Kaitlin Olson is the queen of chaotic comedy

To talk about Kaitlin Olson’s comedic genius is to invoke, and attempt to describe, chaos. (It’s controlled chaos, for sure, as there’s little in her on-screen demeanor that suggests otherwise.) And to watch her on television, whether as part of the Gang in FXX’s long-running It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, in the Emmy-winning Max show Hacks, or even in her upcoming riff on the network procedural, High Potential, is to witness a performer who doesn’t so much relish diving headfirst into comedic mayhem as she enjoys being its central architect. For two decades, the Portland-born actor has honed a very specific brand of humor. You may be tempted to dub her the dirtbag queen of American TV comedy (the boys on Sunny might agree with that), but that still sells her short. 

Any and all discussions of Olson’s talents must begin with Deandra “Sweet Dee” Reynolds. The bartender at Paddy’s Pub remains, to date, her most fully realized creation. It helps that she’s had sixteen seasons (and 170 episodes!) to turn her It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia character into a vain, violent, and volatile presence whose drunken exploits and romantic and sexual misadventures, not to mention talentless career aspirations, have given fodder to some of that comedy’s most inspired moments. At one time the most level-headed of that Philly bunch, Dee soon became a wrecking ball in her own right, equally crippled and fueled by bitter grudges and oft-imagined grievances that made her irascible and hysterical. In any given scene, she could toy with wounded vulnerability before tapping into an endless well of anger that made her fit right at home with the hilariously disagreeable men she couldn’t dare live apart from.

With Dee, Olson didn’t just push past the concept of likability and respectability. She bulldozed right through it. Dee may have spent the better part of two decades being the butt of jokes and snickers from her twin brother, father, and fellow bar colleagues. (An ongoing gag centers on how they all think of her as a giant bird, after all.) But rather than have that dim her, Dee has blossomed instead into a full-blown narcissistic sociopath of sorts who can go toe to toe with the likes of Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Frank (Danny DeVito), Charlie (Charlie Day) and Mac (Olson’s husband, Rob McElhenney).

With The Mick, the FOX sitcom that premiered in 2017, audiences were greeted with a riff on Dee that felt more appropriate for broadcast television. Her Mickey was equally as adrift in her life as Dee but where that Philly-dweller could spend her days trying on wedding dresses for a ceremony that wasn’t even real or drunkenly fighting Mac in front of a rich man she hoped to woo, Mickey was a character forced to grow up if she was to raise her spoiled niece and nephews, whom she’s saddled with when her sister and brother-in-law flee their lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, to avoid a federal indictment. From the moment you meet her (at a grocery store where she drunkenly wreaks havoc on any and all things she comes in contact with), Mickey is a mess. On day two of living in her sister’s mansion, she’s found unconscious donning a wine-stained wedding dress by the kids she will then proceed to try to bully and bend to her will—with mixed results, of course.

Hitting a decidedly more warmhearted note than It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, The Mick nevertheless allowed Olson to play a woman struggling to leave her wayward ways behind. The bulk of the humor of this two-season wonder of a sitcom came from watching an adult who rebuked authority and responsibility clash with kids who needed and did away with both of those things with careless ease. At every turn, Mickey’s attempts to drive order into the chaos that the Greenwich mansion becomes (at one point, it’s so soiled and messy that it all but looks like a Hoarders episode) lead her into ever more outlandish situations. A toughened Rhode Islander who’s not afraid to jump from a balcony onto a moving car, who opts to take LSD to better help her niece during a pivotal day at school, and who cannot fathom disciplining her sweet youngest nephew (until she does, spanking him in public at a school rager, no less), Mickey allowed Olson to lace her on-screen dirtbag demeanor with a softer side that emerged begrudgingly by the end of every episode.

Olson’s caustic comedy (“I’m just begging you not to be stupid,” her character Cricket tells a customer early on in  the short-lived Quibi project Flipped) has always worked hand in hand with her pliant physicality. Olson has proven time and time again that she can turn pratfalls and drunken brawls into things of exquisite, hilarious beauty. To see her eating a sandwich like a bird or falling down a spiral staircase is to take in a fearless actor who will do whatever it takes to garner a laugh.

Therein lies the genius of her standout moment as DJ in the most recent season of Hacks, which earned Olson a second Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series nomination. As the messy daughter of a Vegas stand-up comedian trying to right her life in her own way, Olson’s DJ first stormed into that critically lauded comedy series in its pilot episode yelling about UTIs and being strip searched for drugs. But over the past three seasons, DJ has found ways of growing that have allowed Olson to put her own acerbic twist on a character who doesn’t quite want to do away with her own arrested development.

That was nowhere clearer than in “The Roast Of Deborah Vance.” Even as her mom (Jean Smart) worried about DJ’s set, thinking her c-word-focused humor would make her the laughing stock of the town, DJ was able instead to deliver a roast that was equal parts heartfelt and cutting. Only a performer as nimble as Olson could make a punchline like “What a cunt!” feel novel and fresh, insightful and welcoming, a crowd pleaser and a triumph. Moreover, she’d turned such ribbing of her absent mother into a comedic rebuke that resonated precisely because it felt so raw. 

Although a very different project, that kernel of what Olson can bring to a character is on display in High Potential. If her introductions in The Mick and Flipped found her wrecking everything around her and flagging just how much of a mess Mickey and Cricket would and could be, High Potential kicks off with a montage where Olson’s Morgan is seen cleaning the police headquarters where she works. It’s while cleaning that Morgan tweaks a word on a current board investigation: She crosses out “SUSPECT” and replaces it with “VICTIM,” the first instance where her obsessive knack for everything to be perfect (she can’t stand when things are out of order due to her incessant curiosity and high IQ) helps the LAPD solve hard-to-crack cases. 

Olson’s many signature moves are here: the self-serving and -sufficient attitude, the lack of regard for authority, the quick and biting wit, the grating and oft-off-putting demeanor, and even that outrageous and provocative style. But it’s funneled into a network procedural which feels both like an unusual fit and yet a welcome gamble. (Hopefully, she’ll garner a swath of new fans eager to dive deep into the Olson catalog, which is remarkably robust and captures an always entrancing, unpredictable brand of humor.) 

Beyond the looney physical comedy, the joy of her exasperated zings, and her ear for insult comedy, Olson has perfected a kind of put-upon character who’s constantly slept on if not outright piled upon. The women she portrays are often sidelined and ignored. They’re underdogs whom everyone around takes to underestimating. But in Olson’s hands, they’re no mere victims. How could they be when they lash out so deliciously to friends and family alike or refuse anyone’s help with salty embittered cursing if not cartoonish violence? Olson’s characters never ache for our sympathy because they’d rather earn it or be owed it or even claim it, while grinning that they never really needed it in the first place. And such a move likely jolts us into raucous laughter, the kind that horrifies and soothes us in equal measure for the chaos it depends on. Which may well be Olson’s inimitable talent distilled.