Happy Town

Somehow I can’t get tired of television shows where the plot is carried by a lack of information, and everything is a mystery. Every single episode makes no sense, and the few questions answered only really open the door to more questions. I’m sure it’ll get old eventually, but shows like this are way better than reality shows. Unless they’re super trashy, like Bad Girls Club or Jersey Shore. Those have an addictive quality much like the every episode is a mystery shows, because every episode kind of is a mystery. Anyway, this show’s whole purpose is the fact that there’s something going down in Happy Town, and it’s not happy. How Haplin, Missouri got its nickname is the first mystery, because the whole place is kind of creepy right away. Oh, the residents say they’re happy, and that the town is a wholesome place full of quasi-rural charm that always smells like freshly baked bread, but we know something is up.
For one thing, there are very obvious sound cues and lingering shots of people giving each other the creepy stare. Most of the soundtrack consists of cheerful quirky music, and when characters are figuring things out there is mischievous music with an occasional symbol refrain. And then there are the sound effects. Right in the beginning they use the Wilhelm Scream, and weirdness is accompanied by that high pitched metal on metal scraping noise. The rest of the songs used in the show are appropriate in the least appropriate ways. Mostly they add humor, but the show is already funny without it. It’s super cheesy, and uses horror movie cliches seemingly on purpose. The mysterious parts of the show just come off as random silliness with a vague underlying sense of evil.

One thing not too mysterious is the character development, at least for most of the main characters. The script is super efficient with the introductions, apparently this town is full of people who like talking about themselves and each other in the omniscient point of view. Helping this expedient characterization is the new girl in town, who needs to be introduced to everyone and everything. She’s really the only person we don’t know something about, so she stands out right away. With all of that being explained, not being explained is the other randomness thrown in. Like what is this magic man? Silvery moon? The blue door? Big evil hawk? Haloed question marks? Actually, those question marks seem pretty appropriate.

I can’t really explain the plot of the show, because I feel like I don’t know what’s going on well enough. But I think that’s the point, and that explaining would take away from the fun of watching. For example, there’s a scene in which the town sheriff apparently takes some of the brown acid and starts yelling “If you touch the baby Jesus I’ll make you wear the cow suit!”, which only makes me want some chick-fil-a. Oh yeah and afterward he cuts off his fingers. Mainly, there’s the new person in town, living with a bunch of hilarious/creepy old people, who may or may not actually be a new person. Then there’s the sheriff and his son, trying to find out why there’s a dead body with a hole through it’s head in the shed in the middle of the frozen lake. The mayor (and bread factory owner) and his wife are consumed with finding their missing daughter, and apparently there are some other missing residents too. Their son is also secretly dating the daughter of the resident druggie. There are lots of other characters too, but I think those are most of the main ones. If none of that made sense, I blame the show.

Since there’s no way I can take this show seriously, I hope that it’s not trying to be serious. I rather enjoy it the way it is. Full of strangeness, cliches, and silliness. It certainly seems like it doesn’t take itself seriously, but much like my plot summary, I could be wrong about everything. Because the key to the continuously mysterious television show is that right when you think you know what’s going on, you find out that everything you thought was wrong.