It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Review:
"The Gang Hits the Road" (Episode 5.02)

And what better way to do that than in the cramped confines of a road trip! Yes, even though Charlie has never left Philadelphia, they've decided to hitch up the U-Haul and head for the Grand Canyon. It was obvious from the outset that they would never get outside the city limits, but it's the journey, not the destination that counts.

And they're barely a few minutes into that journey before the car gets held up by a road-hogging cyclist and Mac "fires a beer across his bow," resulting in a painful-looking wipeout and a few flat tires. They switch over to Dee's new car, and Frank and Dennis break off to ride in the trailer. Then, they decide to stop at Philly's Italian Market since Charlie's never had a pear before, which gave us another entry in the show's lexicon of catchphrase-worthy exchanges:

Mac: Did you eat the stickers that are all over it?

Charlie: Yeah, it was gross.

Mac: Of course it's gross, it's a sticker!

Charlie: I eat stickers all the time, dude!

After picking up a hitchhiker and conning him into driving, Dee serenades him to a Soul Asylum cassette while telling him how much gay porn he's going to end up doing if he runs away to Hollywood. Then she tosses the contents of her pee jar out her window, soaking Mac. The Gang ends up passed-out in the trailer, and awake the next morning in front of Paddy's to find Dee's car stolen. There was a great (and slightly heartbreaking) moment of truth-telling when Mac, after his "ocular assessment" of the hitchhiker proved wrong, revealed how he sees himself as the "sheriff of Paddy's".

The Gang being split into car-riding and trailer-riding groups was a unique take on the usual A-plot / B-plot narrative structure, although there was none of last episode's awesome meta hand-wringing about how to bring the plots together. And like last week, the filming was done on a notably higher-quality camera, which detracts slightly from the show's gritty, verité charm.

This episode's plot was almost nonexistent, but that worked to its advantage. It's Always Sunny isn't about camera stock or set pieces. It's about five extremely unlikable people who can't see a world outside of themselves. The five core actors are obviously extremely comfortable with those roles, and the result is some superb character acting. "The Gang Hits the Road" may not be the series' best episode, but it ranks pretty high.