Dee Reynolds



Deandra "Dee" Reynolds (aka: Sweet Dee) is the bartender at Paddy's Pub. She is the twin sister of Dennis Reynolds and the legal daughter of and Barbara Reynolds. Dee considers herself a member of The Gang that runs Paddy's, although the rest of the gang often disagrees with this assertion.

Dee lived alone in her apartment with her cat, which she almost immediately lost in the wall. When Mac and Dennis' apartment burned down, they had to move in with her. An old black man joined in Season 11 as a result of a bad bet she made with Frank ( "Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs "). She rarely has success with men and she is an aspiring actress. Her best (and only) friend is Artemis Dubois, but she has also been known to spend time with the Waitress. In season 6, Dee gave birth to a child using a donor's egg and Carmen's sperm and gave the baby to Carmen and her new husband.

Physical Appearance
Dee is a bird, though if one has a very sharp sense of perception, possible humanoid traits can be found, though only bird-like traits are confirmed to be true.

Skills and Abilities
Dee took several years of Spanish in high school and, as such, can speak some very rudimentary Spanish. She also took a semester of psychology with, which allowed them to determine how to best handle 's molestation. Dee possesses an extensive knowledge of Gay culture. Dee is suggested to be the physically strongest member of the Gang, easily outperforming both Mac and Dennis while trying out for the Philadelphia Eagles, destroying a buzzer by accident , and managing to become a decent boxer. (This doesn't mean much as it normally would, since the rest of the Gang are in generally horrible shape.) Like Mac and Dennis, Dee has been shown to be an excellent skier (though the rules are different on the mountain). ("The Gang Hits the Slopes").

Weaknesses
Dee is a poor waitress and an unskilled bartender. She can't make simple drinks like a mojito. She is also apparently very rude to customers ("Here you go. Stupid customers."), such as the time she called a customer (who turned out to be Lyle Korman, a restaurant critic) a "faggot" for ordering wine ​​. Charlie also maintains that Dee is too "blue" in her humor relative to the rest of the Gang. ("2020: A Year In Review") She is distracted by the prospect of telling jokes to the customers. She also has admitted to intentionally using the same check for two different tables and pocketing the difference, a practice she calls "double-dropping".

Dennis maintains that every Dee eats makes her fart "a shit-ton", (" The Gang Gets New Wheels ") and it's been mentioned several times that her breath is very bad.

Dee consistently faces severe stage fright and often chokes under pressure when performing in front of an audience.


 * While trying out for the Philadelphia Eagles, she hurt her leg while kicking - even though she had previously been able to kick a football very well.
 * She dry heaves on stage due to her anxiety when she performed a stand-up comedy routine at a local comedy club.
 * She was unable to perform in a flip cupping competition, even though she had practiced for days and become quite skilled. She had also previously choked while competing in the 1998 Flipadelphia competition.
 * Dee also gets nervous around certain people. In high school, she used to gag while around Bill Ponderosa, whom she described as "hot with great buns." She even gagged while around him in, even though he had now gained a great deal of weight.
 * Dee cannot cry on command. When Dennis and Frank stage a funeral for her fake child Dee cannot cry and only does when Dennis blows chili powder directly into her eye. ("Sweet Dee Gets Audited")
 * She harbors a phobia of the elderly, especially their hands . This extends to her relationship with her grandfather.
 * Dee is quite awkward and clumsy, and tends to break things by accident. Dennis describes her as having "hands like anvils."
 * Dee is a poor artist.
 * Though she shows up to the local comedy club whenever possible, Dee is an abysmal stand-up comedian. Aside from her stage fright issues, her set tends to feature obnoxious sound effects, barely-coherent rambling about her day, regular references to her vagina, and awkward stretches of breathing into the microphone.
 * Her acting “skills” are limited to broad ethnic stereotypes that even the rest of The Gang acknowledges are racist, and she is so terrible with accents that she cannot even do a Philadelphia accent successfully (”Chardee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo”)

Early Life
Dee was born on August 18, 1976 to Barbara and Frank Reynold's. She was born three minutes before her twin brother Dennis.

Dee and Dennis' Nazi grandfather "Pop Pop" took them to a Neo-Nazi summer camp in 1981.

Frank was a terrible father to both Dee and Dennis growing up. He would find out what they wanted for Christmas and then buy it for himself ("A Very Sunny Christmas"). Frank's wealth allowed the two siblings to grow up in a higher social class than the rest of the gang, and Dee and Dennis seem to believe that they are still in that class.

Dee was unpopular in due to her severe scoliosis, which forced her to wear a back brace and earned her the nickname "The Aluminum Monster". Her one “successful” moment was playing the monster in a musical version of the Frankenstein story under the encouragement of her acting teacher Dr. Larry Meyers, who later admitted that he was drunk most of the time during that era. At that time, Dee did intensive physical therapy twice a week after school, which was where she met Matthew Mara.

Most of Dee’s social and romantic relationships were based on her attempting to assert her superiority over others deemed “losers.” In high school, she dated Brad Fisher, who also dated The Waitress, and dumped him because of his acne. Dee's best friend in high school was Ingrid Nelson, also known as "Fatty Magoo." Dee constantly bragged about how she would one day be successful to “keep her down,” but it actually motivated Ingrid to lose weight and eventually open a successful clothing shop. Matthew Mara ("Rickety Cricket") had a crush on Dee in high school and she tricked him into eating a horse turd with the promise of a kiss; after he ate the turd, she refused to kiss him because "his breath smelled like shit".

After flunking out of the University of Pennsylvania, where she had intended to major in psychology, Dee decided to become an actress. ("You gotta take it one step at a time when you want to be an actor"). However, she has put little effort into realizing her ambition and has never had any significant acting work. She also admitted to sleeping with her psychology professor in college, saying that he was a "hot old man." During this time, she was involuntarily committed for lighting her roommate on fire after copying her and stealing her hair (”Gun Fever Too: Still Hot”).

In 1998, it was shown that Dee's personality was considerably softer and sweeter, which was the reason Dee was given the nickname "Sweet Dee". The Gang was also much nicer to Dee because of this, even complimenting her physique - in contrast to The Gang's constant barrage of insults on Dee's appearance, including calling her a bird. However, she suffers a head injury at a roller rink which transforms her personality to be much meaner and insulting; traits that remain with Dee to this day.

Trivia

 * Dee was originally portrayed by Jordan Reid (Rob McElhenney's girlfriend at the time) in the unaired pilot (shot in Jordan's apartment). After breaking up with Rob McElhenney, Jordan Reid was fired and replaced.
 * According to creator and star of the show Rob McElhenney, the name "Sweet Dee" was the nickname of one of his friend's girlfriends. He liked the nickname and later thought of it while creating the character of Dennis' sister.
 * Dee's catchphrase is "Goddammit!" or "Goddammit, Charlie!" - she says both in multiple episodes.
 * Dee wears a size thirteen shoe.
 * Dee has been referred to as "Sweet Dee" in four episode titles: "Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire", "Sweet Dee's Dating a Retarded Person", "Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack", "Sweet Dee Gets Audited".
 * Sweet Dee owns a violet dildo - she calls it "Steven", and the object is probably her LONGEST sexual relationship.
 * Frank often refers to Dee as "Deandra", her first name. ("Come on, Deandra") But the first person on the show who called her by her full name was her mother, Barbara.
 * Although Deandra was originally written as a female voice of sanity to contrast with her ill-intentioned co-stars, the character quickly became an equal participant in the gang's illicit and morally questionable activities.
 * Rob McElhenney has also said that a reason that the plan to make Dee the "voice of reason" was abandoned because they felt that using her in that way would be wasting Kaitlin Olson's talent, and also they realized that the rest of the world can act as "the voice of reason" when necessary (as an example, he's mentioned the character of the loan officer in the episode "The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis").
 * Dee is often ridiculed for her resemblance to a bird by the rest of the Gang, especially Mac and (since 02x06). This started in the episode "Mac is a serial Killer," when the gang starts comparing her to the former professional basketball player Larry Bird, because of their resemblance in appearance. This devolved into the gang comparing her to an actual bird. In the episode "Who Got Dee Pregnant?", in one of the flashback sequences, Dee is "played" by an actual ostrich.
 * She is consistently criticized and belittled by The Gang for her appearance, for her lack of talent, and for being a woman.  (One exception is in the episode "The Gang Broke Dee " where Charlie, Frank, and Mac start encouraging her stand-up career, but it will turn out that their motivation isn't as altruistic as it appears.)
 * Dee is usually ignored or ridiculed whenever she presents an idea to The Gang; however, if someone repeats her exact suggestion, it is immediately accepted . * In her mother's will, Dee is told that she has been a disappointment and a mistake even though she is Dennis' twin ​​.
 * There is a subtle running gag throughout the show in which Sweet Dee will exaggeratedly kick into the air when she is angered or frustrated.
 * Dee will often parry an insult by repeating it back. For example if Dennis says that Dee is dumb, she'll say back, "You're dumb" and then there will be awkward silence. Another instance is when Mac calls Dee's new car a "piece of shit car" and Dee responds with "You're a piece of shit... car".
 * Frank is the only one who considers Dee a true member of The Gang ("Dennis, let your sister be part of the gang"). Whenever there is a decision or a vote amongst members of The Gang, the three younger guys habitually exclude her. After discovering Dennis and Dee are not his children, Frank typically treats Dee as badly as the others do.
 * There is a running gag about Dee's car always being stolen. Charlie and Mac stole her car and crashed it to fake their deaths . Later Dee purchases a new car, and that night it is stolen by a hitchhiker she picks up . Later, Bill Ponderosa gives Dee a car but it turns out the car really belonged to another one of Bill's mistresses who stole it back from Dee . Charlie and Mac end up crashing yet another of Dee's cars, when they try to flee from "zombies" at Maureen Ponderosa's wedding (and after Mac, inexplicably, lets Charlie drive) .
 * The Gang will often try to ditch Dee. When they went on a road trip, they tried to leave her behind. Then later when they stopped off at an Italian market, they tried to steal her car and leave her there.
 * Once, on the Level 3 of the "CharDee McDennis!" board game, Dee got an "Emotional Battery" card. She endured two hours of deeply personal insults from Mac and Charlie, and after holding it together "without a single tear", cried for a month and even tried to kill herself by taking too many pills.
 * There is only one episode in the entire series where Dee is absent ​​.
 * Kaitlin Olson is married to Rob McElhenney, who portrays Mac; Glenn Howerton (Dennis) is married to the actress who portrayed Caylee the pharmacist; and Charlie Day (Charlie) is married to Mary Elizabeth Ellis (the Waitress).
 * Dee is left-handed.