views and precarious judgments lead them to trouble, and the trouble usually gets worse before it gets better.
McElhenney created the series and co-developed it with Howerton. Both star, and both serve as executive producers alongside Day.
Satire aimed at the gang, never with them
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia depicts its characters as ignorant, and it does so on purpose. The show satirizes their views on racism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia by letting the gang fail at ordinary situations. The joke is never that the gang is right. The joke is that they are confident, wrong, and completely unable to see it.
That structure is why the show survived where edgier comedies got buried. It borrowed from The Office (UK), Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the debt shows most in the plotting. Episodes build elaborate conspiracies that collapse under the weight of the people running them. The gang rarely wins. When they do win, it is worse.
Critics have called it “Seinfeld on crack” and “white trash comedy.” Both labels are lazy, and both are a little true. The show has a large cult following and critical acclaim for its dark humor, its satire, and the cast’s performances. That acclaim is not a fluke of longevity. It is the reason the longevity happened.
Frank Reynolds changes the math
The second season is where It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia becomes the show people quote. DeVito’s arrival gives the gang a bankroll and a father figure who is worse than they are. Frank is an eccentric multi-millionaire who takes over most of the bar’s ownership, funds the convoluted schemes, and urges the others to go further with their brazen depravity.
Without Frank, the gang is a group of self-centered, heavy-drinking misfits arguing in a bar. With him, they can afford to be terrible at scale. The show understands this, which is why it never writes him out and never softens him. DeVito plays a man with no bottom, and the writers keep finding one.
The supporting cast does quiet work across the run. The Waitress, Cricket, the McPoyles, the Ponderosas, the Lawyer, Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Mac and her estranged husband Luther, and Uncle Jack Kelly cross paths with the gang and get progressively more unhinged as the seasons pile up. These are not cameos. They are the show’s second skeleton, and the reason a bar with five regulars never runs out of stories.
The season count against Ozzie and Harriet
| It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia | The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet | |
|---|---|---|
| Format | Live-action sitcom | Live-action sitcom |
| Record | Longest-running American live-action sitcom by total seasons | Held the record until 2021 |
| Seasons | 18 | — |
| Episodes | 187 | — |
| First aired | August 4, 2005 | — |
| Finale | September 14, 2026 | — |
| Network | FX, FXX | — |
| Metacritic | 72/100 | — |
The record matters because it took something to break it. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia passed The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet with the release of its 15th season in December 2021. In December 2020, the series was renewed for four additional seasons, bringing it to 18. The eighteenth season premiered on August 17, 2026, and the show ended less than a month later, on September 14.
That is a clean exit on paper. Most sitcoms this old get cancelled mid-season or fade out.
What a 7.2 out of 10 leaves out
The published critical score for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is 7.2/10, with a Metacritic mark of 72/100. That is a fair number, and it is a little low.
A 72 undersells the show’s influence. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia ran for two decades on basic cable with no likable lead and no single episode where the gang learns anything. The format is a loop, and the show never pretended otherwise.
Where the score is right is in the back half. Eighteen seasons is a long time, and the show’s later years lean harder on the gang’s established awfulness than on new ways to test it. The satire still lands, but it lands on targets the show already hit. A viewer starting in season one and finishing in season eighteen will notice the difference.
The performances are the part that never slips. Day, Howerton, McElhenney, Olson and DeVito built characters with no redeeming qualities and made them watchable for 187 episodes. That is a harder trick than it looks, and the show pulled it off without asking the audience to like anyone.
The numbers, in one place
- Premiere: August 4, 2005, on FX
- Finale: September 14, 2026
- Seasons: 18
- Episodes: 187
- Season 18 premiere: August 17, 2026
- Renewal: four additional seasons, announced December 2020
- Record: longest-running American live-action sitcom by total seasons, passed The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet with season 15 in December 2021
- Networks: FX, FXX
- Genre: Comedy
- Metacritic: 72/100
- Published critical score: 7.2/10
The part worth watching
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the rare long-running comedy that stayed recognizable without staying still. The gang starts as four self-centered misfits in a bar, adds Frank and his money in season two, and ends two decades later with the same people and the same wreckage behind them. The show’s refusal to redeem anyone is the point. It is also the reason the show could keep going: there was never a lesson to learn, so there was never a reason to stop.
The record is the headline, but the record is not the achievement. Plenty of shows run long. Fewer run long while keeping the same setting and the same commitment to letting terrible people be terrible on camera. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia did that for 187 episodes and stopped.
The 7.2 is the score it was given. It is not the score it earned.
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