Whoa. With this second episode of the new ABC mystery, I am even more convinced that Happy Town‘s Haplin, MN, is the new Sunnydale, CA. A place where nothing is as it seems, and the supernatural is almost commonplace. The only people who don’t seem to realize this are Haplin’s residents.
This week Haplin finds itself on the edge of chaos as the beloved sheriff, Griffin Conroy, is admitted to the hospital, and his son, Tommy (or T.C.) is named interim sheriff by the town’s founding family, much to his chagrin. What most of the town doesn’t know is that the sheriff cut off his own hand after mumbling incoherent one-liners and the name Chloe. It’s not a good time to lose the seasoned officer to the crazies, as the town is still embroiled in solving the murder from last week’s episode. Not to mention it’s never really a good time to cut off your own hand. While visiting the sheriff at the hospital, T.C.’s babysitter (and the show’s wrong-side-of-the-tracks Juliet), Georgia, meets a mysterious man in the cafeteria who apparently drugs her and drops her in the house of the town’s trouble-making family of brothers, the Stivilettos. This didn’t make much more sense on-screen than it does in print. Meanwhile, T.C. is busy solving the murder of the town’s creepy peeping Tom and then covering up who it is–because, of course, it’s his best friend. Also, Henley (whose name turns out to actually be Chloe – coincidence?), who is now in cahoots with Merritt, another boarder, crashes her car into a tree after a hawk crashes into her windshield while she’s driving. The hawk flies away unharmed, but of course it’s fade to next week on Henley’s status.
Whew, a lot went on in this episode, and it was hard to keep up with everything. Which I think is the point. The show’s writers are almost magicians themselves as they fill each episode with enough misdirection to keep the viewer from seeing the smoke and mirrors. I don’t mean this as a criticism. I like the idea that all the answers are right in front of our eyes, but we can’t see it because we’re too busy trying to figure out what the hell just happened. What I don’t understand, well, one of many things I don’t understand, is why the grand old Mrs. Haplin is able to freely name the new sheriff without any say-so from anyone. To my understanding she’s nothing more than the richest lady in a small town. Coming from such a town, I understand that old money has a lot of pull, but I don’t understand how she arbitrarily names T.C. sheriff and nobody cares. Or at least nobody says anything about it. This might be a small detail, but it stuck out enough that it bothered me. There’s obviously more to the Haplin family than we’ve learned yet, and I think this is another piece of evidence that is going to fall into place once we’re finally introduced to the skeleons in their collective closet.
With Lost ending soon and other mystery shows like Fringe soon going on summer hiatus, I think ABC planned the release of Happy Town perfectly. It’s a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream, so rife is it with possibilities for what if. Even after only two episodes, my TV magic 8 ball says the outlook is positive for the show’s future. I, for one, can’t wait to dig a little deeper in to the psyche of Haplin.
