Mac's Bowling Mantra In It's Always Sunny Season 16 Is A Season 6 Callback

This article contains spoilers for season 16, episode 7 of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

The 16th season of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" promised lots of references to past seasons, and in the first seven episodes, there have been quite a few throwbacks going all the way back to the first season. We've gotten to see the other rooms in Charlie's (Charlie Day) apartment and hear about his sisters for the first time in 15 seasons, Mac (Rob McElhenney) almost got another chance to play catch with Chase Utley, and there was even a reversed DENNIS system for seducing men! Season 16 has been a blast from the past in many ways and is one of the most consistently funny seasons of "It's Always Sunny" in years, and the most recent episode, "The Gang Goes Bowling," features a serious deep cut.

As the title of the episode would suggest, the gang goes bowling, and each of the members has their own unique bowling style. Dennis (Glenn Howerton) is mostly focused on playing mind games with his sister Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Dee is great unless Dennis messes with her, Charlie is a natural bowler with smooth style, Frank uses two hands and bowls "granny style," and Mac overthinks it, like he does everything. While trying to roll a strike, Mac repeats a little mantra, and it goes all the way back to something he said in season 6.

While sizing up the pins and making his way to bowl on his turn, Mac chants the mantra "stride, stride, stride, execute," taking three steps forward as he says "stride," and then he launches the ball. If that sounds familiar, that's because it's the same little chant he used in the classic season 6 episode "Mac and Charlie: White Trash" when he and Charlie got stuck in the bottom of an abandoned pool and he attempted to run up the wall with a sweet flip. Mac's faith in his own athletic skills and martial arts abilities has been a running punchline in the series since the earliest seasons, but his failed attempt to run up the pool wall is one of the funniest bits. The failure even leads to Mac wanting a pair of cutoff jean shorts like Charlie so that he would have a fuller range of motion to run, which is its own great moment. 

The characters of "It's Always Sunny" are very set in their ways and will never really change, and the tiny character moments that stay consistent, like Mac's chant, help make them feel more like real people. They aren't using these lines like catchphrases, but instead insert them organically, like people actually tend to re-use the same vocabulary and phrases. "Stride, stride, stride, execute!" isn't a successful mantra by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a funny one. 

New episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" premiere Wednesdays on FXX and stream the next day on Hulu.