Happy Endings: ‘The Ex Factor’

It’s starting to look like Happy Endings is taking the Community approach of going for broke at this point and making the characters somewhat self-aware that they are on a television sitcom. Much like Community did at the end of season one when the ratings were low, the fan passion was high, and the future bleak for renewal, they’ve thrown caution to the wind and let these stories be ridiculous and escape the bounds of conventional norms. And for that I’m very thankful they have because these moments have been outstanding.

The “meta” storyline of the week went to Penny(*) as she tries to comprehend the fact that her boyfriend Pete has friends of his own. In an attempt to explain how fun her friends are she tells him: “last week Max pretended to be a psychic and assisted the police to solve a murder case. And with his help they apprehended several innocent people.” Sorry Pete but how are these people not immediately your new best friends? Inevitably it’s a disaster whenever one of these people has to deal with people who act “normal” and don’t do “pile-ons” whenever someone does something stupid like spill a drink on themselves.

(*) Last week Max refused to go to the “gay sitcom characters” gay bar and the week before that a guy at a restaurant yelled at them for thinking they were the only people there trying to enjoy a meal.

Meanwhile Brad and Jane are confronted with a marriage issue as Jane’s ex Ryan is coming to town and they have a rule that they get one dinner with an ex. To Brad’s surprise/pure joy, Ryan turns out to be a girl. This conflict was pretty much an excuse for Damon Wayans Jr. to act super goofy and emotional, especially when he tries to bulk up by doing some “Shups for life!”

The third part of the episode circled around Max, Alex, and Dave meeting Max’s new roommate played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar. It’s always fun when these characters get chaotic over nonsense resulting in a multitude of unnecessary stupid ideas. Also, it would appear that Max will indeed the rue the day he messed with Bayside’s Zach Morris.

Other favorite moments:

• “You save me from a well once and I have to hear about it the rest of my life.” – Max on constantly being reminded of this by Dave.
• “Someone’s scoring our life!” – Dave. Another “meta” moment when the group mistakes Chase’s ringtone as indication that they’re in peril.
• “Oh I get it. You’re the Dave of the group, always talking about things no one cares about.” - Penny

What did everyone else think? Comments are always welcome.