Always Sunny: 10 Clues Dennis Gave About His Secret, Hidden Dark World

“The golden god” himself, Dennis Reynolds, is everything a man should be. He is popular with the ladies, cool, handsome, muscular, intelligent, and a host of amazing adjectives. A man who is everything that the world wants, Dennis is complete. Or, he should be.

Despite his assertions of perfection, Dennis Reynold’s inner life does not correlate with his delusions. At specific moments, his well-crafted alter ego cracks, revealing a different man underneath. Who really is Dennis Reynolds? Is he the smooth-talker who can get any woman to fall for him, or perhaps he is the leader of a gang of adults who hang around in a bar all day? And why does a man so perfect need a dark, hidden world in the first place?

10 His Rage

“I have contained my rage for as long as possible, but I shall unleash my fury upon you like the crushing of a thousand waves. Be gone, vile man! Be gone from me! A starter car? This car is a finisher car! A transporter of gods: the golden god! I am untethered, and my rage knows no bounds!”

Dennis Reynolds cannot bear to be perceived as anything other than a hyper-masculine success. When another man who fits this label tells Dennis that he would like to buy the golden god’s car for his daughter as a “starter car,” Dennis’ inner turmoil (always constantly brewing just below the surface) boils over. He is a deeply insecure man.

9 His Control Issues

Dee brings the gang to her therapist to help them decide who should do the dishes. In the therapist chair, Dennis reveals a secret fact about himself: he has been keeping detailed psychological profiles on the gang for years, using this information to expertly manipulate each one of them when he so pleases.

In the case of Dee, he has been keeping this dossier since they were children. In fact, Dennis wants the gang to always look good to others so poisoned Mac with dangerous diet pills to make his friend lose weight. Dennis’s control issues are a symptom of much deeper psychological issues. Sociopaths are often attracted to control.

8 The D.E.N.N.I.S System

Love is an impossible concept for a man who needs to control others for his ego to survive. To feed his need for control, Dennis created The D.E.N.N.I.S System: a system that parodies Red Pill ideology. The D.E.N.N.I.S system is a lifeline for a man who projects his self-hate unto women. Wanting women, but hating himself for his desires, Dennis created a system that allows him to indulge his desire and his hatred. By abusing women into trauma bonding with him, Dennis can feel the love his mother never showed him.

Although she claimed he was her favorite, Dennis was simply his mom’s golden child. Alas, a golden child is never truly loved either. Dennis aches to be truly loved by a woman, whilst also desiring to punish them for his own mother never loving him for who he was, not how good she made him look.

7 His “Tools”

Dennis’s hatred of women is a very big part of his psyche. His character is a deeply analytical look at how misogyny works in the mind of a broken male psyche. Dennis’s desire to punish women is a severe mental illness that is at the root of many of his actions. It is hinted at in his treatment of his own sister, and at the revelation of the tools in the trunk of his car. Does Dennis kidnap and torture women, or does he just have a sick fantasy to do so? His Ted Bundy-like obsession with women is a sign of a deeply disturbed man.

6 Skin Luggage

“Dee! I swear you would be of more use to me if I skinned you, and turned your skin into a lampshade. Or fashioned you into a piece of high-end luggage. I could even add you to my collection.”

“Are you saying that you have a collection of skin luggage?”

“Of course I’m not Dee! Don’t be ridiculous. Think of the smell! You haven’t thought of the smell, you *****! Now, you say another word and, I swear to God, I will dice you into a million pieces, and put those pieces in a box – a glass box that I will display on my mantle. Alright! Now that that’s settled, we can have a normal conversation!”

In an episode about mental health, Dennis reveals just how unhealthy he is. In another episode, Dee accuses Dennis of wanting to become a vet just so he could keep the skin, and Dennis agrees that animal skins are fascinating to him. Is this what Dennis’s tools are for?

5 His Makeup

In a now removed episode of the show, titled “Dee Day,” Dee forces Dennis to remove all his makeup and beauty enhancements. Her objective is to crumble Dennis’s self-esteem and humiliate him by making him look unattractive. Without the makeup, fake pecs, and fake muscles, Dennis is a shell of the man he usually is.

He is balding, with bad skin and bad physique. Dee’s plan works and audiences watch an arrogant man suddenly slouch and cower in public, afraid to be seen. It is obvious that Dennis’s arrogance and superiority complex is a cover for something. Dee helps audiences to visually see how Dennis feels about himself on the inside.

4 The Gang Group Dates

Dennis cannot handle rejection. He began to create this persona of an arrogant cool jock in high school when he felt rejected by the cool kids. Although they never actually rejected him, Dennis was so insecure, and felt too vulnerable, that he rejected them before they could reject him. Knowing that Frank rejected and abused the twins – and made their childhood a living hell – Dennis’s insecurity makes sense.

When the gang group dates, Dennis’s perfectly curated faux identity comes crashing down. Emotionally healthy women do not find him charming or attractive. They are, instead, turned off by his creepiness.

3 The Implication

Dennis is not good with women at all. He specifically targets naïve and insecure women, because they are the only ones not able to see how creepy and disturbing his behavior is. A man who has many bench warrants for sexual misconduct, Dennis mostly commits sexual harassment, misconduct, (and possibly assault) against women. This means that Dennis’s boasts of being a playboy are not true. Obviously, a man who uses the threat of rape to get a woman to sleep with him is not a man who women actually want to sleep with of their own free will.

2 Time’s Up

The gang takes on the Me Too movement in “Time’s Up For The Gang.” Dennis, rightfully afraid that he would be caught up in the Me Too movement, manipulates the gang into signing up for a course on sexual misconduct in the workplace. He ends the seminar with a presentation on how he avoids being accused of sexual assault: by hacking into women’s phones after he coerces them into sleeping with him and sending himself a text giving him full consent after the fact. Once again, Dennis is a manipulative sociopath who destroys people’s lives as a form of pleasure.

1 Wolf Cola

In an attempt to clean up the PR mess that is Wolf Cola, Dennis tells Frank and Dee that they all have 24-hours to take control of the narrative. Before the interview, Dennis berates Frank and Dee for not being sophisticated enough to pull a successful PR interview. However, Dennis’s visible discomfort with a dog in the studio raises a much controversial issue. Dennis does not like dogs. He believes that humans are hypocritical because they pick and choose which animals are pets and which are food.

While what he says is accurate, the reason for his belief is, nonetheless, dark. Dennis is jealous of everyday people who can obtain joy from dogs, where he can’t. Deep down is a longing to be normal, and to be able to love. Unfortunately for him, his upbringing destroyed his normalcy.