Four egocentric friends who run a neighborhood Irish pub in Philadelphia try to find their way through the adult world of work and relationships. Unfortunately, their warped views and precarious judgments often lead them to trouble, creating a myriad of uncomfortable situations that usually only get worse before they get better.
This tv show contains 138 potentially triggering events.
All of the gang's parents are physically, verbally and emotionally abusive. (Charlie's mom doesn't seem to realize that she is abusive but she very much is.)
This is somewhat brought up whenever any of their parents are in an episode.
At least Mac still loves his parents despite all their abuse. Other characters try to tell him that his parents don't love him back but he doesn't believe them. So it's nlt exactly forgiving his abusers but I thought it was worth mentioning.
In general most of the Gang abuses each other in various ways but still stay friends.
Not the only example, but kind of between Dennis and Mac. They're not a couple but they live together, Mac is in love with Dennis and their relationship is in almost every way romantic. They're both violent towards each other, Mac has poisoned Dennis and Dennis apparently sometimes scratches Mac's face (deep enough to draw blood.) Also a lot of manipulation and gaslighting going on from both sides. Also I think it's mentioned that Frank used to hit Barbara. This is not shown. In the script it is also said that Barbara used to hit Frank. This did not make it to the show.
the gang broke Dee makes it seem like Dee became successful although it's revealed to be a ploy by the boys, other instances of this take place because they are all horrible people
I can't remember if it's like referenced ever, but at least never shown. Other forms of child abuse (physical, verbal and sexual) are shown and talked about.
No animal abuse is shown in any episode but mentioned a few times throughout the show. One of the main characters “bashes” rats found in their bar with a specific rat stick, which is mentioned multiple times throughout different episodes.
In A Very Sunny Christmas, there is one like about two of the main characters “bashing” neighborhood dogs as children. It is not said how often or how severe this was, however.
Lastly, in two separate episodes, characters very briefly describe previously intentionally injuring dogs. s8 ep1 a side character claims to have paralyzed a stray dog in an altercation. In s10 ep2, a main character brings up kicking a dog after it bit the woman he stalks. It is not said how severe this mistreatment was, and a few other characters are clearly horrified.
Edit: in s16 ep3, a main character is seen beating a seagull to death. This doesn’t seem to be portrayed in a very serious manner and doesn’t seem very realistic (to me at least)
No dog fighting is seen or glorified in any way but is mentioned at least 3 times
s7 ep1, as another comment says, the characters want to rehabilitate a dog fighting pit bull to start attacking humans instead of other dogs. This is a very brief conversation and leads nowhere
s12 ep4 the news is reporting on a dog rescued from a fighting ring being adopted. A character then complains about animal rights and argues that he should be able to eat fried dog at a chicken fight or eat fried chicken at a dog fight. No one agrees with him, and he soon faces intense backlash from the internet.
s14 ep9 a side character says they arrange dog fighting. The other characters clearly do not like this but do not shame him.
s7 ep4 a never before seen or mentioned dog has died of natural causes. The dog is about to be buried when the casket opens and we see what is supposed to be the body. I do not think it looks very dog-like, but it definitely could upset some.
s15 ep5 a never before seen or mentioned cat is claimed to have fused to the carpet after being left in an abandoned office. Once again, I do not think it looks very cat-like, as it is a vaguely cat-shaped raised part of the carpet, but it definitely could upset some
s16 ep3 a monkey seen in one previous episode is found dead in the bar. The body is not shown, but a character is carrying around one of the animal’s paws for good luck. Additionally, a seagull is beaten to death in an unserious manner. The body is shown, however it seems to be just a rubber seagull and is without any blood or visible injuries
Cats don't die, but a box of cats is 'rescued' from different dangerous situations and the box of kittens gets thrown by Dee every time she goes in to save them. I'm not sure if the cats were real or not, but there were implications of cat abuse.
Dennis and Mac's dog of one episode, Dennis Jr., dies by the end of it. In at least two episodes people think that Mac's childhood dog, Poppins, dies or is about to die, but he doesn't. Dennis' cat of one episode, Special Agent Jack Bauer, is in an explosion but survives. Dee's cat in Mac And Dennis Break Up probably died? It's never seen after getting stuck in the wall.
The main characters are all violent, often towards each other. And since one of the main characters is a woman, she often gets beat up. At least Mac has also punched women on accident several times.
Dee waterboarded by Frank. Gang Goes to Hell part 2 whole gang under water for extended period of time- Mac tries to hold Dennis down and I think maybe Charlie too when help comes
Often. At least two of the main characters were raped as children, and at least one of the was referred to as rape instead of sexual assault or molestation.
One of the main characters has been called a rapist but he denies it every time.
Another main character has been called a rapist but she just kind of shrugs it off.
In general, the show has a lot of black humor, and rape is often brought up.
In the very first episode, Dennis has sex with two men when too drunk to consent, which is treated as a joke. EDIT: As a response to the other comment, it is left a bit unclear if they had sex or not. According to Dee she couldn't get in touch with the actors, implying it did happen for real. Though it is possible that she was joking.
There is also a lot of talk about Dennis and Charlie getting raped as children, and there are jokes about both of these though they're sometimes treated seriously too.
Dee has mentioned threatening men into sleeping with her and this isn't really taken that seriously.
Technically Dennis is sexually assaulted by British Dennis in Charlie Rules the World- he pushes his head down onto his dick. We don't see it of course but the camera focuses on British Dennis' satisfied face for a while and Dennis clearly struggles going down
A dart is thrown into dennis’ hand, i believe its in the second chardee macdennis? not graphic but there are probably other cases of hands being damaged but i cannot think of any.
There is an episode centered around Dee and Charlie being tricked into eating human meat and then trying to find more. It turns out that it wasn't real human meat but they do not find out till the end. Lots of talk about eating people in this one.
In s10e9 Mac attempts to choke out Charlie, but chokes himself out instead. This is entirely onscreen. In the same episode, Frank passes out multiple times, at least one of which is from blood loss.
while high on paint, Charlie kidnaps and attempts to torture a little person whom he believes to be a leprechaun, Frank also waterboards Dee in an episode
S4 E11- Rickity Cricket's head explodes when Frank accidentally shoots him in the bar with a musket in the bar towards the end of the episode. Approx 19mins in.
Discussed. A man's "first time" was with an older school librarian. Others describe this as rape, but he refuses to describe it as such and chooses to remember it as a positive experience.
A stripper is entertaining a young lady, only to realize when the light comes on. It turns out this scenario was set up without either the stripper's or his daughter's consent.
Two characters’ shared apartment is infested with bedbugs. They mention and scratch the bug bites. Later, the apartment is fumigated to fix the problem, and three characters are also poisoned when entering the building full of poisonous gases. No bedbugs are shown.
There are no (visibly) physically disabled characters. A few characters have been In a wheelchair or used a cane for like an episode, and are played by their usual actors.
Technically speaking Dee could probably be considered physically disable since she used to have severe back problems as a teen and wore a back brace, but she seems to be fine as an adult. Same with Rickety Cricket, who used to use crutches as a teen, but whose legs seem to be working well as an adult.
I can't list all the examples in early seasons but season 3 episode 9 has the r slur in the title of the episode as well as the description. do not watch this episode for sure if the r word triggers you.
Mac's cousin, Dennis and Dee's mom, and Charlie's dad. The episodes "The Gang Carries A Corpse Up A Mountain" and "Charlie's Mom Has Cancer" definitely have the most upsetting scenes regarding deaths of family members.
It is also mentioned that Dennis and Dee ate their triplet in the womb but he was never really alive.
*spoiler* In one episode Frank tricks Dee and Dennis into digging up the corpse of their deceased mother. If you've recently lost someone close to you, especially a parent, I highly recommend skipping the episode 'Charlie's Mom Has Cancer'
Dennis possibly possessed by the castle in the gang's still in Ireland, as he describes it talking to him and having conversations out loud with it. He then comes after Dee with an ax it's all very The Shining. Later revealed to be COVID however
S1 Ep 6- @19mins 40secs Dee runs out of her Pop Pop's room at the nursing home and is sick into her hands over a bin in the hallway.
S2 Ep 9 @ 9mins 15secs. Charlie vomits when standing next to Dee at the edge of the fountain.
S4 E6 @ 7mins 35secs. Man vomits on bus in front of Dee. Visuals.
S5- E4...The scene is technically safe but Frank is drinking a lot whilst walking on the sidewalk with Mac and he makes gagging/gurgling noises that might trigger some.
S5 E6- Dee, Frank & Mac all dry-heave and salivate after breaking into fumigation tent. Around 11mins in. Pretty triggering.
S5 E7- Frank's eats garbage @ 9mins and coughs it up. Technically safe but might be triggering.
S5 E9- Dennis tries to make himself throw up in Dee's bathroom after eating an apple seed. Off screen. No visuals but lots of audio. Goes for about 1min.
S5 E12- About 18mins in Dee & the opposing flipcup team all vomit after drinking poisoned beer. Audio & visuals.
S6 E1- Technically safe but Dee gags after meeting her old high school crush Bill at Subway (around 8mins in). Then both Dee & Mac gag repeatedly at around 18mins.
S6 E4- About 15mins into the episode Mac vomits into the sink after chugging a glass full of egg yolks. Audio and visuals.
S6 E6- About 5.5mins into the episode Dee gags a few times after drinking a health juice. No vomit but triggering. Also Mac's Mum spits chewing tobacco into a container around 15mins in. Pretty gross.
S6 E7- About 18mins into the episode Dennis covers his mouth and makes coughing/gagging sounds as if he's about to vomit when he finds out some disturbing information.
S7 E1- From 13mins 30secs to 15mins 10secs. Frank is a limo driver. Charlie is in back seat with a woman. Vomits blood on her multiple times. Extremely graphic. She gets out, after qhich Frank and Charlie talk and then Charlie vomits blood on Frank too.
S7 E2- Dennis is sick (audio & visuals) after Dee gets hair caught on a ride. Around 9-10mins in.
S7 E3- Dee gags 1.5mins before the end of the episode when something falls out of a casket.
S7 E5- Frank is sick at the club around 15mins into the episode.
S7 E7- About 14mins into the episode Charlie tries to make himself sick after eating grapes by sticking his fingers down his throat. Goes for about 20secs.
S7 E13- Frank v* into a wine bucket around 19mins 20secs into the episode after the dance number. Full audio and semi-visuals.
S8 E3- Dee tries to make herself throw up by sticking her fingers down her throat @ 4mins 30secs in. She's not successful but makes a lot of gagging noises.
S8 E8- Dennis v* about 5mins immediately after doing shots at the bar. Audio & visuals.
S9 E1- Dee is sick into her own mouth and swallows it down at 14mins 30secs. You don't see any actual v*. But could be triggering. She then continues to gag multiple times from the point that she boards the plane until she gets into the limo (around 17-18mins). She v* twice in that period, both times over a toilet. You can't really see or hear anything when she does.
S9 E7- Quarantine episode. Didn't watch it but apparently the whole episode is bad (hence why I didn't watch it).
S11 E6- Couldn't watch it because it was in first person view so was too disorienting. But Frank v* during the episode.
S12 E4- About 5-6mins in the UFC fighters have v* with audio and visuals in the locker room.
S13 E3- Didn't watch but apparently lots of ppl are sick on a plane.
S13 E8- Charlie v* at 11mins after eating a rat.
S14 E6- Around 15mins Frank coughs/spits up blood. It's stylised because of the noir theme but might still be triggering. Right at the end (last couple of minutes) Charlie v* all over the waitress. Pretty graphic but again it is stylised so not quite as bad what it would be normally.
S14 E8- Dee at 6mins gags after eating an egg.
S14 E10- Frank gags & burps frequently throughout the episode but particularly bad from around 8.5mins to 10.5mins.
S15 E4- Near the end around 17-18mins in Charlie is sick onto the bar (audio & visuals) & Dennis is sick onto the floor.
S15 E6- Dennis does a lot of coughing & gagging noises throughout the ep due to COVID.
S15 E7- Frank's spits out a soup turd near the end of the episode. No v* but might be triggering as he looks like he's going to be sick a few times.
In season 9’s “Mac Day” Mac is reported to have “made a little poopie in his pants” after being threatened at potential knife point. Rescued thanks to Country Mac’s sharp ocular pat-down.
In Old Lady House: A Situation Comedy, fart sound effects are added multiple times to a video for comedic value. A character later tries to make the others laugh by farting and poops their pants.
The only canonical trans character is one of the most normal people on the show. She is the butt of a few jokes in early seasons but she is definitely not predatory. She does immediately hit on Mac in season 1 but not in a weird way, just casually compliments his appearance.
Carmen is often misgendered but she is never deadnamed.
While Mac hasn't officially changed his name, he gets upset when people call him by his legal name, and his friends sometimes call him it just to make fun of him.
I don't know if outed is exactly the right word, because literally everyone already knows it, but pretty much everyone talks about the fact that Mac is gay before he comes out or is even aware of it himself. This never has any consequences for Mac and usually the result is just Mac getting upset at being called gay. The Gang often joke with each other about the fact that he's obviously gay.
Sweet Dee has a heart attack Dee and Frank both go to hospital. Frank continues to wear hospital gown long after leaving and is also institutionalised later in same ep
A man graphically describes how he intentionally gave himself a tapeworm. He later eats a bag that supposedly contains anthrax (actually powdered sugar).
There are no characters explicitly stated to be autistic. However most of the main characters have autistic traits like lack of social awareness, misophonia, learning difficulties and abnormal speech patterns. Especially Charlie is considered by a lot of viewers to be autistic. They're all horrible people and these traits play a part in that.
I personally as an autistic person find the show to be accurate representation of what being autistic is like, but yeah, it definitely doesn't show us in a positive light.
Small edit: If we listen to Word of God, Charlie Kelly is autistic according to Charlie Day. As I said the portrayal of his autism is accurate but not necessarily positive.
I think the most blatant example is Dennis since he's the only one with an actual diagnosis, but yeah pretty much every single character seems to be menatlly ill and all of them are very violent.
Also there is a character nicknamed "Psycho Pete", who is mentally ill and the gang assumes to be violent. He is however the least violent character in the whole show.
Dennis seems to suffer from dissociation. Notable in The Gang Does A Clip Show and Dennis Takes A Mental Health Day. He does canonically have BPD, so dissociation would make sense.
In the episode "Mac Is A Serial Killer" Charlie thinks Mac has DID and that is the reason he is a murderer (he doesn't and he is not the killer). But Charlie is famously a bit stupid and gets all of his information from movies.
There is a big portion of the episode where 4 of the main characters are chewing and smacking gum very loudly. They're almost doing it competitively to "show dominance". Worst case of gum chewing I've ever heard.
S15E5, ‘The Gang Goes To Ireland,’ Mac threatens to kill himself after finding out he isn’t Irish but rather Dutch. He follows it by saying it’s simply a cry for help.
Throughout season 7 Mac is shown overeating frequently and it is later revealed he has body dysmorphia and gains and loses weight unhealthily quickly.
Dennis starves himself in season 2 ep 7 "The Gang Exploits a Miracle"
Dennis reveals he frequently skips meals and exercises excessively in season 7 episode 1 "Franks Pretty Woman"
Mac mentions starving himself in season 6 ep 11"The Gang Gets Stranded in the Woods"
Dee mentions starving herself in season 10 ep 8 "The Gang Goes on Family Fight" and later faints because of this.
There's an episode centered around a jumper on the roof of the characters pub. In another episode it's mentioned that Dee tried to kill herself after being mocked by the others.
Aside from the mentioned, all members of the Gang have some kind of childhood trauma, at least Frank, Dennis and Charlie seem to be suffering from PTSD. This isn't really brought up often.
Abortions are referenced sometimes in a comedic context (ex. Charlie's mom tried to abort him but it "didn't take"). There is nothing graphic and the emotional weight of the subject isn't covered.
Two of the main characters discover their grandfather is a n**i and although he’s only in two episodes, he uses slurs towards both Jewish and black people and forced his grandchildren to listen to n**i public speakers and salute as young children. A reoccurring character is constantly called a Jew in a slightly offensive context, despite him repeatedly saying he’s not Jewish.
The characters sometimes call a trans woman (Carmen) a man and she has a very visible bulge in the first seasons which is treated as a joke. But definitely not the most transphobic depiction of trans women that I have seen. There is also a few jokes about Dennis wearing make up or women's clothes. In "Aluminum Monster Vs Fatty McGoo" Dennis weara a dress and heavy make up to prove a point and this is treated as a joke. Though I as a trans person didn't find any of the jokes involving Dennis offensive. In the episode Mac And Charlie Die Mac wears a wedding dress after getting a concussion, and him wearing a dress is played for laughs.
The entirety of season 7 is a fat joke, at Mac’s expense.
To be fair, the same actor/character gets absolutely jacked and shredded to a Hugh Jackman-as-Wolverine level. Range!
Charlie is implied to be on the ace spectrum or at least dislikes sex, his friends sometimes make fun of him for not having sex. He has also been borderline forced into having sex. The term "asexuality" is however never brought up.
Mentally ill people in this show are violent. (This doesn't seem to apply to side characters with mental illnesses.)
One of the main characters is gay and frequently tries to hit on his friend who has told him to stop.
Said gay character is also incredibly misogynistic.
The main characters say things like "Jewish people are greedy" or "Black people are violent" but this is not true even in the show, and it is usually pretty obvious that the main characters are in the wrong.
Transphobic slurs are used in episodes with Carmen, primarily season 1 ep 4 "Charlie has cancer", season 2 ep 10 "Mac is a serial killer" and season 6 ep 1 "Mac fights gay marriage"
Episodes S4E3, S6E9, S8E2, S9E9 and S14E3 all have blackface. These episodes are removed from streaming services, so you can't watch them without specifically looking for them. The characters doing it are obviously in the wrong as usual but still.
One of the main characters, Mac, is VERY religious and brings it up in like every episode. His character arc centers around his internal conflict between being gay and being Catholic.
He often uses religion as an excuse to be bigoted towards other people, especially gays and trans people.
The rest of the Gang aren't religious and religion is one of the things they fight about the most.
There are mentions of The Gang losing their virginities but it has all happened before the show started.
Dennis losing his virginity is brought up a few times and actually talked about because of its traumatic nature. (Dennis was 14 years old and he lost his virginity to an adult woman.)
The McPoyle family are recurring characters and implied to be incestuous. In one episode a character thinks he has had sex with his sister, though it turns out he didn't.
Expect discussions of sexual orientation, sexual slurs, obscene sexual language, sex toys, age gaps, stalking, seduction, and upskirting. One character (who is implied to be gay) has modified an exercise bike to equip it with a dildo that "kicks you in the ass." He claims this is for exercise and simulating biking on a steep incline, but another character calls it "the work of an extreme sexual deviant."
It's implied that Dennis is into BDSM ("I like to bind, I like to be bound!") Any sex scenes are very brief and cut in the way where you can only see faces, so nothing explicit related to BDSM is shown.
Also Mac owns a flogger that he beats himself with. It's because he's religious and insane, but y'know, it's popular in BDSM.
In Being Frank we hear Frank's thoughts and he doesn't remember his son's name. This isn't really present in any other episode. His memory issues might be because of his drug use and not dementia though.
In the episode "Charlie Wants An Abortion" the Gang talks about abortion, some being for it and some against it. The show itself doesn't really take a stance.
Mac mentions in a few episode how he thinks abortion is killing babies. Other characters vocally disagree with him.
in a very sunny Christmas, many people dressed as santa go over to a characters mom's house to prostitute her, in the same episode a Santa is brutally attacked by one of the characters
in the World Series Defense charlie pushes dennis in front of a moving car. They also try and push Schmitty from a moving car and reference that they did it successfully when they were younger