It was going to be hard to top last week’s episode of Happy!, so I went into the season one finale with fairly low expectations. Not that I thought it would be bad at all—quite the contrary—but because I didn’t figure it could possibly live up to the penultimate episode’s roller-coaster ride of weird. And I was right. The finale wrapped up a lot of threads while still leaving a few dangling for the second season we now know is coming, but it just wasn’t a slam-bang episode like the show has pulled off a few times this season.
Case in point: After wrapping things up at the Sonny Shine studio, with Merry tasering Blue silly (yeah!), they have to track down Very Bad Santa. So the show puts in a segment of Happy and the rest of the imaginary friend support group questioning VBS’s former imaginary friend, a green sock puppet (which Happy recognized after VBS dropped his replacement green sock at the studio). That was a great scene—excellent little Reservoir Dogs homage—but then the only purpose it served was to take Nick and Happy back to Gimbel’s department store. Except they already knew that’s where VBS’s lair is; Nick was there just a few episodes ago. But they unlock the vault acting like it’s the first time they’ve been there.
It’s fine to take the big showdown back to Gimbel’s. In fact, that’s the most appropriate place for the show’s climax given the identity of the villain at this point. But then imaginary friend thing wasn’t really necessary. Why wouldn’t Nick just check back at Gimbel’s on his own? Or, if they really wanted to include the imaginary friend stuff, it should have led them somewhere new first.
Anyway, that’s a fairly minor quibble, because meeting VBS’s imaginary friend was a strong choice by the writers. When he snuggled up to VBS as VBS died swinging from a cord in Gimbel’s main room, I actually teared up a little. VBS is definitely a villain, but he’s a product of a horrific situation and it’s hard not to feel sad for him.
Speaking of VBS’s situation, what the eff was up with the creepy meth-head army in the lair? I have so many questions and I was hoping there would be a smidge of exposition at the end when Meredith and Nick were wrapping things up that would explain exactly what those people were. First off, did VBS drill into everyone’s head and essentially lobotomized them? How did that not kill them?
Or maybe it did kill many of them and these are the only ones who survived? And are we to think these are the grown-up versions of kids VBS kidnapped? He lobotomized them so they would never grow up, but their bodies obviously kept right on growing, so they’ve grown into adults in his Gimbelair? That seems like the solution, but I would have liked a sentence or two about who they were and what happened after the police found them.
I also have many questions about Sonny Shine and the possible alien hamburger bags and leather bug orgy, but I’m assuming that’s a thread the writers left dangling on purpose so as to revisit that in season two. Also, Zombie Mikey, since he’s presumably still out wandering around, trying to find Blue, and Smoothie, who is probably not dead since we did not see a body or hear anything about him in the season finale.