Happy Endings Gives A Sweet Ending

Happy Endings is another show that has an excellent, quirky cast of characters.  Last night's episode, 13 of 2nd season, was their Valentine's Day episode.  Max is offering his limo services to the gang, while Penny is selling the idea of the "break-up window" to Dave.  He fails to believe it exists until Penny (with Max's help) puts the seed of doubt into his head about his own girlfriend who mysteriously keeps cancelling on him.  Alex is clinging onto the ideal of St. Valentine's like she's an expert (finally a moment when she doesn't sound like a dumb blonde), and Jane is so horrible at receiving surprises that Brad has to actually announce his surprises to his wife.

Well, let's start with the Penny and Dave story first.  I think as soon as Penny mentioned this window where one breaks up when their are no significant holidays going on, I knew that she was going to end up being dumped herself.  It took as equally little deduction to see that Dave would believe Penny's theory and believe his own girlfriend was trying to dump him after Valentine's was over.  As Dave was being a jerk to her, I was surprised not that she actually wasn't going to dump him, but that she had brought a friend with her to have a threesome with Dave!  Wow, now that was a slap in the face as he was dumped right before achieving his dream (I guess).  Dave is so gullible.  He always listens to these crazy theories.  Not to say that the others don't, but I feel like Dave is the number one dummy for these idea as long as Penny or especially Alex is feeding him some dribble.

Dave and Penny's story wasn't so interesting, but you gotta love Max's "scrimp walk" when he and Dave were talking about the menu he had intended to cook for his girlfriend.  I love Max in this show.  He has the potential to be one of my favorite characters ever.  Usually he's the best source in Happy Endings for a good line, but he wasn't given that much attention until the end.

Now onto the Brad story.  Jane is a nut, but I feel her on the being-bad-at-surprises thing.  I'm not going to mace my friends when I see them in my house, holding a cake and saying surprise, but when Brad came behind her on the couch and surprised her, I would have definitely elbowed him in the face too.  I'm jumpy--can't help it.  Brad hands her the list of surprises he has planned for the night and I like Jane's response:

This is the best surprise ever!  Although, I could have used a heads up on this.

She's really good at saying one thing and then saying another rushed comment at the end that pulls the joke together.  Brad has to go the dentist before their date and has this pretty funny musical moment as he enters the office.  However, as soon as I saw him prancing around in there it was obvious that he was going to have a cavity (after having perfect, plaque-free teeth forever).  I didn't know how that was going to effect things in the grand scheme, but it turned out that Brad was so high from the anesthesia, he couldn't perform any of the surprises on the list.  Boo hoo.  It was less funny that I could have imagined.  At least Jane took it with a grain of salt and wasn't that upset about it.  Those two really are a great match.  If I had to hang out with a married couple, I would want someone like them where they are 2 dork puzzle pieces that go together.  Oh, I almost forgot Brad's best moment:  when he thought all of his friends were the cast of Friends.  LOL!  It's weird he mentioned that because as I was watching the episode I was thinking about how this show compares to Friends (which I never really liked).  Very good, writers!

Alex...  You know, Alex usually has the most boring story of all.  It was about a 2 on the funny meter when she got arrested for being a hooker after looking for the location of her party.  Can't seem to care about her too much unless she's paired with Max and they are promoting a random idea they've come up with together.  Her only semi-good moment in this episode was when she kept gasping in the car, and Max asked her:

Why do you keep gasping?  Do you have asthma?

I did enjoy the ending.  Max got a second chance with an ex that he had broken up with on Valentine's Day a year ago.  The flashback to that moment was good.  Grant comes in with flowers, ready for a date and Max is sitting there on the couch, in his usual slobbery attire.  What really caught my eye in that scene was the giant pizza next to him.  It was huge!  Max is pretty disgusting most of the time, but I think I would hang with him because a giant pizza and a night on the couch is my kind of fun.  Max redeems himself by going to Grant's apartment with a gift (he had taken from Penny), and the two go on Brad and Jane's carriage ride to their dinner reservation.  It was cheesy to see Max in such a romantic setup, but I loved that he got himself a kiss!  Aww!  Max would probably have a boyfriend if he wasn't so afraid to show he cared.  I hope that he actually stays with Grant or he gets some kind of stable relationship.  But I wonder who would be willing to put up with his ghetto limo driving job?

Happy Endings doesn't always come out with episodes are regularly as I would like, so it's annoying if one comes out and it's not all the way fabulous.  The characters really carry the show, though.  I probably would have hated this episode completely if the cast didn't perform so well.  The next episode better be good (with lots of Max scenes!).