It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

For this week's assignment we had to watch a television show that we had never seen before.  The first time we watched it the volume had to be down and then we had to watch it again with the volume up.  I am a TV junkie so finding a show that I had never seen before was a little challenging.  On Wednesday night I was up super late and was scrolling through the guide and discovered
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia.

The episode opens with a group of people dressed nicely drinking beers in a parking lot.  There were 4 males and one female and I could tell that they were friends based on their interactions with each other.  I immediately recognized Danny Devito as one of the males, but he was much older than the rest of the group so I was not sure how he fit in with everyone else.  Based on the clothing that everyone was wearing I could tell that they were either coming from or going to a formal gathering. The nonverbal cue that I observed that led me to believe they were friends were smiles, gestures of cheers, and they all threw their beer bottles on the ground at the same time and then hi fived each other afterwards. They all walk to a building and a security guard stops them, words are exchanged and Danny Devitos character is not admitted inside.
 The group of friends were going to their high school reunion and based off their expressions I could tell that all had different feelings about it.  As they get closer to the registration table they notice a man sitting there and two of the friends stop walking and go in another direction. The other two continued walking to the table and spoke to the guy sitting there.  They found their name tags and met up with the other friends inside the reunion.

I watched the show again with the volume and learned who the character were.  The female in the group is Dee, and the other males are Dennis, Mac, Charlie, and Frank.  Danny Devitos character is Frank.  I was right that they were all friends that went that went to high school together.  The beer smashing is something that they did while in school and continue to do.  I leaned that Frank did not attend the high school and that is why he was not admitted in.  I still don't know how Frank fits into the group, but they all are friends.  Based off the conversation in the parking lot, they were all excited because they had changed so much and wanted the poplar group to notice.

Some of my assumptions about the show were right, but others I would not have guessed without the volume.  The group of friends were not popular in school and wanted to be popular now.  The reason Charlie avoided the guy at the table was because he played a cruel joke on him and  was afraid.  Dee spent all of her years in a body cast, and Mac was embarrassed by his name, Ronald McDonald.  The were picked on all throughout school and were given nicknames by the popular crowd.  The reunion did not seem to be a positive experience for any of them, but they were still cheerful and funny.  Seeing that without she volume I would have never known what was going on.

If this were a show that I watched on a regular basis then I believe my assumptions would have been correct because I was familiar with the show.  I did some research on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and learned that it premiered in 2005 and this particular episode was from 2011.  There is a lot of history that I don't know about and if I had watched it from the beginning I would know more about each character.