Happy Endings - "Spooky Endings"

Season 2, Episode 5

What a weird, wonderful world

You know you’re watching a strong comedy when an episode is able to transcend it’s more clichéd premises and manage to still be completely entertaining. “Spooky Endings” (perhaps the most obvious and cloying title the show has ever deployed) trotted out the “outdated costume” gag, the “woman confused for a tranny” bit, and the “husband and wife debate over where they raise their kids” subplot. But it’s a testament to the show’s solid ensemble and the well-developed timing that all of this worked out for the better

Now, part of the reason that this episode actually ending being so fantastic was that the biggest laughs came from the most unconventional part, Penny and Max’s creepy mother/baby costume. It was fittingly disturbing, and it kept things delightfully weird. That weirdness was only piled on (I mean this as a compliment) when Penny gets hit on by a man dressed up as Lincoln and Max attempts to have a gay turkey party with a man dressed up as ZZ Top Gun. (I cannot believe that I just got to type that sentence.)

In fact, I’m beginning to think that weirdness just might be the show’s biggest strength. Plots like Max’s newly acquired limo and Penny’s mom performing in a boat show are plots that are possible, if not entirely plausible in the real world, and by couching itself is this strange in-between place, Happy Endings manages to deliver absurd laughs without feeling like some watered-down version of Community.

Of course, that’s not the only strength that the show has at its disposal. I’ve been amazed time and again at how quickly the show fell into its rhythms and found its own voice, and it was that rhythms and that voice that helped to carry the weaker plots. Jane and Brad’s fairly predictable turnaround on the city/suburbs was nicely hidden by the weirdness of the kids’ rebelliousness and Brad’s love affair with the hot tub. Dave and Alex’s plot, meanwhile, gets points for not being about their failed wedding (okay, it mostly wasn’t about that), and just letting the two riff off of one another.

This may not have been the funniest episode that the show has manage to produce (that honor still belongs to last week’s “Secrets and Limos”) but it is a great example of the style that the show has developed and the world it has built up. It’s just a shame that not a whole lot of people probably didn’t get to see it; without a new Modern Family tonight, I doubt the show will get the runoff benefits that have been fueling it over the past four weeks. (UPDATE: Due to a washout for the world series, this episode managed to wrack up almost 12 million viewers, a huge boost in the ratings.) (UPDATE UPDATE: Scratch that. It was more like 8.34 million viewers. But still, that's a big boost for this show.)

Quotes, Etc:

“It’s the Superbowl the Superbowl of drinking?”

“I thought you loved ‘double Penn’.”

“You sound like my mom. ‘Walk this way. Clean up your mess. Stop referring to my figure as “hilarious”’.”

“Hey guys, good news: Whatever I have is not from the bird I kissed.”

“They named their house? Who names their house?” “You named you favorite pair of sweatpants.” “Hey, leave Karen out of this.”

“Okay, so you’re plan is to use candy to lure children to a grown man in a hot tub?”

“Oh hot tub, I want me inside you.”

“Sorry doc, I guess you’ll have to go St. Elsewhere.”

“Seriously, what’s his deal?” “UUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…..”

“You guys: an entire cake. Enjoy!”

“Is that ZZ Top Gun? That’s the first thing I’ve guinenly enjoyed since Barbara Walters exploded.”

“But Penny, I want to go to my weird gay turkey party.”

“Now Penny, feed AJ that turkey leg.” “Yay Penny, give me that wet dark meat.”

“Do you want to get out of here, dude?” “That doesn’t prove anything.” “I can’t wait to see your penis.”

“It was a little weird buying candy out of grown man’s trunk.”

“Oh come on, who bacons somebody?”