Happy Endings - "Fowl Play/ Date" - Review

Happy Endings is back once again with its cartoonishly fast pace and rapid fire jokes. Seriously, it’s truly not until you’re taking notes on a show like this and try to get down as many of the great jokes as you can that you realize just how much of an extra mile Happy Endings goes to cram jokes (and really funny ones at that) into every episode. The series is usually at its best when it’s thin on plot, and packs in joke after joke. It’s to the credit of the writers and the commitment of the actors that even at its worse, the series is still one of the funniest shows on tv. There are definitely more heartwarming shows, more ambitious shows, and even more clever ones, but few that try to make you laugh as often as Happy Endings. If it doesn’t always get so touchy feely or if its relies too much on formulaic sitcom situations to justify and get away with the amount of jokes, well, that’s okay because these characters are so great and the series so very funny.

In the A-plot, Penny and Brad accidentally kill Alex’s racist parrot Tyler with industrial glue fumes (Alex is off at “Rom Com Con” which sidelines the usually brilliant Elisha Cuthbert who doesn’t appear except at the start and end of the episode). Casey Wilson plays Penny’s enthusiasm for covering up the accident a-mah-zing… ly. Daman Wayans Jr.’s nervous freakout contrasts perfectly with her (I don’t believe we’ve had too many storylines with just the two of them, which is a shame because they’re really good together). Brad and Penny eventually stage it to look like the bird flew out the window (but not before rascistly pooping on a magazine cover featuring Obama). However, they dispose of the body poorly and it ends up being discovered and getting an autopsy. Brad and Penny (but particularly Brad) become increasingly nervous, especially after a funeral is held for the bird where his other rascist bird friends show up. An in memorium video made by Alex puts them over the edge, and Penny admits to the whole thing. But then we learn that Tyler had liver problems; Alex apparently gave him alcohol. And everyone is absolved of guilt in a way perhaps only possible on this show. 

Meanwhile, (on what I would argue is the lesser of the two storylines) Dave and Jane (in anoother underused pairing for the series, though one less successful than Brad and Penny) try to set up Max with friends of theirs. The only problem is that they’re both exactly like Dave and Jane (and Max definitely doesn’t need any more people like that in his life). Max rejects them, but Dave and Jane are crazy and will have none of that. They crash Max’s date with a guy he met on his second date, and quickly wreck all of Max’s chances with him. Max reconciles with them, letting them know that he doesn’t need to date those guys they set him up with because he’s already got a douchebag and a type-A as friends in them, and, honestly, who needs more than one of those in their life. 

Often times the plot of the series is purposely inconsequential. By aiming for jokes over plot, the plot gets lost in the shuffle. And usually Happy Ending goes right to the edge of too much level of inconsequentialness; but “Fowl Play/Date” often crosses this line at times. Sure, the A-Plot is probably even more inconsequential than the B-Plot but it’s given time to go from point A to point B, and Wilson and Wayans are so good that it makes up for how stupid of a scenario accidentally killing the bird is.
While the B-plot is so short and obvious that it feels pointless, even for a series that does a lot of inconsequential things like this to begin with. Now like I said before, Happy Endings is best when it’s crammed with jokes, but it’s even better when those jokes emanate from stories focused on the characters. The B-plot focuses on Max (and Adam Pally admittedly gets the best lines of this story), but doesn’t do enough development to justify itself. 

These plots aren’t particularly stand out. A bit too much time is spent on Penny and Brad’s story which gets strangely cartoonish even for this series. The Max/Jane/Dave storyline is almost too short, and resolves itself too quickly for my liking (although avoiding particular, clichéd sitcom situations is its bread and butter; the show does familiar storylines but refuses to play by their rules). And Alex (who has become one of the series’s surprisingly strongest assets) is pretty much not in the episode. Happy Endings (like a lot of shows) is at its best when every cast member has something to do (and relatively equally). This is a funny half hour of television, but it’s not the best work the series has done.

Stray Observations:

-“I realized he had no other interests other than being rascist. So I got him into baseball … He’s into the White Sox”

-The gang rattles off different kind’s ‘Cons’ (I should have written them down), which displeases another restaurant patron: “I’ve got one: shut the fuck up” (The gang's reply, "Oh, that's a good one: "Shut the Fuck Up Con")

-“Yes, I wrote an original screenplay because I have all the alone time in the world. Thanks for rubbing it in Dave”

-“I’ve brokered 3 marriages. One against his will” –Why does this not surprise me about Jane?

-Alex eats birthday cake every night off her hand imprinted plate. She also had REALLY big hands when she was 5.

-“He says he does it to forget the past. Three school bus crashes”

-“You can’t just poke him with pencils and yell clear” - Nervous Brad is the best.
-“What would Carry Washington do in Scandal?” “Demand to see the president then almost make out with him” –I’ve never seen Scandal and still find this very funny.

-“Up is down. Left is right. Acoustic is bad. People are over Mayer” – They totally are Dave.

-“I’m dead, but a black guy would have done it better” – Brad imagines the parrot mocking him from the grave.

-“I didn’t know you were here” “We spend half our lives here”

-Dave and his doppleganger friend take Max’s comment as a compliment: “Jack Johnson 1 and Jack Johnson 2 over here.”

-Max makes up with Dave and Jane in typically absurd Happy Endings fashion: “My pantry is already stocked with a kickass Jane and a kickass Dave. And a rat who’s eating through my aluminum cans that I’m going to kill with my bare hands”
-“We got into an argument about who made the better Celebrity Apprentice All Star. I said Melissa Rivers. He said Joseph Goebbels. I thought he committed suicide” – Oh, how I missed you this episode Alex.

Grade: B

What did everyone else think?