If you enjoyed Happy Endings, you might want to stay away from this clip from the mini-reunion / lost episode script read that took place at EW PopFest. Not because it isn’t up to snuff or funny, but because it is a sign of what might’ve been. We could’ve gotten another season of the show, we could’ve gotten something to wrap things up, but now we’re stuck with the one off table read of a script that should’ve been filmed. Or not, who knows.
The opening minutes above certainly have that crazy side of Happy Endings down, with a slew of very topical jokes being slammed down including scary clowns and Galaxy Note 7 phones exploding left and right. Entertainment Weekly outlined the notes from the performance and where our group wound up after the show ended:
• Penny has been married. Several times. Things happened on a Kid Rock cruise.
• Jane (Coupe) has been living in Japan, working as a top executive for Toyota. She’s now overseeing their sex doll vision.
• Brad (Wayans, Jr.) is living off the grid in the wilds of Wisconsin. He has a long, blonde beard, which is a result of his being Revenant-ed by some bears.
• Alex’s organic lifestyle brand – does the name Xela sound familiar? – is now a Fortune 500 company, and in other news, she is under the misguided assumption that Toyota is a Star Wars toy company called Toy Yoda.
• Max is now living in D.C. and no one is exactly sure what he does for a living. In an envelope-pushing joke, he announces to the group that he lost weight because he has aides – a pun he quickly clarified as meaning interns who helped with his work enough to give Max the time to workout.
• Dave was so bummed out after the implosion of the group that he pulled a Carl Casper in Jon Favreau’s Chef and took his food truck on the road. It didn’t work out so well.
Now much like The Dark Tower, you can stop reading here if you just want to assume that everybody is still having adventures around Chicago and living it up with guest stars galore. If you are OK learning more and having the entire series negated by odd television trope magic, you should continue reading.
The ending of the script/episode shows that everything you know about the series isn’t what actually happened and might actually be a poor decision after all the good stuff wears off from this reunion:
Then, in a super trippy, ultra-meta makes you kinda think, you know? ending, Dave woke up back in bed with Alex at 5:30 on the morning of their wedding (“Bitch, it’s 5:30!”) He proceeded to explain his bad dream: Alex left him at the altar and then, well, he basically rattles off events from the series.
“My dad was the tinfoil blanket brother from Better Call Saul and Penny’s assistant was Jane the Virgin. Brad was on New Girl, Max banged Schmidt from New Girl – man, I really gotta stop falling asleep to New Girl.”
“Wait, so people actually leave people at the altar?” Alex said in response. “Is that a thing you can do if you’re having second thoughts?” She then comforted Dave: “You’re still dreaming. The whole thing was a dream. A sweet, sweet dream…”
Up to that point though, it was pure magic. And it still might be with that ending. The show was always a little odd and a little meta — the Jared Leto of television shows! But you can judge all that yourself over at Entertainment Weekly. Read their rundown of the script and pray the entire thing is uploaded online. Until then, enjoy some bloopers.
(Vie Entertainment Weekly)
