Happy Endings. Carusoing wasn’t even cool when you did it six years ago.

From right to left: wants Grant, wants Grant, wishes she was crunching some bones.

Hey errbody! Stephanie’s local ABC affiliate chose to air basketball last night, so she wasn’t able to spend the evening falling in love with Grant along with everyone else (except Dave).  As a result, I get the chance to fill in for her and talk about the joy that is Happy Endings with y’all.  Do I even need to say how much I love this show? I mean, obviously.  So, without further ado, lets get to the good stuff, and in this case the good stuff means a very hilarious episode and also James Wolk’s blessedly hirsute torso:

Happy trails, to you...

See? I didn’t even make you wait for it because I’m that nice.  Now that everyone’s got a case of the dirty twirls, can I just say that in this (seemingly never-ending) age of unnaturally tanned and shiny chests it is nice to see someone who doesn’t look like he should be performing with the Thunder From Down Under? One day Ron Swanson will be revered as a god and men all across the land will proudly let their chest hair fly, but until then, the James Wolks of the world give me hope.  But maybe that’s just me.  I smell a comments topic! Where do you stand on chesticle fur? Pro or…PRO? This site is nothing if not a forum for intelligent discussion and debate of the important issues of the day.  Okay straight guys, I apologize.  The fawning ceases now, I promise.

This episode was particularly enjoyable because the whole gang was pretty much together the entire time rather than being splintered off and doing their own things.  Even the sub-plots revolved around smaller groupings of the main cast.  For instance, Penny’s need to be chosen (along with her new bf Shawn the Pharmacist Teacher) as Jane and Brad’s new ‘couples friends’.  It kind of sucks that she had to campaign to be friends with two of her best friends, and if Penny actually gave a shit about Shawn as a person, I would have felt really sorry for the girl. But since he turned out to be all about the menage (a four), I’d say that Penny made a pretty good call there.  I think we can all agree that even if you’re into the menage, ‘doing sex’ with your closest friends could never be a good idea.  Some things can never be unseen, now matter how thick your tequila goggles.

The main focus of the episode, and of every character on the show, was Grant the Wonderful and the havoc caused in the group by his sheer awesomeness.  Pretty much everyone fell head over heels in love, with one exception.  Dave was too busy trying to prove that the group already had a ‘cool guy’ and therefore Grant could not just waltz in and assume the title.  Oh, Dave.  I think that this episode my be my favorite use of the Dave character to date.  He has been a slight problem so far this season only because it seems hard to figure out what to do with him.  Alex used to have the same issue back when she and Dave were supposed to be the ‘normal ones’ reacting to their wacky friends.  But this season, they’ve pretty much transformed Alex into a hilarious, sweet dummy with occasional bouts of either total insanity or thoughtful insight.  And it worked – she’s great.  But then that left Dave, all alone in (Sort-of) Normal Town.

There have been moments of Dave greatness; I will never tire of his deep-V addiction, and his Steak Me Home Tonight commercial was pretty hilarious, but he hasn’t felt all that defined as a character.  Last night though, oh my god.  He had some of my favorite lines of the episode, and he managed to bring a lot of funny in a nice meta storyline that had him searching to define his role in the group (as long as that role was ‘cool guy’, because that’s all he was willing to accept).  His constant need to one-up Grant was KILLING me – I loved that he basically did a (blessedly toned down) version of Kristin Wiig’s Penelope character from SNL:

• Well my shirt is completely made from bug inks and I’m proud of it so…
• Yeah, well I drive a food truck, which is basically a car full of ovens so…

Oh Dave, never stop being hilariously petty.  And never stop Carusoing, no matter what your friends try to tell you.  And since we’re on the subject of reducing the characters to one quality each, let’s review Dave’s assessment of everyone else: Max is the lazy guy, Jane is the type-A girl, Penny’s the single one, Brad’s the married one, and Alex is the one with the store.  Aww, Alex.  you’re so much more than just the ‘one with the store’ now, I promise.  And Brad is ‘the married one’? Bitch, please – Brad is about 100 things that are more interesting than just being married.

But the heart of the episode was Max and his fear that Grant was too good for him, with his shiny teeth, rockin’ bod, slick fashion sense and handyman abilities.  The fact that all of Max’s friends lost their shit whenever Grant entered the room wasn’t helping.  It’s hard to say who was more in love with Grant – Jane (who clearly wanted to have her way with him and was just trying to restrain herself as much as possible in order to avoid being charged with sexual assault) or Brad, who spent the episode obsessed with becoming Grant’s twinsie (and let’s face it – probably would have gotten busy with him too if the opportunity presented itself).

But Max couldn’t take it, and almost preemptively (or redemptively) broke up with Grant to put a stop to the pressure.  But then Grant revealed that he had been going out of his way to impress everyone because he was do desperate to be liked by them.  Once his neediness was on the table, Max could breath a sigh of relief at not being the only flawed person in the relationship (but still much more flawed, let’s not get crazy).

*Fun Fact* – I was reading an interview with our favorite filthy-mouth, Eliza Coupe yesterday, and she said that the scene where she grabbed Wolk’s pecs made him genuinely laugh, but the take was so good they left it in.  Knowing that made watching it all the more enjoyable, so when you go back for the re-watch, keep your eyes open for that.

I’ll end off with some of my favorite quotes (yeah, there were a lot) – read them and then take to the comments with your thoughts and favorite moments from the episode!

• We get it. You made a mistake and then named it Todd.
• I see those colors in my head and they don’t make sense, but I see them on him and suddenly nothing else does.
• I love the sound of bones crunching. I’m like a god; I can destroy life.
• Like in Dave Matthews Band – Carter Beauford is the Dave.
• ‘Why is he still wearing a shirt?’ ‘Because people wear shirts!’
• ‘Maybe the coolest guy around is the guy lounging on the couch right in front of you.’ ‘The guy in the scarf telling me to chillax?’
• I used to think Michael Caine was perfect, until I met Grant.
• Is that an indoor scarf?
• I think I’d know if I was being redemptive; we’re not in Europe.
• You’re smarter than you are tall. Good day, tiny madam.
• Speaking of tables, how do you ever know if you’re with the right person?
• ‘I wanted you guys to like me because you hate everyone.’ ‘With good reason.’