Happy! (Season 1)

There are some characters that may get to the right place, even if they’re willing to bend or break a few rules.  In 24, Jack Bauer is framing his actions as part of the greater good.  What’s a few broken fingers if millions of lives are saved?  He’s the guy you send in when conventional means aren’t an option.

To be clear, Nick Sax is no Jack Bauer.  Nick used to be a cop, but he made a series of bad choices, like sleeping with his partner.  He’s become about as apathetic as one can get.  He’s working as a hit man when he gets an unexpected visitor:  Happy.

Who is Happy?  Happy is a purple winged unicorn who happens to be the imaginary friend of Hailey Hansen, who has been kidnapped by Very Bad Santa.  She sends Happy out to find her father to help her and the other abducted children.  Nick is reluctant to help, mostly because it’s hard for an imaginary friend to be that persuasive.  (He’s also reluctant to believe that he has a daughter.)  Nick eventually comes around and starts tracking Hailey.  Also on the case are his former partner, Meredith McCarthy, and his ex-wife, Amanda.

You might wonder how a show about an imaginary friend would work.  There are some rules, like imaginary friends disappearing when the child dies.  (If the child stops believing, the imaginary friend still exists, unseen.)  It would also appear that imaginary friends are more real than one might expect.  Happy is able to relate information to Nick that Nick might not otherwise have access to.

Nick and Happy make for an extremely odd couple.  Nick is about as jaded as you can get.  Happy is about as optimistic as one could make a cartoonish character.   Nick can’t stand Happy and Happy is mostly doing this for Hailey’s sake.  In fact, may of the relationships can be defined as unwanted.  His ex-wife and ex-partner don’t want to work together, but do.  McCarthy is also being pressured by the show’s main antagonist, who is, in turn, being pressured by a client in a giant bug suit.  I’d say they only two characters that want to interact with each other are Hailey and Happy, who see the least of each other during the first season’s eight episodes.

It’s surprising that SyFy put out such a dark show.  It’s a lot closer to Breaking Bad than 24.  It’s almost like Breaking Bad and 24 were put into a blender with a heavy dose of sarcasm.  Even though it features a kids’ show, this is definitely for adults.  There’s plenty of graphic violence in each episode.  There’s also more subtle imagery, like two teletubby-like characters, shooting a rainbow between their respective places where the sun doesn’t shine.  (You may not even want to know where Smoothie got his nickname.)

The first season was ridiculous in a few areas, but generally worked pretty well.  The plot twists seemed to be in all the right places and none of them seemed unnecessary.  Part of this is probably because the season was so short.  You can only miss the bad guy so many times before it becomes a cliché. 

 

IMDb page

42 (2013)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

In high school, I had a P.E. coach who had lived in Miami when segregation was still in effect.  He told the class that blacks weren’t allowed to be in Miami Beach at night without a work permit.  (If you look at old photos of Miami Beach, it’s also not uncommon to see signs prohibiting Jews.)  I’ve never known segregation in my lifetime.  However, there are still people alive that remember a time when blacks were denied service.

42 is about Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player to play in Major League Baseball.  The movie starts with Robinson playing for the Kansas City Monarchs.  He’s about to be recruited by Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers.  At first, he’s to play for the Montreal Royals, which is the minor-league affiliate of the Dodgers.  After proving himself, he’s promoted to the major leagues.

Rickey admits that the decision is motivated primarily by money.  Having a black player will attract black fans.  Black fans will pay green dollar bills, meaning more money for the team.  Since money’s on the line, he has to know that Robinson won’t react.  If Robinson responds to a racial slur, people won’t remember what the other guy said.  If he hits someone, no one will care what the other guy did to provoke it.  Papers will report that Robinson lost his cool.

Being that the movie is based on historical events, I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by revealing that everything works out for Robinson.  This isn’t to say it was easy.  Boseman does a great job of showing the frustration of a man that can’t fight back, despite wanting to.  Phillies manager Ben Chapman is shown as having no shortage of racial epithets and unkind remarks to spew at Robinson.  Robinson just has to take it.

It does have that feel-good ending where we get the sense that Robinson has made it, but I’m sure that it was still an uphill battle for him and for other black baseball players that followed.  The recent victory of an American of Indian descent in the Miss America pageant proves that we still have a lot to overcome when it comes to racism.  (We may have gotten rid of the separate bathrooms, but there are still people out there that only see skin deep.)

I normally don’t watch biographical movies.  The only reason I watched this was that my parents had rented it from Netflix and kept it so that I could watch.  I remember seeing the coming attractions and being somewhat interested, so I decided to at least give it a try.  I have to wonder how many of the facts were glossed over.  According to IMDb, some liberties were taken with history, attributing quotes to the wrong people.  I’m not sure how readily he was accepted by his teammates.  Then again, it’s based on a true story, not presented as totally accurate. 

IMDb page