One of the most unfortunate things about ABC’s abrupt cancellation of Happy Endings was the loss of a weekly showcase for Eliza Coupe’s strange comedic brilliance. As Jane Kerkovich-Williams, Coupe was at turns wacky, free-wheeling, uptight, and verging on maniacal. Her casting was, to verge on cliché, genuinely inspired. Since the series’ untimely and much-mourned death, Coupe has popped up on shows like Quantico and Casual, and briefly headlined her own USA series, Benched, which was canceled two months into its run. In other words, Coupe hasn’t really found her footing post-Endings, which is unconscionable, because she’s the actual best.
Apparently Seth Rogen agrees. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Rogen and Evan Goldberg have tapped Coupe to star in their new Hulu comedy pilot. Titled Future Man, the show follows the adventures of Josh Futterman, a janitor/world-ranked-gamer/person-who-must-save-the-world played by Josh Hutcherson. Coupe will co-star as Tiger, a “futuristic soldier” who’s a character in the Cybergeddon video game that Josh has so handily mastered. THR elaborates:
Tiger and her cohort, Wolf, recruit Josh to travel back in time to save the world from the hellish landscape she left behind. This mission means everything to her, and she’s prone to flying off the handle, every time Josh proves himself to be inept. She has the difficult task of controlling an idiot (Josh) and a maniac (Wolf) while keeping everyone focused on the mission. On top of all of this, she’s hiding a secret that could unravel everything.
Fans of Happy Endings will recall that Coupe’s Jane was often tasked with wrangling idiots and maniacs — i.e., her ragtag group of friends and her very own husband (Damon Wayans Jr.). Coupe is particularly adept at playing women who are on the verge of nervous breakdowns, but who must stave off their own encroaching insanity in order to deal with the utter shenanigans of the people around them. In other words, this role seems ideal for her, the kind of part that’ll make the ABC execs that canceled Happy Endings weep into the meager handfuls of cash they saved by canceling Happy Endings.
