The Season 13 finale of FXX’s “ It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” will be remembered for a much-buzzed-about contemporary dance sequence that not only stopped the show, but also represented a principal character coming out to his father as a gay man.
Though Mac (played by Rob McElhenney) was revealed to be gay last season, he kept his sexuality from his father, Luther (Gregory Scott Cummins).
Titled “Mac Finds His Pride,” Wednesday’s episode saw Mac telling Luther, “Dad, I’m gay,” before stripping off his shirt and launching into a rain-soaked pas de deux with ballerina Kylie Shea.
Watch the full scene below.
McElhenney, who is also the show’s creator, told Vulture he wanted to express his character’s inner turmoil through the number and worked with choreographers Alison Faulk and Leo Moctezuma for several hours daily to perfect his moves.
Noting that the show received “overwhelming emotional response from the LGBTQ community” when Mac came out as gay in an episode that aired last year, McElhenney said, “I took it seriously and I felt it would be completely unexpected to have this much more emotionally resonant end to the season.”
Set to the tune of Sigur Rós’s “Varúð,” the number also offered McElhenney a chance to show off the chiseled bod he unveiled in a snarky Instagram post in September.
As to his decision to partner with Shea as opposed to a male dancer, he added, “We thought what would be funny about it is that it’s kind of confusing. We’ve set it up in the script that his explanation is also intensely confusing.”
“We realized if he couldn’t really verbalize what it is that’s happening to him, it doesn’t matter because he’s just hoping for someone — whether it’s God, his mom, or his dad, or his surrogate father Frank — to say that it’s all right to feel what I feel and be who I am,” he continued.