Season 2, Episode 21
Here we are at the end of Happy Endings’ second season, one that
has proven the show’s comedic worth as well as the fact that is deserves
renewal, at least where fans are concerned. With that in mind, it’s hard to not
feel a little bittersweet about the show, which has been bandied around by the
network, which burned off the season while the rest of ABC’s Wednesday comedy
block was in repeats, and is still on the bubble in terms of renewal (though
the cast and crew seem pretty optimistic, and it’s worth noting that ABC
studios co-producers the show). Thus, there was a lot of pressure on
Wednesday’s finale to perform, to prove to ABC and the audience that it’s worth
bringing back. In order to do that, the finale played things a little straighter
than usual, eschewing some of the show’s weirder tendencies, while still
managing to produce a pretty great episode.
One of the show’s main
tendencies this season, especially in the back half when not everybody might
have been watching, has been to take old jokes and put it’s own (varying) twist
on them. It’s a move that hasn’t always worked, but when the show makes it
work, it really works, to the extent that it becomes easy to forgive the show
these transactions, and other times straight up forget that that’s what they’re
doing. Having a finale that takes place at a wedding is a fairly ubiquitous
cliché, and one that the show would seem to be above – especially considering
that the show did the same thing in last season’s technical finale (see “Other
Thoughts” below). However, while doing so in the season one finale felt like the
show was just plugging in old ideas in order to fill the episode order, this
time around, having a wedding serve as the plotline to the second season finale
felt like something of a meta-joke, a commentary on how often will go to that
well in order to close out a season. (Cast and crew interviews have indicated
that this might be the case, and that we might face more finale wedding
episodes in the future.)
It also helps that the wedding
this time around served as a much funnier backdrop than it did in “The Shershow
Redemption”. The ridiculousness with how quickly recurring character Derrick
got engaged to his heretofore unseen boyfriend, coupled with the failed
resplendence of the wedding itself gave the whole thing a sense of fleeting
impermanence that actually helps sell the comedic atmosphere. We don’t really
care what happens to Derrick and Eric, and that’s sort of the point. The
relative pointlessness of their wedding helps to bring the struggles of the
group to forefront, as it should be.
The most prominent storyline
in the finale also doubled as a reminder of the other major theme of the show’s
development during it’s second season, as it came to shift back around from the
rom-com inspired silliness that had so sunk the pilot and early episodes. Of
course, much like the wedding finale idea, the love triangle that seems to have
developed between Alex, Dave, and Penny (which shifts into a love quadrangle
when you include newly-introduced Chris) is an example of the show’s ability to
pull off the same idea much more strongly in the second season than in the
first.
While I still hold the same
reservations that I did when the Penny-Dave romance was introduced, and the pair
of episodes that dealt with Alex and Dave hooking up, I have to give the show
props for the relative ease with which it’s been able to pull all of this off.
The drunken conversation between Penny and Dave was perhaps the best
illustration of these two character’s slow realization of the romantic feelings
that exist between them, as was the snippet of a conversation between Alex and
Dave, and their subtle hand-holding that closed out the episode. The power of
this subtlety is only proven further by the one misstep in this plotline where
Penny goes to talk Alex about the possibility of dating Dave, and Dave just
conveniently happens to be compromisingly half-dressed, which just pushed Penny
towards Chris. (For clarification, I had no problem with Penny going to talk to
Alex, but what it led to was ridiculous.) It’s move that reeks of soapy drama
that the show hasn’t really proven itself capable of yet, and would most likely
be reversed within the first few episodes of the (still) hypothetical third
season.
Luckily, that small bit of
outrageousness was balanced with a few more subdued (dramatically, not comically)
stories. Jane and Brad had a nice pair of intersecting stories, with Jane’s
serving as a perfect compliment to her general self-centered nature and panache
for deception. I’m more interested in Brad’s, however. His admission to Jane
functioned as a fairly standard marriage subplot, albeit one with a sweet and
deserved ending, but their was also a nice undercurrent of Brad’s examination
of his own masculinity. The show has made no bones about the fact that Brad
exhibits a post-feminist form of masculinity (and both the character and the
show supportive of this fact), so to seem him have a gender-based freak-out was
certainly interesting, and I hope the show would keep this going as part of an
unemployment arc for Brad if it makes it to a third season.
Max’s reunion with his
cross-dressing cover band was fairly slight, even by the standards of this
show, but much like the love triangle and Brad’s questioning of his
masculinity, it saw the character taking a good look at himself. Max has always
been very confident person, so for the show to have him display insecurity
about his body was a nice subtle touch. But really, the cover band mostly
seemed to exist to give us that awesome closing imagine of everybody dancing to
a fairly well done cover of “Like a Prayer”. It was a fun and large-scale, and
it served on a good button to the episode, a way to send out the season on a
high note without the risk of trying to go out with a big laugh. And if we don’t
get a third season, at least we’ll have the memory of the show going out with a
bang, and maybe that will make the pain of cancellation hurt a little bit less.
Quotes and Other Thoughts:
There’s actually still one
more episode for the show to air sometime in the next month or two. (ABC did
the same in season one thanks to its odd-numbered 13 episodes.) It appears to
be a holdover from earlier in the season and thus has nothing to do with any of
these on going plots. So yes, continue treating this episode like the season
finale it was always meant to be.
In keeping with the show’s
tradition, Max’s website, http://www.thingsthataregay.biz,
actually exists, though it’s nowhere near as exciting as one would think it
would be.
From the media round-up for
the finale: Interviews with creator David Caspe, and stars Zachary Knighton,
and Eliza Coupe and Casey Wilson.
“I have not seen anything
that unnecessarily complicated since the third season of Lost.”
“And no, I will not save the
drama for Michelle Obama, Derrick.”
“I will always love Sean
Penn, no matter how creepy and thin his mustache gets. He’s like a roided-out,
hulked-up John Waters.”
“MAKE IT
STAAAAAAAANKKKK!”
“I’m so glad that I don’t get
invested in your boyfriends of the week that I only hear about through
dialogue.”
“Why do I always go to slop
yobs?”
“Eating three meals a day as
opposed to one super day-long meal.”
“You guys talk so fast that I
can barely understand what you’re saying half the time anyways.”
“The Mandonna guys still
looking amazing, and I still look like me – or Tom Arnold.”
“You look like a hooker I
slept with in Korea.”
“Does this look like brie?”
“Yeah, it looks like brie.” “Good, because it’s a napkin.” “That’s weird,
babe.”
“Except for you Pitchy Pete.
Pitchy as always, bud.”
“So you’re sending a black
guy to an Irish wedding to steal booze?”
“What the f-“ “-unky cold medina!”
“Was it that the concierge
looked like an Indian Martin Lawrence?”
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