What's fascinating about the media landscape is that while the cinemas are entirely slim pickings this time of year, networks take the opportunity to give limited runs to newer shows just to see if they'll take off. In this case of Happy!, Syfy premiered the show in late December with a finale coming this week. And frankly, it's a fun little shot of madness to cap off the new year.
Happy! is based off a graphic novel by Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson, tells the story of Nick Sax (Christopher Meloni), a former detective turned hitman who has fallen on extremely hard times. (So hard, in fact, that the series opens with him imagining shooting himself in the head, then dabbing as blood gushes out of the gaping head wound.) One night, Nick kills Mikey Scaramucci, heir to New York's most powerful crime family, and finally gets his wish of death. Unfortunately for Nick, he's revived in an ambulance to find Happy (Patton Oswalt), a cartoonish flying blue horse floating over him. Happy explains that he's a young girl's imaginary friend, and Nick is the girl's only chance of rescue from a twisted kidnapper. Nick flees the ambulance, with both the NYPD and the Scaramucci's, who hope to learn of Mikey's last words before he died, in pursuit while he tries to rescue the girl before it's too late.
Deeply, deeply messed-up hilarity ensues.
What's most surprising about Happy! is how excellent the cast is. Meloni is absolutely brilliant, playing Nick with an arrogant and surly swagger while never letting the audience how forget just how broken he really is. Oswalt is a great foil, with Happy coming off as upbeat and annoying without ever being grating. The duo are effective together, contributing to the show's darkly comic feel.
The supporting cast is also very good. Ritchie Coster as big bad Mr. Blue is intimidating without being over-the-top and forcing Nick, while Patrick Fischler as his top enforcer Smoothie is a particular highlight. Fischler oozes with creepiness and faux charm, and his back-and-forth conversations with Nick are often the show's highlight. Of course, the central villain, Very Bad Santa, is incredibly frightening, rarely speaking as he lumbers around every scene he's in. One particular scene with him and Hailey (the aforementioned girl) gave me chills and left me thinking about it for the remainder of the day without ever resorting to over-the-top violence or even being particularly gruesome.
On the heroic side, Lili Mirojnick and Medina Senghore form an odd buddy team as Nick's former partner and the mother of the kidnapped girl, with their subplots never really feeling like pointless diversions or slowing down the plot as they work with and without Nick.
And that's the strength of the show, ultimately. It's showrunners are Morrison and Brian Taylor, best known as the director of the equally absurd Crank franchise, and it shows. Even when the series has slower moments, it's still absurdly fun, with every episode having at least one dynamic action scene to show for it. (The fourth episode in particular has a spectacular brawl through Chinatown.) It's simply a show that throws everything at the wall and somehow manages make the vast majority of things stick.
Happy! isn't for everyone, but for those that enjoy comedy as dark as a panther in a coal mine with some really great action scenes, it's a fun little palette cleanser to the overly saccharine early year programming.
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