It’s Always Sunny – Season 18 Episodes Ranked

Get out your toe knives, soak your rum hams and dunk on the jabronis – it’s that time of year where we get ten more helpings of Sunny, baby!

There have now been eighteen seasons of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”. Eighteen! This record-breaking comedy continues to delight and horrify … but how would I rank every episode from its latest season?

Before we begin, you can check out some of my related blog posts below:

It’s Always Sunny – Season 17 Episodes Ranked

It’s Always Sunny – Season 16 Episodes Ranked

EVERY It’s Always Sunny Episode Ranked

EVERY Friends Episode Ranked

10 – Gilligan’s Island: A Conspiracy Theorist’s Paradise

Rating: D+

Season 18 marked the first time since Season 14 that we were gifted ten episodes of Sunny instead of eight. This sounds incredible on paper … but in practice, that means episodes like “Gilligan’s Island: A Conspiracy Theorist’s Paradise” made the cut when it really shouldn’t have.

It follows Mac and Charlie as they try to work out why “Gilligan’s Island” didn’t make it to a hundred episodes. Quite an antiquated premise for 2026 audiences. It’s a bizarre, dream-like series of hallucinations and conspiracies that results in a predictable and underbaked ending.

This is one of the worst-rated Sunny episodes on IMDb, which I think is harsh. Some of the jokes were okay. The premise, and execution, were ambitious if nothing else. In other words, I probably wouldn’t put this in my bottom ten Sunny episodes … but it does come in last place for Season 18.

9 – 2026: A Virtual Insanity

Rating: C

As a big fan of Jamiroquai, I was pumped when the Gang were heading to one of their concerts. I should’ve known the premise was too good to be true.

“2026: A Virtual Insanity” ends up being, as the name suggests, a kind of critique of modern day America. It never quite knows what foot to stand on, and a lot of the jokes fell flat for me, but I got what they were going for.

8 – The Gang Gets Tested

Rating: C+

“The Gang Gets Tested” is one of the highest-rated episodes of the season, which makes what I’m about to say a spicy take – I thought it was mostly underwhelming.

It ended up being a very timid look at mental health issues, and most of the plotlines were boring. Dennis, Dee and Mac studying for exams goes nowhere interesting, and Frank “mentoring” the unwitting student feels like a rehash of previous Frank plots. In other words, this episode felt like the reheated leftovers of unoriginal ideas.

I did really like the Charlie subplot, though. It’s kinda similar to “Flowers For Charlie”, but the medical professionals fawning over Charlie’s one-of-a-kind brain got a laugh out of me.

7 – The War on Alcohol

Rating: B-

Now that Sunny is 21 years old, it’s old enough to drink in the USA. Really makes you think – and what’s even more fitting is that “The War on Alcohol” is a meta episode about drinking’s place in modern society.

There are two solid plotlines in this – Mac and Charlie aim to entice blue collar workers to Paddy’s whereas Dennis, Dee and Frank accidently work in an advertising firm – and the ending where they banish automation (and non-alcoholic beer) from their bar is typical Gang.

6 – Frank Marries a Corpse

Rating: B-

The Gang always knows how to shock and disturb general audiences – especially when it comes to their season openers.

“Frank Marries a Corpse” is the follow-up to Season 17’s finale “The Golden Bachelor Live”, where Frank is due to marry Sam. It’s a series of insane scenes, like Uncle Jack’s puppet and the wedding itself, and it was an overall good time.

5 – The Guys Have a Sleepover

Rating: B-

I cannot for the life of me work out why this episode is so highly regarded by fans. Is it because fearmongering fans hyped it up as a potential finale to the whole series? Is it because of the touching heart-to-heart between Dennis and Charlie near the end? Either way, this absolutely does not deserve a 9/10 rating on IMDb – making it one of the top-rated episodes in the show’s history. It’s absurd.

Anyway, that’s my rant out of the way. This finale was still good. Bet that surprised you after all my negativity, huh?

The setup of the episode is great. Dee is temporarily blinded from LASIK surgery and asks the guys to sleepover / look after her – and the guys, of course, ditch her and run their own sleepover.

What docks this episode a few points, however, was how mundane it felt. It’s a lot of talking, a fair bit of plotting, and it only really comes together in the last few seconds. But it was an entertaining final few seconds, I must admit.

4 – Mac and Dennis Tear Their ACLs

Rating: B

I know I just complained about “The Guys Have a Sleepover” being uneventful and all talk, but I loved how laid-back and cosy “Mac and Dennis Tear Their ACLs” felt. It kinda reminded me of “Mac and Dennis Break Up” from Season 5.

It’s a fun look at their complicated home life, and Charlie as the mediator was great – I love when he plays the “straight man” in an episode. The subplot of Frank and Dee stealing from the hardware store also served up the laughs.

3 – Dennis and Dee Don’t Get Rich

Rating: B

“Dennis and Dee Don’t Get Rich” follows the aftermath of the morbid wedding from the season opener – and it somehow upped the stakes and shock factor even further.

Dennis and Dee’s exploits in the morgue had some of the funniest gags of the season, like them taking the thumb and smashing every drawer on the way out, and the carnival ending was a blast. For Sam’s corpse especially.

Mac’s subplot also leads to his incarcerated dad finally escaping prison after eighteen seasons. I’m kinda scared for whatever the writers are cooking up …

2 – Frank’s Team: A Dark Day for Baseball

Rating: B+

There were two episodes this season that I would bill as “classics”, and one of them came out of nowhere – “Frank’s Team: A Dark Day for Baseball” should’ve been filler but it was actually killer.

When Frank buys a little league baseball team on a whim, the rest of the Gang sink their grubby paws into every aspect of its management – from the coaching to the analytics.

Every scene here was great, be it the bizarre coaching sessions or the heated arguments with the opposition coaches, and the ending where ICE deport all the foreign kids was unexpected yet hilarious.

1 – The Gang Goes to the Ren Faire

Rating: B+

“The Gang Goes to the Ren Faire” was the episode I was most looking forward to in Season 18, and it delivered on all fronts.

Ren Faire culture is ripe for parody, and the writers take the premise and run with it. Everything from the horny subculture to the nerdy passersby was perfect.

The best part of the episode, as they usually are whenever they appear, was the McPoyles. Liam and Ryan are always a blast but Pappy McPoyle – played by legendary director Guillermo del Toro once more – steals the show. He and Frank have amazing, antagonistic chemistry.

This episode also had what I thought was the funniest scene of the season. After Dennis sleeps with a poor woman, Charlie – brandishing his lyre – emerges from the shadows, unable to explain what he’d just seen. I was dying from laughter.

Season Rating: C+

It’s still early days, so I don’t know how the rest of the Sunny fandom feels … but this felt like the weakest season of the show in a while, probably since Season 14. The show had been getting funnier and funnier over the last few years but this one just felt average. Can’t win ’em all, I guess!

Aaaaand that’s my list! You can check out some of my latest blog posts below: