Round Two: Happyish

Happyish: Season 1, Episode 2 “Starring Marc Chagall, Abuela and Adolf Hitler” (B-)

This is an angry show - there’s no getting around that. In episode one, it was Thom who was ready to freak out and launch into a tirade, and now he gets to sit back a bit and let his wife do the exploding. I think I’m used to seeing Kathryn Hahn in a more outright sarcastic setting, and while she is good here, it’s not my favorite performance of hers. This show definitely has its own clever streak, with Lee spending most of her time arguing with the talking insignia of Amazon on a giant gift sent by her mother to her young son. This show has access to an impressive number of copyrighted logos and representations, with Amazon serving as just the tip of the iceberg. The idea of un-animating the Keebler elves is truly an absurd idea, and we get to have Thom as the defender of sanity in a position that continues to make him look like the crazy one for instituting protest. After we saw Carrie Preston as Debbie, one of Thom’s colleagues, in last week’s episodes, now we get Reshma Shetty, best known for her role as Divya on “Royal Pains,” as Maya, the far more confident and influential member of the team who doesn’t feel threatened at all by the notion of being obsolete. I enjoyed Thom recognizing his couch in his bosses’ office, the fact that he texted them about it, and that he casually spilled his colored beverage all over it on his way out as a parting gift. As the show’s title suggests, it’s about all Thom can do to be happyish.