Happy! Season 2
Created by: Grant Morrison, Brian Taylor
Series Directed by : Brian Taylor, Wayne Yip, Marianna Palka, David Petrarc, Joseph Kahn, Christopher Meloni
Series Writing Credits Grant Morrison, Brian Taylor, Ken Kristensen, Ahmadu Garba, Ashley Michel Hoban, Darick Robertson, Matthew White, Patrick Macmanus, Noelle Valdivia, Peter Macmanus, Evan T. Reilly
Series Cast
Christopher Meloni … Nick Sax
Ritchie Coster … Francisco Scaramucci
Lili Mirojnick … Det. Meredith McCarthy
Patton Oswalt … Happy
Bryce Lorenzo … Hailey Hansen
edina Senghore … Amanda Hansen
Patrick Fischler … Smoothie
Christopher Fitzgerald … Sonny Shine
Antonia Rey … Assunta
I’m reasonably sure that when Sœur Sourire, the Singing Nun, wrote and sang “Dominique” back in 1963, she didn’t specifically envision that one day it would be the soundtrack and backdrop to a scene of sequentially exploding nuns, resulting in a steady downpour of, um, nun residue on the streets of lower Manhattan.
Now, the French word ‘sourire’ can mean a smile, a grin, and in some circumstances, a smirk. And the singing nun had a short, tragic, and darkly comic life that ended in a joint suicide with her significant other back in 1985. So seeing her hit song used this way might have elicited a shrug and a declaration, “Ne t’inquiètes pas, sois heureux.” Ask Bobby McFerrin for the translation. Preacher fans will recall that his signature song got a similar treatment in the church massacre scene.
If none of this particularly surprises you after seeing the title of the review, then it’s safe to assume that a) you saw season one of Happy! and b) it didn’t send you screaming for the tv remote to watch The Good Place to atone for your sins and bleach your eyes.
Happy! season two is depraved, violent, sick, twisted, horrible and utterly hilarious. In short, it picks up pretty much where season one left off, where Nick Sax saved the day by helping a six year old girl to kill Santa Claus.
All the characters from season one are there, with the exception of dear old Father Christmas, who ended up as street pizza. You have children’s TV idol Sonny Shine, who combines the best of Jimmy Savile, Michael Jackson, and Jeffery Epstein. There’s Francisco (Blue) Scaramucci, who looks exactly like Walter White from Breaking Bad, and, when demonically possessed, exactly matches the mannerisms and gestures of Tony Soprano. There’s Smoothie, who lives up to his nickname in a particularly revolting matter. As part of Sonny’s Easter Promo, he’s dressed up as a rabbit Donnie Darko wouldn’t touch.
On the not-quite-as depraved side, you have Nick Sax, former cop, hit man, drunk, and somewhat unreliable POV character. He has a sidekick, an imaginary blue unicorn who used to be his daughter Hailey’s imaginary friend until Hailey outgrew imaginary friends. Now he’s Nick’s Jiminy Cricket, which has to be the least rewarding job in the universe. There’s Nick’s ex-wife, Amanda, who is trying to raise Hailey and bury Nick. There’s Meredith, Nick’s ex-police partner and ex-girlfriend (Nick, for evident reasons, is relationship-challenged). Those two are sane by the peculiar standards of the show. There’s Hailey, who is now about eight, and apparently in the process of deciding if she wants to live the life her mother leads, or the one Nick leads. This leads to an unusually dark eight year old child.
Finally, there’s Happy! who is a blue flying stuffed unicorn. Oh, don’t tell me you’ve never seen one of those; I know about your college years. Happy! Is relentlessly cheerful and optimistic, and in pretty much any other show would be as annoying as Alf (who at least ate cats) or Jar Jar Binks. But he’s so hopelessly overmatched by the depravity around him, and so impervious in his resolute good will and good cheer, that you can’t help but like him in a “oh, you poor fucking bastard” kind of way.
This season, Sonny Shine goes after Easter. He wants to rebrand it, make it a big commercial thing like Christmas. His opening scene has him selling the Pope on dropping all that depressing nailed-to-a-cross stuff and embracing the Bunny and the Peeps.
I’m only two episodes in, so I don’t have a clue where it’s going. But I’m going to enjoy the ride. Recommended for anyone who can look at Trump and still laugh.
Now on SyFy, coming soon to Hulu.