It’s Always Sunny Made A Big Mistake Killing Barbara Reynolds So Early

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia season 2 introduced Dennis and Dee’s mother Barbara Reynolds, and the show made a mistake killing the character off so early. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia arrived on FX in 2005 and revolved around the Paddy’s Pub gang. In stark contrast to many of the popular sitcoms of that era such as How I Met Your Mother, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia was shot on a tiny budget, featured no laugh track and followed a group of despicable, selfish characters.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia season 1 saw the series finding its feet, but it wasn’t much of a success. Facing cancellation, the show’s creators brought on some star power in It’s Sunny co-star Danny DeVito, who played Dennis and Dee’s father Frank. Year by year the popularity of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and its particular brand of dark, uncomfortable humor grew. While many sitcoms eventually burn themselves out or become too expensive to produce, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia is the longest-running live-action sitcom, with 15 seasons and counting.

It’s difficult to imagine It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia without Danny De Vito as part of the gang now. That said, the showrunners resisted the suggestion at first, feeling it would be a major mistake to have a name actor, and only relented when they had to choose between him or cancellation. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia started to find its formula in season 2, which also introduced Barbara Reynolds (Anne Archer), Frank’s estranged wife and Dennis and Dee’s mother. From the very first scene, Barbara is venomous and cutting and tended to steal scenes, which is why the show made a mistake killing her so early.

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Barbara Reynolds only appears in the second season, where her displays of contempt for her husband, children, charity, poverty and many other things shows just how Dennis and Dee’s worldviews were formed. It’s clear she only married Frank for his money and hid the fact he’s not even Dennis and Dee’s father from him for 30 years. Anne Archer is having a blast playing such a casual monster, but It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia season 3 that Barbara Reynolds died having an offscreen neck-lift.

On the It’s Always Sunny Podcast, the show’s stars/writers Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton and Charlie Day (I Want You Back) talk about what a great character Barbara Reynolds was, and why they shouldn’t have killed her off so suddenly. In their minds, Barbara could have been a recurring character, but so early in what would eventually become a record-breaking run, they gave no consideration to how keeping the character around might benefit It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia in the long run. Howerton, in fact, felt the show would run for about four seasons max, but in hindsight, now feels It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’sBarbara really shouldn’t have been killed off so early.

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
(3486 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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