It's hard to determine whether it's more ironic or fitting Happyish, a show based on characters super self-confident about how much better they are then everyone else, would have to take baby steps to figure itself out. After two duds episodes and one merely okay-ish, “Starring Sigmund Freud, Charles Buckowski and Seven Billion A**holes,” the fourth episode in Shalom Auslander’s new series, is actually fairly satisfying. Problems are still glaring, but it appears this Showtime series has started to figure itself out, if slightly.
For the first time, we don’t start with an angry rant but rather a sorrowful plea with only a handful of obscenities. Thom (Steve Coogan) is convinced he doesn’t come from our planet. Rather, he believes he’s was on a mothership that plopped him on Earth 44 years ago. This is the only explanation he can come up with for not only why he’s here but also why he doesn’t belong. He’s tried to make it work, fit in, make some acquaintances and he even get himself a designer shirt and trendy running shoes. It hasn’t worked, though. He’s still a Martian in a world filled with earthling a**holes.
And, indeed, we are all a**holes, if we are to believe Thom’s cohort Jonathan Cooke (Bradley Whitford). “Everyone who is or was is an a**hole,” he states. It’s simply nature, and it started before conception when we all were just sperm cells among a sea of 50 million other sperms. To get to the precious egg, everyone had to go fist-first into life’s first competitive race. Only one gets the prized trophy of life, and every other cell had to share second place: death. Everyone who has ever lived is a winner in that regard, and also everyone who has ever been born had to throw an unformed elbow or stab an equally uncreated back to get ahead. “You don’t win that race without being an a**hole,” Jonathan also says.
This is not only “Starring Sigmund Freud, Charles Buckowski and Seven Billion A**holes” most entertaining segment but its most insightful. In this moment, Happyish finally becomes the narcissistically witty show it wanted so desperately to be this past month or so. It’s simply fulfilling to see Auslander’s show finally come into what it has so eagerly wished to be. The rest of the episode doesn’t always live up to these standards, but to Auslander’s credit this week, he produced his most fluid and cohesive teleplay yet.
Although it would be easy to simply compliment director Gina Mancuso — who takes over for Ken Kwapis, the executive producer who also helmed the first three installments — for this change in quality, but based on how better structured this episode is, Auslander is not only more attuned but better focused. His characters all still sound like they come from the same soapbox-aided man with a speaker down the street, but at the very least the ravings they say are not as scattershot and meandering. There’s definitely a clear focus here, and the fantastical moments are now much more organic to the story at large.
The mothership monologue is not just throw in, but rather plays a key role. This is the first time Thom and his wife Lee’s (Kathryn Hahn) insecurities feel fulfilling to the narrative, and not merely excuses for endless, smug complaining, and their desire for the unknown forces-that-be to pluck them away from this God-forsaken planet plays a handsome metaphor thanks to a CG spaceship later on. Most excitingly, however, is how characters this week start to feel like people for once. They have more genuine and less selfish issues, and they talk to one another like actual human beings. That is, when they aren’t engaged in nihilistic monologues about the state of humanity and our purpose in life.
The standout of the bunch, as seen these past two episodes, is Whitford’s Jonathan. Based on his thoughtful, well cared-for conversations, it’s odd he’s not our real protagonist. His personality is far more interesting and insightful than Thom’s, and while there's a certain mystery to him that makes him more interesting, his genuine self-awareness and the knowledge he possess about his business and the world around him — in addition to the sly sophistication the actor gives — would be much more suited to Auslander’s writing.
It’s too premature to think Happyish will find itself, but the potential is not a bleak as it seemed mere weeks ago. Auslander has gotten his high-minded opinions out of the way, but he’s still ravished up enough to give his program the spunk it needs. What’s gratifying here is “Starring Sigmund Freud, Charles Buckowski and Seven Billion A**holes” is the first installment to not go into excess. It’s far more straightforward, and that’s what makes it work. No longer is it just comedy silhouettes filled with highly on-the-nose wacky black humor, although those still come. There’s clarity for once, and it’s hard to tell if this is a phase or a reawakening but one can hope. But there’s always a chance I’ll end up more an a**hole than Auslander takes me, and the rest of humanity, for.
Image courtesy of ACE/INFphoto.com