Glenn Howerton has offered some hope over his 'It's Always Sunny' future

It’s been the question on all of our lips since he stormed out on the gang in the final episode of Season 12, but now Glenn Howerton - the man we know and love as the brilliantly sociopathic Dennis Reynolds - has shed some more light on whether he will be returning to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Howerton has spoken in quite vague terms about it in the past. “I’m certainly staying open to the possibility of doing more, but there is a possibility that I will not,” he said after Season 12 wrapped.

And then at Vulture Festival back in November, he told reporters “Eh, damn it… I will say this: All joking aside, I love these guys and we have an absolute blast working together. We’ll see.”

However, his latest quotes offer the best hope yet that we’ll get to see more Dennis, at least at some point down the line.

Speaking at the TCA panel for his new NBC comedy A.P. Bio yesterday, he revealed: “I’ve not officially left It’s Always Sunny, so I hope people understand that. This is a totally separate project that I’m doing. 

“The thing about doing a show for 12 years is that people might have a hard time seeing you as anything else […] I wasn’t planning on jumping into anything else, but I saw it was Lorne Michaels and Seth Meyers, and I just loved it.”

The golden god then confirmed that he would ‘absolutely’ be able to work on both A.P. Bio and It’s Always Sunny, and continued:”“I don’t know if this is going to turn into a Curb Your Enthusiasm thing where we make them when we can or if it’s gonna pick up where it left off and it’s gonna be every year again. 

“I don’t really know […] We’ve talked about [a gap between season]. We love the show and we love each other and we want to keep doing it and if we can get away with just doing it whenever we want, why not? 

“Creatively speaking, we just want the show to be good, so if any of us is feeling burned out and we feel like it’s gonna compromise the quality of the show, we just won’t do it.”

Every It’s Always Sunny fan knows that the show just wouldn’t be the same without Dennis - as do his co-stars, Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day and Kaitlin Olsen.

Indeed, speaking of the prospect of a Dennis-less gang, Day said last year: “There is a possibility that maybe we would have Dennis in part of a season, not a complete season. I think we would still do a great season. 

“There is a possibility that we have Dennis for an entire season, which would be fantastic… I personally would not want to do the show without Dennis. And talking with Glenn, I know he still has a lot of love for the show and wants to do the show. I imagine we’ve not seen the last of Dennis Reynolds.”

So all-in-all, it sounds pretty positive. It might even be fun to see how the gang copes without Dennis for a few episodes, so long as our favourite five-star man comes back with force (how else would he come back, really?) later on.

On another positive note, A.P. Bio, the new show in which Howerton is the main man, is one of our top picks for brand new shows coming out in 2018. Here’s the trailer:

It follows the life of an award-winning philosopher who finds himself stuck teaching high school biology in Toledo, Ohio - something he is unsurprisingly not all that pleased with.

Co-starring Patton Oswalt and created by Mike White (writer of School of Rock), Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels and Late Night host Seth Meyers, it looks like the perfect vehicle for Howerton’s aptitude for playing untethered rage, as his character Jack Griffin looks to use his new students to help him get back at his academic nemesis.

The show will premiere on 1 February in the US, while we may also be treated to some new Sunny in 2018, too.

Rob McElhenney said in November last year that they expect to start writing Season 13 in February, with a view to a potential autumn release. Ayooooooooo!

(Images: FXX)