Cricket’s increasingly downward spiral is Always Sunny’s reminder to viewers on how unapologetically awful its characters have become over the years.
Of all the deplorable characters in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Cricket has perhaps gotten the harshest treatment from the show. Matthew “Rickety Cricket” Mara (David Hornsby) first appeared in Always Sunny season two, episode 7 as a humble priest hanging onto a high school affection for Dee (Kaitlin Olson). By the end of the episode, Dee’s manipulation tactics convince him to leave the priesthood altogether. From that point on, his life becomes an overly dramatic downward spiral. He experiences chronic homelessness, drug addiction, deforming injuries, and constant manipulation from the Gang. Even with Always Sunny’s uniquely Cricket-centric episode “A Cricket’s Tale” providing him with a chance to redeem his life, Cricket maintains his degraded ways.
Plenty of other Always Sunny characters lead horrible lives. For example, Maureen Ponderosa’s (Catherine Marcelle Reitman) costly and disturbing transition into a cat named Bastet takes advantage of Dennis’ (Glenn Howerton) alimony payments from a short-lived marriage. The incestuous, milk-chugging McPoyle family manipulates the Gang in hostage takeovers, catastrophic weddings, and distressing court hearings. Countless other characters in the Gang’s wake also get violently injured, experience property damage, or are seriously harassed or manipulated. Such wild and insensitive antics even led streaming services like Hulu to remove five Always Sunny episodes from their platforms. Nonetheless, Cricket’s extreme devolution from clean-shaven priest to homeless drug addict has taken on a life of its own in terms of severity.
Cricket is a personification of the main characters’ actions growing in depravity. With each appearance, he has a new sad tale directly or indirectly caused by the Gang that has a forever-lasting effect. Cricket’s homelessness as a result of him leaving the priesthood is first introduced in Always Sunny season three, episode 13. Dee and Charlie (Charlie Day) gumming cocaine on his lips later in the episode leads to a full-on addiction that grows towards harder drugs in the show’s progression. Subsequent appearances show him with a grotesque neck scar inflicted by Danny DeVito’s Frank having thrown a trash can at him, a case of ringworm that never goes away, a glass eye from a dog attack, a missing tooth, and a half-burned face that resulted from him being trapped by the Gang in a burning apartment. In a show that consistently proves how awful these characters are, Always Sunny uses Cricket as a constant visual reminder to the audience of the Gang’s effects on those around them.
Given Always Sunny’s non-serialized nature, any harm that the Gang inflicts is usually self-contained in the episode. Occasionally, their consequences receive a callback, and such consequences don’t make a lasting effect on the show even when they promise to. When a North Dakota woman arrives with Dennis’ child as a result of him getting off the plane in season 10’s “The Gang Beats Boggs,” Dennis leaves in Always Sunny’s season 12 finale to raise his family – only to return in season 13’s premiere. However, the consequences of their actions on Cricket never go away. Whether his homelessness initially caused by Dee’s manipulation puts him in dangerous situations, or the Gang does something specific to him in an episode, the results of those actions compound over time either mentally or physically.
Due to an increasingly breaking spirit and the Gang’s manipulative nature, Cricket returns to the main characters frequently. Unfortunately, with each encounter comes new consequences. Even if the Gang learns nothing from their actions, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia makes Cricket’s life exceedingly worse to remind the audience just how horrible its characters are.
Allison Wonchoba is a Features writer on Screen Rant. She holds a degree in Cinema and English, and she knows (probably) all things film and TV. Working at Hot Topic for a couple years also helped her know all things pop culture-y. Once upon a time, she also interned at a radio station in Dublin, Ireland where she got more media training – and built up her Sudoku skills on the side. She likes Pina Coladas and gettin’ caught in the rain – and she knows that’s NOT a Jimmy Buffet song.
Why It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Hates Cricket So Much – Screen Rant
