Happy Endings, Season 3, Episode 5: “P & P Romance Factory”
Written by Beth McCarthy-Miller
Directed by Erik Sommers
Airs Tuesdays at 9pm (ET) on ABC
No Holiday Specials? No extra-long finales? That can only mean one thing. Those six, crazy, dorks are back in action. After being preempted for a week, Happy Endings has returned and it’s still on its ah-mah-zing game.
The episode starts out with the group sitting around at their favorite hangout spot. Max is going on about how he has found his standup comedy from his childhood. Jane is depressed about not fitting in at work. I need to give the writers props for drawing from a past storyline for this- they actually keep Jane working at the car dealership she visited a few episodes earlier. Finally, after setting up what will be the respective storylines for the characters, Penny swoops in to give the episode the extreme bang that it needs. Wearing a helmet on her head, she informs everyone that her doctor is forcing her to wear it because of a concussion. Plus she has a tendency to run into things and bang her head. *Insert Penny running into things montage*
After being together in the last episode, minus Dave of course, the group splits into three different scenarios. Brad and Jane figure out a way to help Jane fit in with the guys at work. Dave and Max deal with Max reliving a moment when he was bullied in the fifth grade, something that Dave blames himself for. And Penny, wearing her helmet, attempts to start a relationship with a new guy. Alex, luckily, gets to play for two different teams in this episode, alternating between Penny’s storyline and the Dave/Max one. While on the subject of Alex, let’s just focus on a point made in this episode. Alex is funnier when she is not with Dave. Aside from her tackling a guy, her funnier moments come when she is with Penny, like when she is testing out helmets by running into the wall. She almost seems tamer when she is with Dave. So stop trying to tame our Alex, Dave. Let her freak flag fly!
Other than Alex hanging out with Penny, the two cast members that shine more than any others are Casey Wilson and Damon Wayans Jr., both of whom go the extra mile with the material that they are given this week. Wilson always excels at physical comedy and having her wear a helmet is just pure brilliance on the writers’ part. Everything that Wilson does and how she presents herself is comic gold. Wayans on the other hand is just as hysterical. After Jane bonds with the work guys by making fun of their wives (in Jane’s case, husband) Brad finds out and shows up, giving her the perfect trophy wife. Wayans definitely shows off his crazy side and his comedic timing is perfect. The writers need to give Brad more absurd things to do with his time. The MVP of the week award, after much deliberation between Wayans and Wilson, is being handed to Wayans simply because the “trophy wife” scene alone deserves to be re-watched several, several times!
Sadly, after this great episode, we now have to wait another week before we sit down and make our bellies hurt from laughing this hard once again. Until then, put on a helmet, buy a baby pig, and re-watch another A+ episode from Happy Endings.
Josh Bouye