The Gang: A Moral Assessment
An earnest character study, conducted in the spirit of Christian charity and mild horror.
Before we begin, I want to say that I approached this project with an open heart and a prayer. I have spent considerable time with these five individuals — more time, frankly, than I have spent on my scripture study this month, which I am working on — and I believe that even the most spiritually wayward soul contains a spark of divine potential. That said. Oh, that said. Let us proceed with the moral profiles. For context on why I am doing this to myself, see the site introduction. For episode-specific analysis, visit the episode guide.
Dennis Reynolds
Co-owner, Paddy's Pub. Self-described "golden god."
A man of extraordinary surface beauty and extraordinary interior emptiness — like a Jell-O mold that is only more Jell-O on the inside.
Primary Sin
Pride — and not the garden-variety pride that President Benson warned us about, but a weaponized, clinical pride that has calcified into something the scriptures might call "hardness of heart." Dennis does not merely think well of himself; he has excised the capacity to think of others at all. See Mosiah 3:19 on the natural man. Dennis is the natural man who has taken out a patent on his natural man status.
Surprising Grace
He occasionally shows flashes of genuine hurt — moments where the mask slips and you see that Dennis Reynolds was once a child who needed love and did not receive it in healthy quantities. These moments pass quickly, usually replaced by something deeply concerning, but they are there. The Lord can work with hurt. He cannot easily work with someone who has decided hurt does not exist, which is where Dennis usually ends up.
Teachable Moment
In the episode "The Gang Runs for Office," Dennis runs for comptroller of Philadelphia purely for the attention and status. He gives a speech that is entirely about Dennis Reynolds. He loses. This is a very clean parable about seeking the honors of men (see D&C 121:35). The honors of men will not even get you comptroller of Philadelphia. Plan accordingly.
Mac McDonald
Self-appointed "enforcer" of Paddy's Pub. Devoted Catholic. Devoted to the idea of being Catholic.
Mac is the most religious member of the Gang and simultaneously a walking illustration of why religion without self-honesty is a house built on sand — specifically the sand of an Atkins-adjacent diet and cargo shorts.
Primary Sin
Deception — primarily self-deception. Mac has constructed an elaborate theological identity that serves as a shelter from truths he is not yet ready to face. Now, I want to be gentle here because I believe Mac genuinely loves God, in his way, and that is not nothing. But the Gospel requires us to "come as we are" before we can be transformed, and Mac has spent fifteen seasons insisting he has already arrived. Alma 12:9–11 speaks of hardening hearts against light. Mac has not hardened his heart against God. He has hardened it against himself, which is a different and sadder problem.
Surprising Grace
Mac's loyalty is genuine. He would, within the constraints of his self-interest and poor judgment, do almost anything for the Gang. In a group that treats loyalty as currency to be counterfeited, Mac's is the real thing — misapplied, misdirected, but real. The Lord values loyalty. It is on the list. We are working with something here.
Teachable Moment
Mac's season-fourteen dance sequence — performed as an act of worship — is one of the most unexpectedly moving things the show has produced. He is finally, briefly, honest. He weeps. The audience weeps. I, a grown adult in Provo, Utah, watching this on my laptop at 11 p.m. while eating cereal, wept. The Lord can reach people in unexpected moments. Do not write Mac off entirely. For further theological reflection on moments like this, see the theology page. For Mac's own dedicated analysis, see Mac and Faith.
Charlie Kelly
Bar maintenance. Rat-catcher. Musician. Most likely to accidentally wander into the Celestial Kingdom.
Charlie huffs spray paint and cannot read and has sustained a parasocial obsession with a woman who does not know his name, and he is somehow the most spiritually instructive person in this entire enterprise.
Primary Sin
Sloth — specifically regarding his own flourishing. Charlie has gifts (genuine musical talent, surprising mechanical ingenuity, an almost mystical understanding of rat behavior) and he has done very little with them. The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 is relevant here. Charlie has buried his talents, though in fairness he may have buried them with the rats under Paddy's, which is more poetic than most people's spiritual metaphors.
Surprising Grace
Charlie has an almost childlike openness to joy and wonder that the other characters have entirely burned out of themselves. He delights in things. He writes musicals. He loves the Waitress not wisely but with a consistency that borders on the devoted. There is a scripture (Matthew 18:3) about becoming as little children. Charlie has done this, mostly by accident and with worse hygiene than the Lord likely intended, but the quality is there.
Teachable Moment
When Charlie occasionally produces something genuinely beautiful — a song, a moment of unexpected empathy — it stands out precisely because the world has given him no reason to produce beauty and he produces it anyway. Grace does not require merit. Charlie is an accidental proof of this doctrine. See also the dedicated Charlie Kelly profile for extended analysis.
Dee Reynolds
Aspiring actress. Dennis's twin sister. The Gang's most visible victim of the Gang's treatment of Dee Reynolds.
Dee is trapped in a cycle of seeking validation from people constitutionally incapable of giving it to her, which is less a character flaw and more a diagnosis, but she keeps making it worse in ways that are entirely her choice, so here we are.
Primary Sin
Envy — layered under a remarkable quantity of bitterness that has cured into something more structural. Dee wants what others have (success, recognition, love) badly enough that it has warped her perception of what she herself has and is. The scriptures address covetousness extensively because it is a sin that hollows a person from the inside. Dee is, at this point, somewhat hollow. This is partly the Gang's fault and partly her continued choice to stay in the Gang's orbit, which is a teachable moment in itself about the company we keep.
Surprising Grace
Dee is funny. I mean she is genuinely, actually funny, and the show occasionally acknowledges this before taking it away from her again. She has a comedic gift and a performer's instinct and in a different environment — with different people around her, with a different upbringing, with parents who had said one encouraging thing — she might have built something real. Talent is a stewardship. Dee received hers and has been prevented from exercising it, which is a tragedy, not a joke. Read more at the Dee Reynolds deep-dive page.
Teachable Moment
The episode "Dee Made a Smut Film" could be used in a Young Women's lesson about the consequences of seeking fame through the wrong means, if you removed approximately 95% of the episode's content. The 5% that remains is quite instructive. I will not describe which 5%. For a full episode-by-episode breakdown, consult the episode guide.
Frank Reynolds
Financial backer. Former businessman. A man who had everything the world offers and concluded the answer was to have worse things.
Frank Reynolds is what happens when someone achieves every worldly goal, stares into the emptiness at the center of worldly goals, and instead of turning to the Lord, decides to climb into the emptiness and live there.
Primary Sin
Greed and Sloth — an unusual combination, but Frank achieved wealth through ruthless acquisition and then pivoted entirely to indolence, squalor, and a complete abandonment of the social contract. He represents the spiritual danger of both extremes: the grasping acquisition of the prosperous wicked (see Jacob 2:13–19) and the subsequent collapse into dissipation when acquisition no longer provides meaning. Frank is a two-part warning delivered simultaneously. The scriptures are efficient that way.
Surprising Grace
Frank, on rare occasions, will do something genuinely generous — usually by accident, usually while trying to do something else, but it happens. There are moments where you can see the human being Frank Reynolds was before he decided to stop being that. I think about the prodigal son's father a lot during these moments. Someone is watching the road. Whether Frank will turn back down it is a separate question.
Teachable Moment
Frank's backstory — successful businessman, comfortable life, everything a man could want by the world's accounting — and his subsequent choice to abandon it all for depravity rather than meaning, is a