Happy Town - A (Late) Review

There will be some who suggest that ABC’s new series, “Happy Town,” which premiered this past Wednesday, is derivative of David Lynch’s flawed but still mesmerizing 1990 TV series “Twin Peaks,” in that both are about murder investigations in small towns with deep, scary secrets. They are right, but this didn’t bother me. Others might state that it owes more than a little to the works of novelist Stephen King, who specializes in horror elements bubbling beneath chilly, cornpone streets that ostensibly have sweet values. Again, this did not bother me. There’s also, of course, perhaps a touch of “The X-Files” in the show’s smooth mix of police procedurals and supernatural shenanigans. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I was fine with all of this. Despite that, I still had problems with “Happy Town.” It has a lot of elements going for it (mainly a strong cast and superlative production values), but it was more than a little creaky in its plot and character introductions.

That’s maybe to be expected, in that “Happy Town” plays like a two-hour opening squeezed into 46 minutes: it feels like we meet a quarter of the entire town population (complete with hints of back story and portentous signs of trouble) by the time the episode is over. It’s kind of oppressive. Instead of brimming with tension, it felt more like a speed-read of a mystery novel, with important bits of exposition delivered in clunky, attention-calling ways, and subtlety all but removed for time. Early on, a father tells his daughter (verbatim): “Here we are, in the middle of the heartland. Daddy’s the son of a sheriff in a town with no crime, mommy has an important job at the bread factory, and daughter Emma is the brightest bulb in her first grade class.” And then he keeps going on some more about what a great life they have. I appreciate the fact that this a series about uncertainty, where the road will soon get very slippery in terms of what to believe, and so it is important to get ourselves oriented quickly. But surely there must be a way to do so while still living in the world of what human beings actually say to one another. One character even chuckles at another’s use of a paraphrased western cliché at one point, which is funny, but it seems rather unwise to call attention to dialogue issues when the script is so chock-full of them.

The father Tommy Conroy (Geoff Stults), who is indeed the son of a sheriff, soon gets his world turned upside down when his father brings him onto a murder investigation: a dead body found in a fishing shack in the middle of a frozen lake (the pilot takes place during a winter chill season, which is an effective choice). There is definitely a stab throughout this first episode at the theme of small-town innocence butting up with the harsh realities of the world, but it feels clumsily handled. In one scene, Tommy and his partner visit the widow of the murder victim, but this sequence that should be about a peaceful community’s resolve being shattered by unexpected murder feels curiously like it is trying for uneasy laughs as well. There’s a touching scene at the Conroy dinner table where Tommy tries to protect his daughter from discussion of these unspeakable horrors, and it is indeed a sympathetic moment. But when he has a gentle, extended argument with his wife Rachel (Amy Acker) about it, the whole scene begins to hammer the point way too hard.

There’s more, of course: including a smidgen of supernatural flavor to the goings-on in Haplin, and they are mildly intriguing. The murders may be linked to an abductor (and serial killer, perhaps) who preyed on the town years ago: the town memorializes their past with the presence of question marks, including one right on…well, you’ll see. This was the mark of “The Magic Man,” because he could make his victims completely disappear. Tommy’s father, Sheriff Conroy (M.C. Gainey) begins to babble incoherently about spooky goings-on. And then there’s the mysterious Merritt Grieves (Sam Neill), who runs a movie memorabilia shop and speaks ominously (in that Sam Neill-ish way) about human nature and movies and other things before finally getting around to talking about things going on with the plot—it’s all rather frustratingly coy. He lives upstairs in an eerie old boarding house and makes uneasy friends with the new girl right before the inhumanly cheerful landlady tells her to stay away from the third floor, or else. Maybe there’s a magic wardrobe up there. Who knows?

Oh, right, I forgot about the new girl. Well her name is Henley, played affably by Lauren German. She’s our eyes and ears as we get to experience this town, as she comes to it fresh-faced and bushy-tailed, trying to open a candle shop, with little more than a wick and a dream. As dark as this show is getting, it is charmingly optimistic in its faith in the current economy, suggesting that people will have no problem moving to small towns and setting up candle and movie collectible stores. Ah, the good old American Dream.

Anyway, Henley is completely unconnected to the strange occurrences that seem to pepper this place, except... Well, would I be spoiling anything major if I told you that Henley may not be what she appears to be? And that thing that she appears to be instead still might not even be what it appears to be? Future episodes, of course, will probably reveal that other things she appears to be won’t be true, either. It feels rather arbitrary, as if the show is delighting in proving to you that you can’t rely on anything or anyone. Everyone could be guilty! Or innocent! It’s oh so mysterious. Does anyone really know, including the producers? There’s a difference between creepy ambiguity and flagrant indecision, and I hope that problem is quickly figured out. Still other characters, such as the high school couple with parents that despise one another, or the white-trash losers, or the deputy who seems to be channeling Barney Fife, or the shifty owner of the town’s bread factory, seem to be just offstage, crossing their arms, waiting for their cue to actually get involved.

I am going to stick with “Happy Town,” just to see where it goes. Hopefully this 8-episode miniseries will end with at least a modicum of closure—given its ratings, a second season seems doubtful. The bigger worry is, of course, whether or not the rest of the episodes will be even aired. All due respect to the victims of the Magic Man, but I know one force of nature even more adept at making things disappear, and that is TV executives facing very low ad revenues.