Let's Talk about the Bathroom Situation...

No, not The Bathroom Problem (that was solved in Season 13), and not Charlie’s bathroom reveal (and subsequent re-hiding) in Season 16, either; I’m talking about the bathroom debate that’s existed amongst Sunny fans for over a decade now: Mac and Dennis’ bathroom situation. 

For a show that loves to joke about piss and shit all the time, there’s a surprising lack of bathroom appearances in one of Sunny’s more-featured locations, Mac and Dennis’ apartment (Seasons 10-12 notwithstanding, yet still inclusive). In fact, over the span of sixteen seasons, we’ve seen only a few snippets of Dennis’ bathroom (in Aluminum Monster and Dee Gives Birth, though it’s mentioned a couple more times on top of that, i.e. in The Gang Gets Romantic), and there’s never been a single mention (let alone sighting) of another bathroom in their apartment. This omission has created a long-standing debate among fans of the show as to whether or not “Mac’s Bathroom” exists. 

The assumption that Mac has a bathroom hinges on two main ideas: 

1. It’s unlikely a two-bed, one-bath apartment has its only bathroom as an ensuite (though not unheard of, especially in a WWI-era rent-stabilized building like the one Mac and Dennis live in), and there are multiple doors in the apartment that we’ve ‘never’ seen behind, which could contain a second bathroom; and 
2. Mac exclusively refers to the bathroom in Dennis’ room as “your bathroom” or “Dennis’ bathroom." 

Addressing 1. the case of the apartment layout and the “mystery doors” in Mac and Dennis’ apartment...

The first door that could contain Mac's Bathroom is inside his bedroom: 

Most logically where his bathroom would be, however near impossible to actually be a bathroom due to the layout of their apartment. The other side of Mac’s interior wall is the living room, and the thickness of that wall would make room in that space for a shallow closet, at best: 

However, with some suspension of disbelief, it can be imagined that the room behind that door is large enough for a small ensuite (as Mac's bedroom logically must jut out deeper than the living room wall, this is only a slightly smaller stretch of the imagination). 

The second door that could contain Mac's Bathroom is the one opposite Mac’s bedroom door in the kitchen:

This could be a bathroom, however in the second season this door is actually seen to be leading to the interior hallway of the apartment building: 

Due to the set of Mac and Dennis' apartment being reworked in the third season and forward, the front door was reestablished to be the door in the living room we are currently familiar with. Though, since Mac and Dennis are fictional characters supposedly still living in the same apartment since 1998, is believing the kitchen door became Mac's Bathroom any different than accepting the layout of Mac and Dennis' bedroom doors changed? Some think not, but many prefer to believe that door is a blocked off exit to the hallway or just became a closet (once again thinking about the layout of the apartment, anything behind that door would intersect with the building's hallway).

Addressing 2. the case of Mac’s phrasing... 

This is damning evidence for some toward the existence of Mac’s Bathroom, following the idea that “Dennis’ Bathroom” is named as such because “Mac’s Bathroom” exists. The claim follows that it would be referred to as “the bathroom” or “our bathroom” if Mac was also using it. However, many see Mac's choice of language as nothing to do with the bathroom situation itself, but simply reenforcement of Mac and Dennis’ dynamic in apartment ownership. As established in Mac Fights Gay Marriage, the apartment is only in Dennis’ name, and Dennis believes that means he has a right to claim anything in it as solely his. The bathroom being inside Dennis’ room means it “belongs” to him whether or not it is also the bathroom Mac uses, the possessive language simply reenforces the idea that Dennis is in control and Mac is simply afforded the luxury of getting to live in his space (and he abides by that idea). 

There is another argument for/against Mac’s Bathroom that I've seen: the fact that in Mac and Dennis Move to the Suburbs the pair specify that they need an apartment with at least two bathrooms: 

As they’re looking for a place similar to their old apartment, this can be interpreted as what they used to have. However, it could also be just as true that they’re stating this as what they’re hoping to find in escaping living with Dee, as they’ve been dealing with sharing her ensuite between the three of them for well over a year at that point (with very little complaining, all things considered). 

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So there are multiple cases for Mac’s Bathroom existing, yet they all have reasonable rebuttals attached to them. Just pulling from canon, it really is up to personal interpretation and/or individual preference whether or not Mac’s Bathroom exists (hence why the debate is so long-standing). 

Personally, I’ve always preferred to take the one-bathroom side of the argument for a very simple reason: it’s funnier. There’s a heap of comedic potential built into their dynamic as roommates when you consider the fact that Mac always needs access to Dennis’ bedroom in order to use the bathroom (and the fact that Dennis can easily block Mac’s access to the bathroom if he wants to). Taking into account how often they get pissed at each other, how often they like to fuck with each other, and the fact that Mac has a tendency to burst into Dennis’ room uninvited and/or unwelcome, it’s hard to argue that Dennis being able to (quite literally) gatekeep the toilet from Mac wouldn’t make sense as a perfect part of their insane dynamic. 

However, I’m nothing if not desperate to know what the creators/writers/actors of this very dynamic believe, so when Glenn Howerton returned to my city this weekend to promote his whiskey, Four Walls, I had to take it upon myself to finally get the question across to him (and maybe get an answer). 

Not to lead Glenn any specific way, I simply phrased the question: “How many bathrooms do Mac and Dennis have in their apartment?” 

As you can imagine, his answer made me incredibly happy to hear, but of course Glenn is just one (albeit, major) cog in the wheel that creates canon, so I won’t claim this is definitive proof Mac’s Bathroom does not exist, but it is a great addition to the debate..…though I wonder how Rob would respond? I'll have to ask him one day (if the answer isn’t addressed on Sunny before I’m able to get the question to him). 

And, all that being said, are there any Mac’s Bathroom truthers still out there? Did I miss anything majorly-damning in the case-for?

Let me know,

Seth

Couch Math

The Gang Inflates quickly became one of my all-time favorite episodes from the moment it aired. It’s not only a great example of what Sunny’s humor is, but a hard nod to the audience that, while a lot has changed over the years and the characters are clearly growing, they’re still committed to keeping the Gang stuck in their ways. Things are “blown up” to try and spur the Gang to move forward, yet they all end up in the same place they began, proving they can’t (or won’t) move forward:

Mac and Dennis blow up a couch to replace their old one, inspiring Dennis to pitch a new business idea he has complete confidence in (despite the fact that he had just high-fived Mac over trading a ten dollar bill for a five). Mac easily proves he can’t even make good decisions for himself while Dennis proves that not only does he have terrible business sense in the market (inflatable furniture), he also has bad business sense with investments (Charlie’s TMNT pies). Charlie washes out their debt, but they’re in their mid-40s now and provenly no closer to being able to fend for themselves.

Dee’s life is blown up when she is forcibly evicted from her apartment. Displaced, she has to glue herself to the walls of the Gang’s apartments to keep from being pushed out. Frank is the only one who has given her security and it's only because he literally owns the ground she walks on. Charlie gets her back into her apartment, but she’s been with these guys for two decades and she still has to stick herself into every situation to keep from being ignored.

Charlie’s doors are blown down as Frank refuses to hear out his investment opportunity, intent on making changes in an uncomfortable way. Charlie just wants Frank to take him seriously, hear him out on his investment, but the man won’t do that, so he has to go the long route instead. His clear sense of business-talk convinces Dennis to invest, and while it immediately turns out to be seen as another ‘worthless’ Charlie investment, it actually proves that Charlie does understand business tactic (more-so, the manipulation side of things). He didn’t set out on his endeavor to trade the pies off to Frank, he wanted to go in on them together, but he uses what he’s learned in order to keep ahold of what they know—to maintain the status-quo and put everything back to how it’s always been. 

In my opinion, it’s the perfect season opener: we’re not going anywhere, and while the Gang are going to keep trying to move forward, they’re not going anywhere either. But with that being said, one thing did go somewhere this episode: my title subject—Mac and Dennis’ couch.

For as far as we know, that thing is gone for good (and, the inflatable furniture may be here to stay). And while they’re very proud of the fact that they’ve had it for so long (albeit, rented, not owned), they’re ready to move on, and have already chucked it by the time we enter the opening scene of the season. (What spurred this? I’d say it’s pretty fun to let your imagination run wild and free on that question.) What immediately struck me as interesting is the claim of longevity of their couch: fifteen years. 

You could go the simple route of chalking it up as a nod to the audience: we’re entering the sixteenth season, so they have fifteen seasons behind them, and thus “fifteen years,” with the couch, but since Season 15 made the conscious decision to keep the show in the present-day, one season = one year no longer works for the characters. So how do we figure that Mac and Dennis, as characters living in 2023, claim they’ve had their couch for fifteen years?

They’ve been roommates for well over fifteen years, but have they had their couch for longer than fifteen years? Well yes, but also no. 

Their signature black leather couch doesn’t actually make an appearance until Season 2 (Season 1 featured a three-seater, brown couch), so we can assume they got it in 2006. Now that would still put Mac and Dennis’ couch over fifteen years in 2023, until you factor in the period of time in which they definitely didn’t have their couch—Seasons 10-12. 

Thanksgiving 2013, Mac and Dennis' apartment burns down (and thus, their couch burns too) and move in with Dee for a couple of years. In the beginning of 2017, Mac restores their apartment to its exact-likeness, black leather couch included (side note: finding out they rent that thing actually makes Mac look a little less insane for being able to perfectly replace their furniture after the fire).

So they had their couch from 2006 through 2013, about eight years, and then once again from 2017 through 2023, about seven years, to bring us to:

Fifteen years, calculated by combining two periods of time broken up by major displacement, Dennis leaving and returning, a world pandemic, but it’s now that they’re moving on. This episode everyone was displaced, yet they all returned right where they began, but the couch seemingly didn’t. 

Was it simply thrown out for a plot device? Fifteen years stated only as a nod to the show’s milestone? Or is letting go of the couch telling of something further defining? Fifteen years, reached only by constantly returning and scraping together botched time, finally put behind them? Is this, being the one lasting change from the episode, a hint that Mac and Dennis are finally ready to let go of something familiar and accept something new?

Since we never physically return to their apartment in Season 16, that remains to be seen.