Last night's ER laid out some promising seeds for future gay storylines on the long-running doctor drama. We saw the return of Chaz (Sam Jones III), Dr Pratt's gay brother who has just started duty as a paramedic after completing his training. At the same time, Javier, another gay man, has started as a desk clerk. That's right -- another gay desk clerk. Quelle coincidence.

While Javier fits right in with the secretaries, not only gossiping about who is hot, but about crazy rich, white people, Chaz has a harder time. He's a rookie and as happens with a lot of male dominated jobs, rookies get hazed -- a lot. In this case, the hazing is done by Zach, Chaz's paramedic partner who finally pushes Chaz too far by mocking his sexual orientation.

Zach sets Chaz off when he leaves women's underwear in the ambulance for Chaz to find and suggests giving them to his boyfriend. Seeing Chaz confront Zach over the harassment, Pratt (Mekhi Phifer) rushes to his brother's defense and punches Zach. Chaz doesn't appreciate his brother's interference and later explains that he needs to fight his own battles to earn the respect of his peers.

Meanwhile, Javier is quick to make friends, thanks to his funny and gossipy nature. Javier also asks Dr. Pratt if his brother is single. I'd like to think we're headed towards Javier asking Chaz out which would be interesting as I got the impression that Chaz is the type of gay man who has issues with less traditionally masculine gay men like Javier who reinforces the kind of gay stereotypes that lie at the root of the kind of teasing Chaz received. It could be very interesting to see how the two deal with each other and ER just might be a show to watch this season.

Meanwhile, if It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia certainly emphasized its misanthropic tendencies. In last night's episode, a serial killer is stalking the streets of Philadelphia and Mac's odd behavior gets the gang to suspect him of the horrifying crimes. If you haven't seen the show, the speed at which these characters decide their longtime friend is a vicious killer summarizes them succinctly -- not only are they disloyal, they suffer from incredibly short attention spans and are terrible judges of character.

Last Thursday, the FX comedy series It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia had another scene of gay-themed hilarity. You may recall that an earlier episode mined laughs when Dennis, Mac and Charlie wrote a flier seeking new friends that read like something out of the "men seeking men" section of the personals. This week, they demonstrate that a little knowledge about gay culture can make you an even bigger twit.

In "The Gang Sells the Bar" a restaurant chain offers to buy Paddy's Pub to turn into a new location of their themed restaurants. Unsurprisingly, the gang quickly turns greedy and start making unreasonable demands that gets the offer cheerfully rescinded. That gets Dennis, Mac and Frank begging for the original offer, leading to an awkward conversation in a strip club with a gay exec (played by Richard Ruccolo of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place and All Over the Guy). It starts with Dennis' declaration that "Some gay guys are twinks and others are bears" and goes downhill quickly from there.

If I've done my research correctly, next week's episode should include the return of Carmen, a transgender woman Mac dated in the first season. I've been looking forward to seeing how they handle Carmen the second time around. There have been more nuanced depictions of transgender characters on TV since that episode aired and I'm curious if Carmen's return will be a part of that tapestry.

The FX comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia focuses on four friends who, in season one, owned Paddy's Pub, a dive bar with no customers. In the second season, Danny DeVito joined the cast as Dennis and Dee's father, Frank, buying Paddy's Pub in order to force his kids to spend time with him. In most episodes, the characters come up with some sort of selfish, self-centered scheme that ends up foiled by their own flaws.

In last week's episode, "Dennis and Dee's Mom is Dead," Dennis inherits his mother's mansion as Dee and Frank are left with nothing. The remainder of her estate is given to Bruce, a philanthropist who, it turns out, is Dennis and Dee's biological father.

Eager to enjoy his inheritance, Dennis starts to plan a party in his new mansion, only to realize that he and pals Mac and Charlie have alienated all their friends. To remedy the situation, they decide to create a flier seeking new friends. The flier they create ends up sounding more like a personals ad, due to their demands on what kind of guys they befriend. When they go to a sporting goods store to pass out the flier Dennis and Mac accidentally hit on several guys, including one guy who won't break a cruise-y look at Mac.

Like many a comedy that seeks to offend, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has to strike a balance between edgy, misanthropic humor and coming off as clueless as the Paddy's Pub gang. While the homoerotic flier could have generated some gay panic-themed comedy, the joke stays on the guys' cluelessness and lack of self-awareness — which is also how they alienated all their friends. We're laughing at Dennis, Mac and Charlie and not at any gay men who might be intrigued by their flier.

In a first season episode, the show used homophobic humor to signal the gang's unlikablity (one of many signs). While there's sometimes a risk that a portion of the audience won't understand the joke and think it's okay to repeat the bigoted humor (as Dave Chapelle experienced), that risk is lessened by giving the line to DeVito, who rarely plays characters anyone would want to emulate and certainly doesn't play an admirable character here.