Review: Happy! “Some Girls Need a Lot of Repenting”

Hailey really takes after her father.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Nick Sax’s struggle continues, as he tries to find ways to make ends meet without resorting to criminal activity. Of course, that means it’s time for some good old criminal activity to pay the bills. He takes a job to rob a house from one of his old buddies, but at least has the decency to haggle for the price of the job.

Meanwhile, more plots unfold in the world of Happy! Mr. Blue has apparently murdered all those attackers from the last episode that tried to kill him, while Sonny Shine has enacted yet another murderous scheme with the help of Smoothie. In addition, Hailey begins her first day at school, which doesn’t go well. In a PTSD flashback, she ends up hurting her teacher by mistake and starts to get bullied by her classmates. Amanda, too, is in dire straits, having lost her job at the dentist after nearly drowning a kid in the chair during a post-traumatic flashback.

Nick’s robbery takes him to the house of none other than Sonny Shine, whose wife is home and can see Happy due to her drug-fueled younger days. She and Happy indulge in a musical number while Nick robs the place blind and fights off some goons. Nick delivers the bag of goods to Mary, his old partner, who is apparently the one behind the job. Nick is unhappy that she’s been trying to investigate Sonny Shine without him, but he joins in on her escapade to bring that psychopath down.

That has to wait, though, because Nick forgot to pick up Hailey. He goes to see her at school and picks her up. Hailey leaves to go fight another girl in the gym but is interrupted by Smoothie, who whoops the girl for her. Following this, Nick tries to play one of the videotapes he found at Sonny’s on the A/V club’s VHS player. It turns out, though, that the videotape he had was just a sex tape and not real evidence against him. Later that night, though, Nick falls asleep to one of the sex tapes while pleasuring himself, and wakes to find the tape has continued to show a strange performing man in a thong dressed like Hitler in Sonny’s company.

Our Take:

Well, it’s only gonna get stranger from here, folks. The hyper-violent psycho-pop show about imaginary friends and the destitute ex-cop who despises them is getting into full swing. It’s been a slow start to get things moving, but it’s feeling like Happy! is finally getting to where it needs to go. While it hasn’t yet captured the brutality and originality of the first season, I’ve enjoyed this episode very much and am looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Nick is still the big cheese on the show, the acting core that holds it all together, but Smoothie is coming out to be a new villainous favorite of mine. His deadpan professionalism does really well to contrast with Sonny Shine’s foppish insanity. Smoothie has also had some of the best moments so far, with “removing a man of all his skin” as the high point of his career. It looks like the show is building up to a showdown between these two and that’s something I’m really looking forward to.

This season of Happy! isn’t quite as focused as I’d like it to be. The first season jumped right into its world of brutal violence and comic-book insanity, thrusting Nick into an adventure that propelled the plot forward. However, here, the story hasn’t quite been able to pick up momentum. While it’s not bad to watch, the “mystery” of Sonny and the criminal elements that are present here isn’t that interesting. There’s still the ongoing conflict of Nick trying to be a good dad for Hailey while trying to get by in his awful world, but I think this show works best when it’s direct. A story more focused on getting Nick into dangerous and stylishly violent situations seems like it would be best.

Happy! is still getting on its feet, but making moves in the right direction. I don’t think the Easter theme is as poignant as the Christmas theme of season one was, but that’s an acceptable issue for the show to have. There are still those powerful moments of brutal violence that catch your attention and make your skin crawl, but the rest of the episode isn’t really keeping up with that level of narrative strength.