It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (IASIP) is officially one of the longest-running American sitcoms, and for good reason: it’s absolutely hysterical. Following the adventures of “the gang” at Paddy’s Pub, consisting of Charlie, Mac, Dennis, and Dee, they find themselves getting into a variety of twisted and harebrained schemes that often fail in hilariously extreme ways. The show originally started airing in 2005, and, after securing legendary actor Danny Devito as a regular cast member, skyrocketed in terms of popularity. From there, the show seemed to get more and more unhinged with every season, turning what was originally a group of selfish people into borderline cartoon characters, all while diving into increasingly surreal episode topics and scenarios.

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Unafraid of pushing boundaries and experimenting with the sitcom format, Season 16 of FX’s golden goose is now officially in production, according to a report by Bleeding Cool. The gang have done just about everything there is to do across over 150 episodes, which begs the question: what exactly do we want to see from Season 16?

Ideas from The Always Sunny Podcast

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The Always Sunny Podcast, if you weren’t aware, has been an absolute haven of hilarious IASIP content in recent years. Primarily featuring the show’s creators (Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, and Glenn Howerton) along with writer Megan Ganz, the quartet watch through IASIP episode by episode, reminiscing and discussing the production of each one along the way. In-between technical details and funny memories, the discussion often veers onto off-topic subjects, which sometimes include potential episode ideas.

You’d be shocked at just how much potential these one-off ideas have for a full-length episode, including Dennis trapping his car in a parking garage, the gang somehow ending up in space, Paddy’s Pub attempting a food delivery service, and the bar being haunted. All of these ideas can, if given the right amount of care and development, lead to utterly fantastic episodes.

The Gang Reflects Real Life

Occasionally, the gang at Paddy’s Pub tends to get into shenanigans that often reflect contemporary issues or ideas, to mixed results. Episodes like “The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis” and “The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award” handle the respective ideas of the Global Financial Crisis and the show’s own inability to win an Emmy, with both being some of the best episodes the series has to offer. Conversely, “The Gang Beats Boggs: Ladies Reboot” and “Gun Fever Too: Still Hot” are still entertaining enough but don’t necessarily take full advantage of a ladies-only reboot or gun control topic, respectively. Still, an attempt was made, and even the worst episodes of IASIP are still thoroughly fun.

In 2022 alone, we saw the exponential rise and subsequent fall of non-fungible tokens, the onset of the war in Ukraine, artificial intelligence tools ballooning into the public space, and too many pop culture phenomena to list. IASIP has never been a show to distance itself away from controversy, and some of the episodes that can arise from these topics practically write themselves.

The Gang Goes Globetrotting

We’ve seen the gang do just about everything by this point. Mac and Dennis lived in the suburbs, the gang traveled to the Great Lakes, and they even went to the Super Bowl (sans Charlie). Season 15 brought with it another new location for the gang to terrorize, one that may just set a precedent for new episodes to come: Ireland.

The episodes “The Gang Goes to Ireland,” “The Gang’s Still in Ireland,” “Dee Sinks in a Bog,” and “The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain” were part of a significant change-up for the series, as all four separate episodes loosely connected together into a single Ireland-themed story arc. It started humorously enough before becoming something much greater, culminating in Charlie getting a genuinely emotional moment tied to his absent father. While we don’t necessarily need a similar progression of events, having the gang go globetrotting in a variety of locations opens the door for a huge variety of comedic situations.

A Possible Wrexham Cameo

Recently, series co-creator Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds officially purchased the Wrexham A.F.C. football club, a team centered in northeast Wales. A series documenting the duo and their involvement with the team, Welcome to Wrexham, officially premiered on Hulu late last year. Along with wanting to improve the team itself, both McElhenney and Reynolds also learn about Wales and aim to bring positive change to the region despite their inexperience in managing a sports team.

Would it be a stretch to assume that, at some point, either Ryan Reynolds himself will make a guest appearance on IASIP, or the gang get involved in some football-related antics? Reynolds already said he’d like a cameo on the show at some point or another, joking that he’d either be a background character or even Mac’s boyfriend, according to ScreenRant. It’d be on-brand for IASIP to comment on McElhenny’s responsibilities to other shows since they did the very same thing for Glenn Howerton’s brief disappearance in Season 13.