If You're Missing Kaitlin Olson's Dee Reynolds From It's Always Sunny, Watch This Returning 91% RT HBO Comedy With One Of The Most Underrated Characters On TV

Kaitlin Olson’s comically unique, simultaneously vile, mocked, hilarious, and beloved character Dee Reynolds in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a TV icon, but there’s another currently airing comedy show that rivals her humor with one of today’s funniest female characters. Debuting in 2005, Dee Reynolds remains Kaitlin Olson’s most renowned character, a role she’s still playing today with It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia releasing season 17 this June. Olson has also given outstanding performances in shows like Hacks, The Mick, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and High Potential, but it’s difficult to parallel the absurdly crass, shameless, comically revolutionary Dee Reynolds.

Part of Dee’s enduring popularity and the continued high praise for Olson’s legendary performance can be attributed to how unique and groundbreaking her role is in TV comedy. It isn’t often that female characters in a primarily male comedic ensemble are given the opportunity to be as R-ratedly disgusting, abhorrent, cruel, and misguided as the men. While many shows will make the woman the “voice of reason,” Dee is just as bad, if not often worse, than the men around her. Refreshingly, that comedic dynamic has also been employed by an acclaimed 2019-debuting HBO show now in its fourth season.

Edi Patterson's Judy In The Righteous Gemstones Is Very Similar To Kaitlin Olson's Dee Reynolds

Judy & Dee Have Very Similar Personalities & Character Dynamics

If there’s another character and actress who comes the closest to what Kaitlin Olson’s Dee Reynolds has been bringing to the table in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia since 2005, it’s Edi Patterson’s Judy Gemstone in The Righteous Gemstones. Like Dee, Judy is an overconfident, underachieving, vulgar, delusional, and bizarre character surrounded by men who undermine her position and behave equally, if not sometimes less, erratically and hot-tempered than she does. However, while Dee is constantly taking insults from her brother, adoptive father, and coworkers, Judy is actually loved and supported by her father and brothers.

Dee smoking and eating cake while being called a bird in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

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It isn’t just Dee and Judy’s personalities that draw comparisons, however, as Olson and Patterson also bring some of the most impressive physical comedy to the small screen in recent memory. The way that each carries herself and the lengths to which they’re willing to painfully and humiliatingly go as these bizarre characters are unseen in the vast majority of the other shows on TV. Meanwhile, shows like The Righteous Gemstones and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia let their female stars shine as two of the most hilariously unhinged characters on television, highlighting the incredible comedic talent of both Olson and Patterson.

Edi Patterson Would Be A Great Potential Cameo On It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Olson & Patterson On TV Together Is A Great Comedic Opportunity

Putting Judy Gemstone and Dee Reynolds in a room together might be too much to handle on TV. However, Edi Patterson and Kaitlin Olson’s similar comedic styles have too much potential for the two to never collaborate on the small screen. Since The Righteous Gemstones is ending with season 4 in May 2025, a great way to get the two actors on screen together would be for Patterson to make a cameo in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s future. The comedy has already been renewed through season 18, giving ample time for Patterson to potentially make a guest appearance.