'Happyish' episode 5 review: 'Starring Josey Wales, Jesus Christ and The New York Times'

After a promising change-of-pace last week, things seemingly go back to normal again on Happyish with this week’s “Starring Josey Wales, Jesus Christ and The New York Times.” Thom (Steve Coogan) is back to cussing people out — this time his frustrations directed towards Arthur Miller for making a play as depressing as Death of a Salesman — and not long after this does show creator Shalom Auslander have his characters ranting and sheering about religion, the media and, as always, the corporate workforce.

And indeed, this episode often feels quite discombobulated as the narrative bounces back and forth with Thom’s troubles and his wife Lee’s (Kathryn Hahn) misery. Although, with that said, there is a running theme: the inescapable woe of our times. On the way to his early-morning meeting, Thom’s train ends up stuck, as it is revealed later a passenger was killed in front of their tracks. He now must endure the people around him, including a New York Times-reading businesswoman, a devout Catholic and a self-important attorney, and also a young punk who listens to his headphones far too loud.

Lee, on the other hand, finally has a little studio for her own to finally get to her art. But this freedom is cut short when the nearby owner ends up talking about his troubled WWII history, which took nearly all his family members either at the time or not long after. And while Lee does her best to get him to go to finally finish her work for the day, it ultimately does her no good. She, too, is stuck and must confront the horrors behind her Judaism heritage.

And while it’s nice to see Happyish slightly coming into form, the reason “Starring Josey Wales, Jesus Christ and The New York Times” doesn’t quite work is because, for its oddly sentimental message, there’s still not enough originality or meat to the story. Happyish seems so content on ranting about what’s wrong with the world that it, ironically, never can see what’s wrong with itself. Even when it has a semi-optimistic message, it’s just as smug and pandering as it was during its first three self-loathing episodes.

Moreover, Happyish still seems uncomfortable with how to handle Lee into the narrative. While she deals with many of the same hassles her husband endures, and last week did a fine job to establish her as Thom's equal, her storyline also feels forced into each episode. Her actions rarely impact the story at large, and only serve to show how the intolerable issues of our time go beyond Thom's corporate life. Which is a shame, because Hahn is a terrifically talented who constantly seems underused in film and TV today. Hopefully Auslander figures out what to do with her Lee, because the actress still deserves better.

For what it’s worth, though, Auslander’s show does seem to understand where it wants to go. While it’s disappointing to not see Bradley Whitford’s Jonathan Cooke all-too-much this week — especially after how much of an impression he and his character left in the past two episodes — to finally streamline Happyish on the state of upper-middle-class struggles in an ever-dour, depressing society finally concentrates the series to what Auslander actually wanted. Just like Thom, we’ve heard all the problems already. We know the world sucks. We are well aware that society is petty and narcissistic. But what good is it to just say that it is over-and-over-and-over again?

It’s hard to decide just where to put Happyish in terms of quality. Like Thom’s train, it's filled with nosily one-note characters and an endless dour to remind everyone why things suck. Unlike the main character’s journey to work, though, it’s only somewhat in a rut. The disappointment of it not living up to its potential already passed the station, but Auslander and his cast do give their Showtime series its merits. Buried inside this program is a genuinely smart, very funny and timely show, and when it doesn’t have its head buried in the news headlines on the front page of The New York Times, it starts to get this. Not this week, though.

Image courtesy of ACE/INFphoto.com