Charlie Kelly and the Waitress

Love and romance on the FX sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are not the stuff that dreams are made of by any stretch of the imagination. The relationships of the main characters are inevitably short-lived and disastrous for all involved, with wrecked lives resulting from a domino-like form of comedic chaos. In short, love isn’t just a game that Mac, Dee Reynolds and her brother Dennis like to play but a dangerous sport instead. Then there’s the fourth member of the gang, Charlie Kelly. On the one hand, he is the only one who has found the “true love” of his life. On the other, said love wants nothing to do with him. That does not stop Charlie, however, from continually attempting to “woo” while simultaneously taking the word “obsession” to increasingly greater heights. What’s worse is that the more Charlie refuses to give up, the more the anonymously named Waitress sees her own life spiral downhill in the resulting hilarity.

Charlie’s infatuation with the Waitress was first introduced in the pilot episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. “Wait until the Waitress comes out here, then you can stare at her,” Dennis tells him in front of the coffee shop where she works. Charlie denies any such intentions, but when he makes a comment that is overheard out of context and taken as racist, it is obvious by his reaction that he is indeed attracted to the girl in question. Eventually he secures a date with an attractive African American woman and brings her to the coffee shop, but treating the situation as an opportunity to ask the Waitress out is not the best of ideas.

“Charlie’s using you to prove that he’s not racist and then he asked me out on a date,” the Waitress tells the girl, who in turn punches Charlie in the face.

The African American is not the only person that Charlie has taken advantage of in order to prove his worth to the Waitress. In the episode “Charlie Wants an Abortion,” he is falsely led to believe that he fathered a previously unknown son ten years earlier. When the Waitress bumps into them at a toy store where she has taken a similarly aged girl as part of a Big Sisters program, Charlie concocts the story that he is involved in a corresponding Big Brothers program. Seeing Charlie in a different light causes the Waitress to agree to accompany him to a sponsored picnic for the kids but his faux son accidentally gets drunk when Charlie isn’t looking, in effect ruining the opportunity.

It’s not just people that Charlie uses to get closer to the Waitress. In another first season episode, “Charlie Has Cancer,” he fakes having the disease because he saw the Waitress wearing a Lance Armstrong Race-for-the-Cure bracelet. Dennis and Mac thus decide to convince the Waitress to sleep with Charlie as a sympathetic gesture. The first attempt backfires when she ends up sleeping with Dennis instead, however, and the second attempt likewise fails when Charlie’s deception is inevitably brought to light.

In the episode “The Gang Gives Back,” meanwhile, the Waitress is at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting that Charlie is forced to attend as part of a court order for burning down a building. He obviously does not take AA seriously and even shows up drinking a bottle of beer, but when the Waitress offers to help him with his addiction by becoming his sponsor, he quickly sees an opportunity to get closer to the girl of his dreams. In the end, however, it turns out that the Waitress was only using Charlie to get closer to Dennis, on whom she is harboring a crush.

While these instances only lead to the Waitress being duped, other encounters with Charlie and the rest of the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia gang have direct negative effects on her life. In “Mac Bangs Dennis’ Mom,” for instance, Dennis attempts to blackmail Charlie in order to get out of the menial jobs associated with Paddy’s Pub, the bar the gang owns together. “I’m going to bang her tonight, probably around 10:30 or so,” Dennis tells Charlie in regards to the Waitress. “Now I really don’t want to do that so all you have to do is call my cell phone by 10:30 and say, ‘Dennis, you don’t have to do ‘Charlie work’ anymore.’”

In retaliation, Charlie first encourages Mac to have sex with Dennis’ mom and then enlists Dee into his plan. He next tells Dennis about Mac sleeping with his mom and that the only way to get even is for Dennis to have sex with Mac’s mom. But when Dennis goes to the house—and has his sexual advances rejected—Dee and the Waitress are sitting in a car across the street watching the entire time.

“Oh, he did ’cause he’s a dirty, dirty pervert,” Dee tells the Waitress when she questions if she really just saw Dennis try to have sex with Mac’s mom.

Charlie isn’t done yet. Next up is having Dee convince Dennis that they need to get back at Charlie for having been promoted by their father Frank Reynolds and that the only way to do so is for Dennis to sleep with Charlie’s mom. Dennis agrees but when he goes to see Mrs. Kelly, Dee and the Waitress are again outside watching. “He said he loved me,” the Waitress cries to Dee. “I’m going to stab him.”

“You need to do something worse,” Dee tells her in response. “You got to sleep with Charlie.”

Just as Charlie gets himself all cleaned up and ready for his big date, the Waitress comes into the bar with Frank. She apparently decided on a different approach to get back at Dennis—sleeping with his father. In the end, a single tear slowly rolls down Charlie’s face.

It’s not just Charlie that plays a role in the disintegration of the Waitress’ life. When a corporate franchise offers to buy Paddy’s Pub in the episode “The Gang Sells Out,” Dee is forced to find new employment at a bar where the Waitress is an assistant manager. Eventually the rest of the gang ends up working there as well and quickly take advantage of the situation by drinking on the job, overcharging customers and blowing off their duties. The Waitress is inclined to overlook such digressions because of her still-present crush on Dennis but when the owner discovers what is going on, she is subsequently fired.

In “The Waitress is Getting Married,” meanwhile, Dee is infuriated to hear that the Waitress is engaged to a guy she used to date in high school named Brad. Under the pretext of protecting Charlie, Dee plots a scheme to break up the two of them by hosting a bachelorette party—with the would-be groom in attendance—and proceeds to embarrass her. “I thought there was cocaine and heroin, and remember when you were shooting up with the homeless people and banging for money on the street?” Dee asks in regards to the Waitress being a recovering alcoholic.

“She’s in love with my brother, they have a sex tape together, this guy came along,” she later adds, alluding to the Waitress’ sexual encounters with both Dennis and Frank.

The party turns out to be a disaster, but Brad returns afterwards and tells Dee that he’s still in love with her and not the Waitress. It’s a sham, however, as the former high school student with bad acne is merely going around to all the girls who dumped him in his teens so that he can dump them back as revenge.

Love is not in the cards for Charlie Kelly and the Waitress on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Inevitably, Charlie is left with nothing more than a very unhealthy obsession that has provided a multitude of enjoyment for fans of the series. As for the Waitress, the interest that Charlie has showered upon her has only caused her own life to take a tragic screwball comedy turn for the worse, in effect making the ongoing narrative an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia melding of Shakespearean tragedies and comedies.

The Bard himself would know doubt find it amusing.

Anthony Letizia (November 15, 2010)

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