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Mac McDonald

Revision as of 23:37, 5 September 2016 by Jake lex (talk | contribs) (→‎Sexuality)
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Ronald "Mac" McDonald is a co-owner and sheriff of Paddy's Pub and generally the pub's most active manager. He is roommates with his best friend from high school, Dennis Reynolds, and has been best friends with Charlie Kelly since childhood. Mac is a member of The Gang which also includes Dee and Frank. Mac is the self proclaimed Sheriff of Paddy's.

Mac gets upset at injustices, but will pounce on any opportunity he sees as a fair chance to bang or make money. He was proud of his body and weight gain during Season 7, and is secretly ashamed of returning to his regular size.

Mac is portrayed by Rob McElhenney.

Physical Appearance

Mac works out at the gym all the time. [Charlie Has Cancer]

However, he only works out his "glamour muscles" (bis and tris) and lacks core strength. [The World Series Defense]  He is also not athletic in any sense: when he wins a contest to take a shot at a Philadelphia Flyers game, it's revealed that not only can he not play hockey at all, he can't actually ice skate either. [Mac's Big Break]

Mac usually wears sleeveless shirts or tight tees to draw attention to his glamour muscles and to exhibit his "tribal" tattoos. [Charlie Wants An Abortion]Mac's T-shirts usually have an ironic slogan on the front.

A major plotline during Season 7 was Mac's sudden, and quite dramatic, weight gain. Mac claimed that he was "cultivating mass", but everyone else, correctly, saw him as just getting fat. However, Mac seemed to truly believe that his weight gain was muscle, not fat. He has lost the weight again, and in the Season Eight premiere, Mac says that his "sudden and unfortunate" weight loss is putting Paddy's in jeopardy, because it might hinder his ability to do his job as head of security. (The Gang assure him that they don't feel any less safe than they did when he was fat.)

It is revealed that the reason for Mac's weight loss is that Dennis has been giving him "Mexican ephedra" pills, which caused him to lose his appetite, and telling Mac that they were "size pills". [The Gang Gets Analyzed]

Personality

Mac comes from a broken home; his father Luther was an incarcerated meth dealer, and his mother was extremely apathetic.

Self-image

Mac is obsessed with being tough and looking like a badass. Mac constantly seeks acceptance of his parents, but his over-earnest efforts make him come off as an asshole. [Dennis Looks Like a Registered Sex Offender] He has a series of project badass videos that involve him doing various stunts to make him look tough, badass, or like a dare devil. [4x4] Mac frequently strives to appear "hard," usually to impress his father or friends. In reality though, he is a coward.

Mac is highly competitive, and is unable to control his competitiveness. [The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition] For example, when he learned that Charlie and the McPoyle brothers were possibly sexually molested by their—and Mac's—elementary school gym teacher, he feels rejected and worries that he is somehow inferior for having not been molested himself. He proceeds to research why he didn't get molested, stating that, "If the McPoyles got blown, and Charlie got blown, then why didn't I get blown?" [Charlie Got Molested]

Mac is jealous of other people's success. Although he seeks his friends' acceptance, Mac takes special pleasure in undermining, physically harming, contradicting, and publicly belittling Sweet Dee at every possible opportunity.

Mac is easily flattered and manipulated, especially if complimented about his body or his fighting skills. He had had an ongoing sexual relationship with a pre-op trans woman named Carmen, largely because she was so adept at flattering him about his buff body. [Charlie Has Cancer] He claimed that he was just "putting in time" as he waited for her surgery. [Mac Is a Serial Killer]

Due to his inflated and fragile self-image, Mac is riddled with insecurities and often places great pressure on himself to look superior or not fail at anything. Consequentially, when given an unwanted position, he will attempt to use it to glamourise himself, such as, when being forced to referee the Gang's drinking challenge in "The Gang Beats Boggs" due to losing a chugging contest, Mac immediately convinces himself the Gang made him "Bud Selig", despite being repeatedly told that "noone did", and takes his refereeing duties far too seriously, to the point that Charlie tries to calm him down. In "The Gang Goes To Hell", thinking he has "failed" at a game, he gets extremely emotional and produces a cat-o-nine-tails for someone to beat him with "so [he] can be a better boy", implying he punishes himself harshly for every perceived failure.

At one point described by Dennis as being "in complete denial about absolutely every aspect of his life", Mac is the most openly self-delusional of the Gang, clinging to various fantasies about being tough, badass, a good Catholic, and, in particular, loved by his cold and exploitative father. Whenever anything happens to puncture these self-deceptions, he immediately twists or rationalises his perception of them to fit with his view of himself and the world.

Position in the Gang

Like Dennis, Mac sees himself as superior to the rest of The Gang and often attempts to prove his supremacy. For instance, in an attempt to impress Charlie and Dennis, he makes a series of "Project Badass" videotapes that consist of various idiotic stunts; however, the pair believes that Mac is just trying to "bang" them. [Mac's Banging the Waitress]

Mac sees himself as the boss in most situations and the gang constantly complains about his bossiness.

Religion

A Catholic, Mac is the only member of The Gang to profess a religious faith. In "The Gang Exploits A Miracle", Mac fears that the Lord show his wrath if they continue to exploit the water stain in the bar. Throughout the series Mac refuses to wear a condom during sex, because as he explains Charlie he went to Catholic school. Though Mac seems to care more about issues such as abortion, community activism, and parenting than the rest of The Gang, his views on such subjects are invariably twisted, ignorant, or prejudiced, and his actions regarding them are always hypocritical and selfish. For instance, after pretending to be adamantly pro-life in order to attract a female activist, Mac later demands that she get an abortion when he thinks she has become pregnant by him. In another instance involving the transgender woman Carmen, Mac discovers that she has married and had the operation to remove her penis. He then belittles Carmen and her husband by quoting the Bible to them and calling them "gay"; however he only reacts so because he expected Carmen to call him once she had the operation so they could date again. Mac constantly drinks alcohol like the rest of The Gang and abuses other substances, such as poppers and glue.

Sexuality

Mac prefers not to use condoms, even when he's having sex with people he doesn't know. [Mac Is a Serial Killer] He only reluctantly agrees to wear a condom with the Waitress in "Mac's Banging the Waitress". There is much evidence that Mac is harboring one or more STDs. [The Gang Gets Whacked (Part 1)]

Mac seems to have a thing for older women. He had sex with Dennis and Dee's mom, Barbara Reynolds, later saying it was the best sex of his life. [Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom] He also expressed interest in Barbara's sister, Aunt Donna. [The Gang Gives Frank an Intervention]

Mac places sex above friendship, and has betrayed his two best friends by dating or having sex with women very important to them:

Throughout the series there have been insinuations that Mac is a closeted gay man. This is manifested by his obsession with men's physiques and his reactionary religious views on homosexuality.

Some examples of Mac exhibiting behaviors or saying things that make it appear that he may be gay:

  • In the final scene of the season 4 episode "Mac's Banging the Waitress" Charlie says to Dennis, "Do you still get the feeling he wants to bang us? That's what this is all about" after Mac tries to demonstrate how "badass" he is by falling from the roof onto a pile of mattresses after lighting fireworks taped to his jacket that fail to ignite.
  • In the Season 6 finale, "Dee Gives Birth", as Charlie and Mac discuss the fact that one of possible fathers of Dee's baby is Rex, Mac calls Rex a "quality lay".
  • In episode 2 of season 8, "The Gang Recycles Their Trash" Mac makes an attempt to kiss Dennis following a rally with Charlie and themselves.
  • Also in season 8, in "Charlie Rules the World", Charlie asks Mac to watch Dee while Charlie goes and meets an online girl in person, to which Mac insinuates he'd like to meet any of her friends if they're fat or ugly or sick. Charlie then replies with a 'yeah, sure, if they're ugly or sick or male or female, whatever it is that you like'.
  • In the season 9 episode "Mac Day" Charlie says, "I know we've never said this as a group, but Mac's gay," to which the rest of The Gang agrees readily. Also as part of Mac Day, Mac forces The Gang to oil male bodybuilders, which gives him an erection. He also gets an erection in the episode when he is preaching to The Gang about the wrongs of homosexuality.
  • There are two highly homoerotic scenes in Lethal Weapon 6 that lead a hedge-fund manager they show the movie to call it a "gay porno". In a scene that immediately follows, where Riggs and Murtaugh go to a strip club, Mac obviously stares at Dennis' lap at one point, apparently checking if he has an erection. At the end, he cannot bring himself to kiss Dee, who is playing Murtaugh's daughter (who Riggs is marrying.) [The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6]
  • He refuses to talk about his "mission" at the Rainbow, a gay bar in Philly. [11x8]
  • While on a Christian cruise Mac attempts to "cure" a gay couple but instead is lured into their cabin. He imprisons himself in the brig with the rest of the gang confessing "well, I'm gay" to no surprise from his friends. [11x9] When he is rescued from the ship he immediately says it was a test from God and he's not actually gay. [11x10]

Abilities

Mac is extremely clean, and very good at keeping his apartment extremely tidy. He even cleaned up Charlie's filthy apartment after he moved in with Charlie and Frank, after Dennis kicked him out. [Mac and Dennis Break Up]

Mac believes he is a natural story-teller.  [How Mac Got Fat]

Weaknesses

Mac has a delusional belief in his abilities as a security professional. He thinks of himself as "The Sheriff of Paddy's" and believes he can achieve feats of strength, assess strangers for security, and that he is highly skilled at combat. Despite this, Mac has fared poorly in physical altercations and feats of strength:

  • Mac was beat up when he replaced Charlie and fought in a fight club. [Hundred Dollar Baby]
  • Mac failed in his attempt to climb the outside of Charlie's apartment building. [The World Series Defense]
  • Mac was going to beat up Bruce Mathis in a fight, but ran away from him instead. [Dennis and Dee Get a New Dad]
  • Mac attempted a roundhouse kick to the front window of a car, but missed and kicked the drivers side mirror instead. [Paddy's Pub: The Worst Bar in Philadelphia ]
  • Mac does an "ocular patdown" of a hitchhiker and assessed him as safe; later, the hitchhiker steals Dee's car. [The Gang Hits the Road]
  • When Mac and Charlie are stuck at the bottom of an abandoned swimming pool that they are trying to fix, Mac attempts to get out of the pool by doing a "backflip" out of it, scaling the wall, but he doesn't even come close to getting out. [Mac and Charlie: White Trash]
  • Mac's "exit strategy" to get out of a luxury box the Gang has schemed their way into at a Phillies' game is to "spring off the balcony to safety".  When Dennis points out that it's a 50 foot drop, Mac says that he will be able to "tuck and roll" and thus survive the drop unscathed. [Frank's Back in Business]

In a similar vein, Mac also maintains a threat level assessment for the bar. Ordinarily the threat level is set to Orange, but Mac has upgraded the threat level to Yellow. [The Gang Solves the North Korea Situation]

Mac often has trouble thinking up of the right word to convey his ideas, which Dennis is often more than glad to provide. [Mac and Dennis Break Up]

Mac is also a poor typist. [Mac and Charlie Write a Movie]

Early Life

In Season 1, Mac was 28 years old - which means he was born in 1977. [1x3]

When Mac was young, his parents would break into houses with him on Christmas to steal presents. [5x13]

Growing up, his best friend was Charlie. Every Christmas, they'd get together and throw rocks at trains. [5x13]

Mac's father is Luther Mac. At some point during his childhood, Luther was sentenced to prison for dealing meth. [3x11]

Dennis notes that Mac only survived high school by selling weed to popular kids, and even then was considered a jerk. [1x3]

In high school, Mac was called "Ronnie the Rat," due to his propensity for tattling. He narced on the previous weed dealer in order to get a foothold on dealing himself. [7x12]

Trivia

Relationships


Bangs

Mac has banged the following people:

  • Megan - a pro-life woman who tests Mac's sincerity against abortion after a protest at a Planned Parenthood building. [1x2]
  • Barbara Reynolds - Dennis and Dee's Mom. [2x4]
  • Z-Man's sister and Sully's sister - Mac banged both of their sisters, so he couldn't invite them to his party at Dennis' new house. [3x3]
  • Carmen - Pre-op trans woman. [3x10]
  • Dominique and Tabitha - model contestants in "America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest" (they also banged each other and let Mac watch).
  • Numerous unnamed leftovers from the DENNIS System using the MAC system (Move-in After Completion). [5x10]
  • Margaret McPoyle - shown in a flashback of the Halloween the year before. [6x7]
  • Dennis's prom date. ("She was gross.") ("The High School Reunion.")



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