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Dee Reynolds - Character Analysis of the Overburdened Self

Please read this disclaimer / introduction post first

Word Count: 1,398 Read Time: 6 minutes

Finally under the microscope comes Sweet Dee Reynolds, who we will be analysing through Kohut’s concept of the Overburdened Self. One of the key characteristics of the Overburdened Self is they suffer a trauma of “unshared emotionality”. For Dee, this manifests most prevalently in her relationship with her mother. From her birth until her final words in her will, Barbara treats Dee with disdain and apathy. In “The Gang Goes Jihad” (S02E02), we see Dee interact with her mother face-to-face for the first time; Dee hugs her mother and Barbara doesn’t hug back, she accuses Dee of ‘blaming’ Dennis for her misfortunes instead of taking responsibility, and criticises her appearance, all in the span of one minute. In this same episode Frank implies she was rarely home to take care of Dennis and Dee, and she was cheating on Frank with Bruce Mathis, who we know is Dennis and Dee’s real father due to the events of “Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad” (S02E10). In Dee’s final interaction with her mother in “Dennis and Dee’s Mom Is Dead” (S03E03), Barbara tells Dee she was a mistake through her will, and leaves her nothing to inherit. 

Kohut goes on to describe Overburdened individuals as lacking the ability to self-soothe. We are given numerous examples of Dee using alcohol and drugs as a method of soothing herself as an Understimulated individual might, however we see her sober coping mechanisms for her inability to self-soothe often manifest in rage. The show & characters themselves make fun of Dee’s inability to self-soothe and tendency to become infuriated in “The Gang Goes to Hell” (S11E09), wherein Dennis instructs Dee not to fall to the sin of ‘wrath’ while they’re away on holiday. Dee, much like the rest of the gang, cannot resist her urges, and ends up assaulting a woman for stealing her seat at the pool and making fun of her during her magic act.

We are continually given numerous examples of Dee being unable to contain her rage, my personal favourite examples are in the episode “PTSDee” (S12E07) where throughout the episode we see Dee doing numerous kind acts for Mike the Stripper who described sex with her as his ‘rock bottom’, until the end of the episode where her actions culminate in Mike giving his own daughter a very intimate lap dance without his or his daughters informed consent, simply so that Dee can say that she was NOT his ‘rock bottom’. The other example comes from “The Gang Gets New Wheels” (S13E05) where Dee befriends two women over their Range Rovers, when one of the women simply remarks that Dee has never been married. For this, Dee decides to cuck her by sleeping with her husband, and accidentally sleeps with her underage son instead.

Finally, Kohut describes the Overburdened self as someone who sees the world as inherently dangerous and their environments hostile. I think it’s interesting to note that Dee is someone who surrounds herself with the gang, who are people who don’t value her and are constantly hostile towards her, which I believe she does subconsciously to validate this internal belief she has that the world is inherently hostile. When Dee is directly confronted with someone who has managed to navigate the “hostile” world and make a living for themselves, it has a profound effect on Dee and she becomes frazzled and unsure of herself as her idea that the world is dangerous is shaken, which often leads to her attempting to ruin their life in some way. 

Kohut denotes that, much like the Fragmenting self, Overburdened individuals often feel attacked from the “hostile outside world” after a direct narcissistic injury. We see how Dee seems to spiral when she is confronted by the fact that she didn’t live up to everything she had planned for herself from a young age. In The Gang Gets a New Member (S06E08) we see how Dee is confronted with the fact that she did not fulfil her dreams of becoming an actress as she had previously thought 10 years earlier. We see how this deeply affects her, and she immediately begins trying to right this wrong that the world has forced upon her, which she fails at, only succeeding at injuring her teacher and embarrassing herself. We see this exact same behaviour in the episode Frank Reynolds' Little Beauties (S07E03) where she is reminded of her pageantry days, and the way her mother treated her and how at the time she was able to “prove her wrong”. This leads to her inserting herself into the competition and attaching herself to one of the younger competitors who she relates to due to her perceived position as the “underdog”. We watch as Dee relives her glory days in an attempt to reassure herself that she is not only still as beautiful as she was then, but that she is still better than how her mother made her feel, all whilst simultaneously dissing her mother and the mother of this random child. This, of course, leads to nothing, and she walks away in the wreckage of the show. 

Aside from the gang, her parents, and the Waitress, Dee interacts with three notable people from her past throughout the course of the series: Matthew Mara (Rickety Cricket), Ingrid Nelson (Fatty Magoo) and Bill Ponderosa. When we first meet Cricket in “The Gang Exploits a Miracle” (S02E07), we see how Dee is indifferent towards Cricket’s success with his mobility after having leg braces in his youth, and with his new position as a priest, but when the gang starts to imply that she couldn’t manipulate him anymore because she’s getting “too old”, she quickly changes her path and convinces him to drop out of the priesthood to be with her, which marks the beginning of Cricket’s life perpetually spiralling downward. For the duration of the series, she refuses to acknowledge that she played a part in Cricket’s life falling apart, or that she might be the problem, not the dangerous, hostile world around them. 

Next we meet Ingrid Nelson in “The Aluminum Monster vs. Fatty Magoo” (S03E05). Upon remeeting Ingrid, Dee realises she has lost weight and become incredibly successful in her field since leaving high school, which shakes Dee, prompting her to lie about her own life to seem successful in her eyes. We see her for the duration of the episode desperately attempt to design her own clothes and follow in Ingrid’s footsteps, but due to her lack of skills and knowledge she ends up failing and taking her frustration out directly on Ingrid by attempting to have her arrested for Mac and Frank’s sweatshop. When Dee is unable to navigate the “hostile” world to get what she wants, she instead tries to drag those who are successful down to her level in order to re-establish that world is hostile not only to her, but to everyone.

Lastly we meet Bill Ponderosa in “Mac Fights Gay Marriage” (S06E01). Before she sees him again she is incredibly nervous, but when she realises he has gotten fat and settled down with a family she visibly relaxes and decides she no longer needs him; the world was cruel to him too, and she can no longer use him to make herself feel better, and thus she leaves. Later, she realises she still stands to gain from sleeping with him, and brags about the relationship to the gang despite the fact that they’re against it, and we see Dee refuse to take responsibility for sleeping with Bill or for kidnapping his children when his wife confronts her at the end of “Dennis Gets Divorced” (S06E02). Much like Cricket, we then watch Bill’s life spiral out of control, and Dee continues to feel no remorse nor responsibility for her actions, blaming everyone and everything but herself for what happened; bad things only happen to her, caused by the hostile world that she was born into. 

When Dee is confronted with people from her past that are successful in any way, she feels offended, and needs to tear them down to her level of disaster or loss, often tearing them far below her to a point beyond repair. She becomes the hostile world, but believes that the world is hostile to her rather than recognising that it is often her own behaviour that is holding her back, not the world.

Find the other character analyses below:

Charlie - The Understimulated Self Dennis - The Fragmenting Self Mac - The Overstimulated Self

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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia // S15E08: The Gang Carries a Corpse Up a Mountain 

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😖😃😃🤨

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Sweet Dee in "The Gang Goes Bowling" It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (2005-)

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13 DAYS UNTIL SUNNY SWEET 16:

Day 5 & 6 – The Gang + physical affection

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Sweet Dee in "The Gang Goes Bowling" It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (2005-)

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sweet dee my beloved

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"The Frige-It Bitches"

I signed us up, I booked the lane, I made us shirts. I even found us an appliance company to sponsor us.

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yeah ok so maybe i’m still thinking about them

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this scene where dennis casually refers to dee as his friend stuck with me because i initially thought it was hilarious that he friendzoned his actual twin sister but then i became obsessed because. they’re literally friends 😭😭😭😭 they WILL leave each other’s asses the moment trouble strikes and they’re each other’s #1 target of bullying BUT THEY WILL ALWAYS COME BACK TO EACH OTHER. their bond is thicker than circumstance. they devoured their triplet in the womb. their team-ups are ruthless and destructive to those around them. and on top of it all they’re friends!! they're dance partners. they scheme to exploit welfare & get addicted to crack together. they instinctively reach for each other when they’re scared. “deandra's gonna side with dennis—that's a given.” the chardee macdennis game teams naturally pair dennis & dee. in dennis's ideal universe dee doesn't have the forehead injury she got from falling on the ground. dennis shields her when a food fight erupts during thanksgiving dinner. dee gives dennis a soft smile underwater even though she'd just said "whatever" in response to his "i love you, sis" right before they think they're going to die drowning. do you See. do you Understand. twins by chance, friends by CHOICE 💪🔥 their toxic codependent sibling slay...

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I noticed you were wearing a hat, that’s pretty cool. I don’t see a lot of girls wearing hats, you know? And I’m wearing a hat, too. It’s like we’re hat twins.

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dee is a tragic character because of the silent faces she makes while dennis is talking about the gutter ball and trying to rile her up. she's trying so hard not to have a reaction so that he wont pounce on it. reminds me of that bit from chardee macdennis where mac and charlie talk about how good dee is at not rising to their personal insults. how it got really personal but she didnt appear bothered at all. thinking about how she must have had to learn that skill because of dennis. who jumps on any insecurity and exploits it. who wont let her have one day out with her friends. who twists the narrative and pits her against other women so she wont rely on them. who wont let her have one small thing to herself without trying to ruin it. who wont even bother to stick around and see her win. so she has to stay silent and pretend not to care. has to bury everything deep down. so that he doesnt take more things from her. doesnt find even more ways to hurt her.

she barely flinches when the waitress tells her she doesnt like her and that she's ugly. but she looks shocked that she is standing up for her.

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Sweet Dee and her plaid shacket— Frank Shoots Every Member of the Gang 16.02

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might fucking cry actually i just noticed dee is feeding dennis nuts in the background of exploits a miracle

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All right, well, pretty good plan; execution leaves a lot to be desired. Okay, well, speaking of execution, we're just gonna pull the plug on this creep and get out of here, right? Whoa. Whoa, h-hold on a second, Dee, I mean, that's a big decision. How so?

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005 - )

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nightman cometh rehearsal footage that I found on youtube... glenn's voice "what you saaay" kfkggjg

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IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA | → S16E4. Frank vs Russia