Happy Endings ‘More Like Stanksgiving’ review: Talks Triangles, Tribes, and Turkey Day

Well, the Day of Thankfulness, as Dave’s Navajo ancestors would say, is upon us and this week’s episode of Happy Endings has given us plenty to be thankful for. After the last few episodes, it was hard to tell where the show was going. Alex and Dave back together again (no shock there) paired with an uncomfortably casual career change for the Type-A Personality Jane among other things, Happy Endings was having a hard time findings its voice again. Luckily, viewers will recognize a return to all the things that made them fall in love with the show in the first place with their Thanksgiving episode, “More Like Stanksgiving.”

Honestly, Happy Endings is at its best when it’s a holiday episode. Anybody remember the wonder that is Max in a Baby Bjorn in last year’s “Spooky Endings?” Or how about Alex’s Rain Man-like knowledge of Saint Valentinius Valentine in “The Saint Valentine’s Day Maxssacre?” I’ll be real with you, folks. I’ve even considered making up a holiday for August just so the show has another holiday episode to make. “More Like Stanksgiving” is simply proof that it needs to happen. It’s the first episode we’ve seen in awhile where everyone seems to have an actual storyline. Okay, maybe Dave’s isn’t the most prominent, but both Alex and Dave work better for me in smaller doses, so “More Like Stanksgiving” uses him well. Still, for the bulk of the cast, the “stuff out of the stuffing bag” (another brilliant turn-of-phrase by Alex) in the form of the long-lost Real World: Sacramento. For starters, we find out that Brad and Max met on the set of the show, a clever nod to the essentially non-existent origin story of this group of friends. But that isn’t all that is revealed over the course of the episode.

For Alex and Penny, the love triangle among the two best friends and Dave continues, with Alex finding out that Penny once had feelings for Dave. Yeah, just that one time… Believe me, my groans about this one are audible. I legitimately don’t know if any romance on network television has wreaked more of studio notes. I mean, I can’t be alone in this, can I? The introduction of Penny’s romantic tension with Dave was introduced haphazardly last season, before fading from obscurity for the bulk of the season. Sure, it’d pop up occasionally, notably the season finale, when studio execs were, undoubtedly, trying to get some more viewers, but it has never been that sincere for me. Luckily, the creators seem to be on the same page about this one. They play the love triangle for some solid laughs before sweeping it under the rug again. Hopefully, Happy Endings does away with that story all-together, but no promises. Still, there are some great moments between Alex and Penny because of this storyline, including a borderline offensive joke about the emotional time period in 2002, when the nation was still healing from… the release of Vanilla Sky. Yeah, didn’t know where they were goin’ with that, did you?

“More Like Stanksgiving” works to create some really great moments for the two but, and I never thought I would say this, this episode really belongs to Dave. Maybe it’s because we don’t see him as much this episode or because Happy Endings isn’t trying to cram Dave/Alex “chemistry” down our throats, but Zach Knighton kills it in this episode. Remember when Dave inconsequentially found out his Native American ancestry? Well, the beaded jacket is back! I’ve never been a big fan of Thanksgiving or our revisionist history of how the holiday took place, but Happy Endings has something for even the most bitter of us on this holiday. Dave’s journey to find clams (a bizarrely simple premise, even for Happy Endings…) mirrors the trials and hardships his people (or at least 1/16th of them) went through. When Dave barters his jacket for the clams and a blanket, I hoped, in the sickest way, that Happy Endingswas gonna go there. Okay, maybe cat hair isn’t as bad as smallpox-infested blankets, but it still got a solid laugh from me.

Unfortunately, Brad and Jane are the ones who seemed to draw the short straw in this week’s episode. Through Real World: Sacramento the two see what they really thought of each other when they first met. Shocker: it wasn’t good. It’s hard to believe with Jane’s abrasive personality that somebody could not like her. Anybody else remember the episode where Jane found out that Brad took her to that Mexican place to break up with her? Honestly, this storyline felt a little like that, but even a minor creative slump like that is made forgivable with Jane’s impression of Brad’s cockney accent for his- oh man, I just got it! Even though their storyline wasn’t as original as I had hoped, Eliza Coupe and Damon Wayans Jr. have the impeccable comedic timing to make it work.

As for Max? Well, he’s pretty much on the sidelines this week. Besides, being the one who wants to watch the DVD of their time on Real World: Sacromento, which is pretty much the inciting incident for most of the episode, Max isn’t up to much in “More Like Stanksgiving.” Max is usually a highlight for me, but this episode is already full of some solid gags and one-liners that it doesn’t really need the assist from his character.

In the end, “More Like Stanksgiving” moves the lives forward of our cast of characters. It does away with one of the least popular storylines, for me at least, of the show’s three seasons and revisits some old territory, but with the razor-sharp, quick wit people have come to expect from the show.

What did you think of this week’s episode?