Season Review: Happy! Season Two

Can imaginary lightning strike twice?

If I were to describe what watching Happy! is like, I’d have to say that it’s not entirely unlike a really good milkshake. It’s overwhelmingly sweet and sensate as it strikes your brain with a burst of sugary flavor and brain freeze. As you chug it down to its last drop, you get the feeling that what you’ve just ingested might have been something of a mistake, as it is most certainly terrible for you and will leave you feeling a touch ill. Yet, despite that, you shrug your shoulders and leave behind your paper cup at least somewhat satisfied; after all, you weren’t looking for a meal, but a fun, entertaining distraction, and that’s exactly what you got.

Happy! season two is quite similar, but instead of happily slurping your artery clogging milkshake, you find that there are some ugly lumps in your beverage. Is it spoiled? Has it been left out too long? Something wrong with the milk to ice cream ratio? You’re not quite sure, but you’re left with something that is not quite the pleasing confection you hoped you were getting.

I liked season one. Quite a bit, actually, and I really wanted to like season two, but there’s something here that just isn’t quite right. It’s got the same cast, the same basic idea and the same commitment to mind-bending ultraviolence and psycho-pop tendencies that made it so enjoyable in the first season, but there’s something sour that’s spoiling the batch. The result is a season that, while still pretty entertaining, doesn’t scratch the same itch as season one and feels like kind of a lackluster follow-up to a really fun show.

The plot goes a little something like this. With Nick having something of a reunion with his daughter Hailey and his estranged ex, Amanda, Nick is focusing on trying to be a good dad, with the word “trying” being the key. It seems all Nick Sax is good at is violence, mayhem and drug abuse, and restraining himself from those things is the greatest challenge he’s ever had to face. His attempts to be a role model for Hailey backfire when he ends up alienating her from him with his attempts to conceal his sordid past. This coincides with another violent plot conjured up by Sonny Shine, who is trying to make the most outrageous Easter spectacular ever. And, if that wasn’t enough, at the same time Scaramucci has been possessed by a powerful demon named Orcus, who is slowly but surely starting something of a revolution from his prison cell.

And here reveals the first major problem with this season: too many plot threads going on at once. The first season of Happy! revelled in its simplicity. It was one man (And an imaginary friend) against a cruel, cruel world, where the only way to win is by being even crazier than the people you’re fighting. Sonny Shine was an element in the show, as was Smoothie the assassin, but the focus was almost entirely on Nick. As such, the plot gave Nick plenty of opportunities to bash heads and save his daughter from certain danger.

But season two gets so caught up in itself that isn’t able to tell a story as compelling as the genius simplicity of season one. The Nick trying to be a good dad only serves to prevent him from doing the fun action that served as the engine of season one, and Sonny Shine’s increased presence just makes the show a whole lot more…weird.

Weird is the watchword for this season because they really crank up the strangeness factor this time around. Every time Sonny Shine’s diddly, foppish face entered a scene I found myself secretly dreading what was going to happen next because I knew it was just going to be something that made me uncomfortable. Whether it was the wishies, the cringe-inducing flesh monsters that serve Sonny’s and Orcus’s bidding or some manic rant Sonny was going on, there was just very little to be enjoyed when the show wanted to be a cringe-fest.

Lack of focus and questionable plot decisions aside, there is some good that came out of this season in the form of Smoothie and Orcus, the two villains that did a truly incredible job of chewing the scenery. Smoothie’s desire to corrupt Hailey as revenge against Nick was a great plot, even if it didn’t really pay off until the penultimate episode, and Orcus has such panache and candor in his machinations that you can’t help but smile at this plotting. These two elements should have been the focus of the season, but without a core idea of what this season should be, they don’t really get time to shine.

To top it all off, this season’s ending is more than a little lacking. It ends with a pretty big plot twist, but it doesn’t feel like a substantial conclusion to what this whole season was about. The central themes of the season don’t pay off, and while Nick becoming a servant of Orcus is a cool idea to work with, it doesn’t make this season any better.

Happy! has always been rough around the edges. Too dedicated to its comic book origins to appeal to television viewers yet too limited by the constraints of live action to capture the same magic that a comic can. It’s done it’s best to great success sometimes, but in a hit or miss show, failures happen, and this was definitely a miss.