100 Favorite Shows: #46 — Happy Endings
“Oh my god, are you having a breakdown? Let me get my camera.”
In the beginning of the 2010s, ABC was keen to break into the television hybrid genre of hangout and romantic comedies. Their Alyssa Milano pilot, Romantically Challenged, lasted just three episodes. Joanna Garcia’s Better with You was canceled after one season. But one show (that was initially dismissed) managed to break through for three seasons, at least: Happy Endings. Created by David Caspe, Happy Endings steadily earned an acclaimed reputation over its first season, bucking the notion that ABC was trying “too hard” to find their own Friends. In April 2011, they stumbled onto a mid-season replacement that was impossibly close to the 2010s rendition of what Friends would be. Through the series’ offbeat humor and high-chemistry performances, Happy Endings became as beloved as other contemporary, quick-witted, warm-hearted comedies (like Community, with which Happy Endings shared a composer (Ludwig Göransson) and producers (The Russo Brothers)). Hope for a revival has persisted since the show’s cancellation in May 2013, but a brand new episode was released during the COVID-19 pandemic, showing that even in the worst of times, there can still be a happy ending.
(There are spoilers for Happy Endings and Psych in this essay. If you don’t want either ru-i-ned for you, then stop reading now.)
Brad Williams (Damon Wayans, Jr.) is a probably-Gemini, high-maintenance career journeyman who works in the businesses of gyms, parties, and ties. He’s married to Jane Kerkovich (Eliza Coupe), who is a high-strung, competitive car salesperson. Jane’s sister is Alex Kerkovich (Elisha Cuthbert), a flighty, vagabond freelancer with immense confusion to the world around her. She kickstarted the story of Happy Endings by leaving her fiancée, Dave Rose (Zachary Knighton), at the altar on the day of their wedding. Dave is the kind of guy who thinks it’s cool to wear a leather duster, but is actually far from being hip and is mostly comfortable in his food truck, “Steak Me Home Tonight.” He had a brief, flirtatious dalliance with Penny Hartz (Casey Wilson), the personified embodiment of the lyric from the Friends theme song that reads, “Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s D.O.A.” She is best friends with the Kerkovich sisters, but she also dated the slovenly Max Blum (Adam Pally) in college. That is, until Max came out, a fact which changed nothing about his belief that the best way to make it in the world was to rely on reality television or, perhaps, the lottery.
This was the group that anchored Happy Endings, a hangout comedy in the lineage of the archetypes that came before it (Jane might as well be Monica Geller 2.0). Much of Happy Endings’ identity, however, was rooted in a different joke delivery machine than Friends, which was largely based upon sarcasm. Happy Endings, however, was warm, sincere, and filled with characters who were unabashedly themselves, even when those selves were goofy, true-hearted millennials.
The comedy could be winking, even when it was fully immersed in its own tropes. (Think of “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” when Jane waxes, “That place is harder to get into than Obvious Joke Here, that new alt-comedy club.”) However, the comedy could also rapidly twist its way across a number of punchlines. (In “Deuce Babylove 2: Electric Babydeuce,” Alex tramples over Jane’s request that a wedding must be perfect by hijacking her teasing “Per…” with, “Pearl Harbor! Because we want this wedding to be da bomb! Like that Michael Bay movie, Armageddon.”) Most of all, the comedy of Happy Endings was likable.
While the romantic conflict was the original driving force of Happy Endings, the show quickly realized the fun was in the aforementioned humor and the insane, effervescent chemistry between the electrifying cast members. (The difference is palpable in the season two premiere, “Blax, Snake, Home,” which signaled a new confidence and direction for the show.) Most of the time, Happy Endings was keen to swing through the playground of classic hangout sitcoms, only setting itself apart with the valuable spin of a joke every two seconds.
“The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” for example, resembles the classic sitcom structure of a group of friends trying and failing to find love on the holiday of romance. Yet, by including a barrage of jokes in its tight, twenty-one minute construction, the episode elevates above its predecessors simply by being hysterical beyond all reason. Yes, the stories of each character intersect as the characters search for love in Chicago. Yes, they all end up back together by the denouement of the holiday installment. Yes, Brad even directly compares them to a windier, more wintry collection of the friends from Friends (even the pretense about their jobs mattering in their lives is dropped completely). But Happy Endings is a legacy achievement in the recent history of television simply because it took ordinary concepts and made them deliriously giddy, as it did in this particular episode.
I remember Happy Endings for its full-bodied commitment and exuberance for well-trod gags, like a cutaway gag revealing Jane dousing her friends in pepper spray when they attempted a surprise party for her. As well as for the silly sincerity and wholesomeness of a throwaway joke like Brad stroking Dave’s face and comparing its smoothness to butter. Which, as the camera pans out to reveal, he is also stroking.
Like most people, though, it’s hard to deny that one of the most far-reaching legacies of Happy Endings is its particular, “modern” way of speaking. (Really, the lingo was limited to this group and anyone, like me, who sought to emulate them at the time of the show’s airing.) When Brad has to undergo a cavity filling at the dentist’s office, he implores, “Just give me the goof juice and don’t be bashful.” (The use of “bashful” is a particularly delightful diction choice.) The mannerisms and intonations of the Happy Endings crew helped set them apart from any other television friend group. Mostly, this came from Penny’s elongated “Byeeeeeee,” mispronounced, “Ah-mah-zing,” mushmouthed “Suh kuyt” to replace “So cute,” and her proclivity for abbreviating everything, like “Hysterecto” subbing in for “Hysterectomy.” It took a revisit of certain Happy Endings episodes to realize I owe at least ten percent of my vernacular to Penny Hartz. (Likewise, her peers adopted the same verbiage just by virtue of their proximity to her.)
My most profound love for Happy Endings comes in its second season, like Alan Sepinwall’s adoration for season two of Chuck, in particular, or Mallory Rubin’s obsession with season six of Game of Thrones. Season two of Happy Endings is a perfect season of television comedy, but it’s also one of the all-time great TV seasons, full stop.
My favorite episode from this season, “The Butterfly Effect Effect,” exhibits one of Happy Endings’ best examples of turning a classic sitcom episode structure into a sincere affair. The installment is based around the group’s annual “Spring Smackdown,” which consists of Brad and Jane getting into a massive argument over a tiny discrepancy (like Parmesan cheese, for example) and the other four sitting back to enjoy it. For them, it’s like Groundhog Day: a sign that spring is coming. They make up t-shirts for the anticipated quarrel and each group member participates delightfully. It’s the kind of group consensus behind a friend group trope that we should all be so lucky to experience in our own lives.
(I got the same vibe from Alex pulling a prank on Penny by sticking her bra in the freezer, lifting herself up from the couch like David Spade in Grown Ups to tell her she just got “freezer burned,” and then plopping back down. That’s friend group goals right there.)
At first, the Spring Smackdown we’re treated to is a manufactured one between Brad and Jane to appease the rest of their friends, as they don’t feel like fighting. Predictably and perhaps inevitably, this spurs a genuine fight between them in regards to who left the door open and allowed birds into their apartment. (Coining Brad with the moniker, “Tuppence a Bag,” Jane believes his ability to attract birds makes him the obvious culprit.)
Before the real fight even has a chance to fully materialize, “The Butterfly Effect Effect” descends to a conclusion and resets the evolution of Brad and Jane’s superiority complex among their friends back to where it was before the episode and all is well. But we had laughs along the way, which was always Happy Endings’ true point of excelling. After all, my most everlasting mental image of the series is from this episode, which also features a subplot of Max turning into Winnie the Pooh, as he grunts, sleeps, and hibernates through the winter, eventually getting a trash can stuck on his head. Once Spring Smackdown concludes, though, hibernation is over for the honey-loving bear and he emerges with eagerness to attend the local chophouse in his footsie pajamas and his sunnies (Penny’s rubbing off on me again!).
The evocation of Winnie the Pooh’s iconography as a cultural touchstone for both the audience and the friend group to process Max’s bedraggled behavior is such a precious one. There are few things I love so much as whip-smart comedies mining the visual vocabulary of pop culture for jokes in their stories. (While Max basically portrays a live action Winnie the Pooh here, I’m also referring to the kind of joke present in Psych 2: Lassie Come Home, when Shawn serves Juliet a romantic dinner of gummy worms, pretzel sticks, popcorn, and buttered toast: the same meal Snoopy cooks in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. It’s just wonderful!)
Throughout Happy Endings, the characters bonded over this pop culture knowledge and their (I’m just gonna say it because considering the sensibilities of each of these characters, it has to be a true presumption) shared fondness for yacht rock. Alex pulls off an impression of a drunken chipmunk by likening it to Renée Zellweger. Dave explains that he’s always been turned on by “a pint-sized girl with a limp,” dating his fetish back to Kerri Strug. Even Brad getting a job and smiling, “Call me Melanie Griffith, ’cause I’m gonna be workin’, girl!” is the kind of joke that has had a massive, implicit influence on my own daily humor structures. (Plus, Dave’s endearing, “I love that movie!” makes the joke that much sweeter.)
This Brad zinger comes in season three’s “The Marry Prankster,” another favorite episode of mine, which centers around Max striving to pull off perfect pranks against each of his friends as retribution for their prank that made him think he won the lottery. (Pally is hilarious in his unleashing of a bleeped “Fuck you!” parade against all his friends when he thinks his winnings have “freed” him from his friendship with them.) The aspect of “The Marry Prankster” I appreciate the most, though, is how the characters never respond cynically to Max’s pranks.
Following Max’s prank about her potential engagement to Pete (Nick Zano), Penny espouses her overbearing kindness and need to be liked when she relays the story of how she faked a three-week Alaskan cruise just so a waiter at a restaurant wouldn’t think she was being rude in her refusal of a doggy bag. Elsewhere, after Max infuses Brad’s lotion with glitter, Jane refuses to waste the opportunity to make him dance like a stripper. In real life, it’s fun to be around these kinds of people, who are game for any sort of activity. On television, it was just as fun to watch them react to one another with friendliness, rather than contempt.
Of course, “The Marry Prankster” wouldn’t have been a Happy Endings installment without its fair share of throwaway hilarity and subtle spurts of character development. Repeatedly, Max gets his own name wrong (“Mark Bloom” and “Max Broom” are close, though) and Alex mistakes the validity of “Muffin Month,” which she believes isn’t until May, but as Penny corrects, “isn’t real.” And, ultimately, despite all the pranks, the episode really does end with Penny engaged. As the series was (tragically) approaching its untimely end, it was still delivering baby steps forward for character closure. And — because it wouldn’t be Happy Endings without it — these baby steps came in the same episode where Max blew up his own car, following Dave’s attempt to fill it with popcorn through the “Flintstones hole” in the bottom of it, just to make Dave think he’d died.
For all of these bombastic jokes, Happy Endings still refused to grow cynical and the hopes of a reunion have never veered down such a path either. Even now, seven years after its initial cancellation, hope remains and is occasionally rewarded. Revisiting the series of old friends puts a smile on my face as big as Brad’s when his friends turned up to the bar with them and he remarked simply, “Oh goodie! You guys are here!” Not a touch of sarcasm or bitterness was in his voice when he greeted them. He was only truly, purely happy to see them. After all, they were his friends, he loved them, and they were all happy together. Why wouldn’t he greet them warmly? Even if the untimely ending was decidedly unhappy, moments like these proved how true to its name Happy Endings always was. It was nothing short of ah-mah-zing.
