Everyone’s angry. That mostly amounts to the moral of this week’s Happyish, “Starring Rene Descartes, Adweek and HRH The Princess of Arendelle.” We’re all furious. We’re all annoyed. We’re all fed up with the system and its bulls**t rules. Does this mean the angry people are the rebels, Thom (Steve Coogan) asks in his Coke pitch, or are the happy ones really fighting the system?
Well, if you were to look at Shalom Auslander’s show, you’d be willing to believe the latter. For more so than ever does this week’s episode feel dated and tired in its grumbled convictions. This is especially evident in Lee’s (Kathryn Hahn) constantly ranting towards Frozen and its tediously overplayed, Oscar-winning song. You know what one. Like every kid in his class, her son Julius (Sawyer Shipman) loves the song, and he and their friends sing it at any given chance. It may end up becoming “Let It Grow” or “Let It Blow,” but the song remains in his heart and then in the ears of his complacent parents. She, Thom and their friends clap away for every performance, enjoying their child's expressiveness, but naturally the mood in the room chances whenever Julius and his dress leave the room.
It’s a nice song, Lee’s willing to agree, but the movie it’s created for is not only a “f**ked up movie” but “the most f**ked up, destructive movie of maybe the past 50 years.” Why does Lee say this? Because it tells the story of a gifted young girl, whom her parents lock away and her neighbors shun. But when given the chance, she runs away to rightfully develop herself as a strong-willed and independent woman who builds her own castle and determines how to use her powers. In the spirit of Disney, however, this once self-motivated woman must sacrifice her independence to make everyone else happy. Even though they’re the ones who helped make her miserable throughout her life.
It’s a deplorable message, Lee thinks — and don’t get her started on Tangled, apparently, and her ranting also would be entertaining at the time of the movie's release. By now, though, there’s so many think pieces and complaints about this made that it’s no where near as shocking or relevant as Auslander wishes, and it certainly won’t age in the years to come. The edge is unintentionally muted, and the impact is equally as unfelt, and this would be a key moment when being angry doesn’t make you a rebel.
Her own rendition of the tune at the end, in the form of “Lexapro,” is sorta amusing, particularly considering it’s clear they put a great deal of money into just this one particular scene. But it goes on a little too long, and, because they can’t use anything close to something sounding like the original song, the parody comes across more as an awkward YouTube gag from two years prior than a rightfully brisk take on the song, pun intended. It's meant as a stinging commentary also completing her mini arc this week, though, and this is disappointing because it’s probably this week’s strongest attribute, believe it or not.
Well, besides James Deen. Yes, the porn star James Deen, guest starring in “Starring Rene Descartes, Adweek and HRH The Princess of Arendelle” as himself breaking the fourth wall multiple times to establish the principles of business in XXX terms and also later helping Thom through his recent funk. This week, Thom discovers his working buddy Jonathan (Bradley Whitford) kicked him out of his own office in order to make an Ideation Room. Yes, MGT is now reduced to use make-up words for make-up rooms, and this is all part of the company’s face lift to keep it hip, relevant and, most importantly, young enough to survive and thrive. It’s shallow, it’s phony, but it’s what they need, Jonathan says, and specifically they need to become a creative leader in the industry again today. This involves kicking a senior employee out of his swanky office into a rut of a room down the hall, it would seem. It's literally out with the old, in with the new.
Anyway, back to Deen. Even though he’s performing as a variation of himself, the handsome personality is an extremely charismatic addition surprisingly. While never breezily included into narrative, he makes up for this and then some thanks to his oozing charisma giving frank, sexualized business talk. Where was this personality when he starred in The Canyons? No matter. It’s a suave, unexpectedly commanding performance providing the wise talk Thom needs and only given successfully by Whitford before him. If just by this episode's indication alone, the man's got a future as a spokesperson should he ever feel inclined to go into it. And one assumes he needs to think about his options sooner or later, for the porn industry isn’t known for their pensions.
If it seems as though I’m trying to fill time by talking about porn star’s five minutes of work, that’s because there’s not much left to say about Happyish anymore. The show bounces in quality, but still fairly self-satisfied with itself so it doesn’t look like it’ll change. Neither happy enough nor angry enough, the nevertheless bitter Showtime program can’t ever be rebellious by these terms, and it’s hard to believe this’ll change. I would say I’m ready to let it go, but by this point I’m just sounding like a broken record.
Image courtesy of INFphoto.com
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