Syfy’s Happy!
Season 1, Episode 6: “The Scrapyard of Childish Things”
Directed by David Petrarca
Written by Ken Kristensen

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “White Sauce? Hot Sauce?” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “Destroyer of Worlds” – click here

Now that Happy (Patton Oswalt) has parted with Nick Sax (Chris Meloni), he’s at a sort of AA meeting, except it’s a bunch of imaginary friends who’ve been discarded. “We have to learn to let go whenever they let go,” another “I.F.” named Raspberry tells him. Another wails about “great, big, nasty penises” and Judy Blume. A real sad place. As the world loses its imagination, so do the I.Fs lose their purpose. Unless they find themselves a new friend, one still holding onto their imagination.
We see that Mikey Scaramucci (Gus Halper) is still alive, somehow, or whatever. He gets some clothes on the guy, so he isn’t naked and masturbating constantly. He finds a priest, Father Appieh (Corey Allen), dropping the young man off for safekeeping. He asks the priest about talking to imaginary friends, wondering if it was wrong to have driven Happy away.
In the classroom, Smoothie (Patrick Fischler) has all the kids dressed up as various characters, including Hailey (Bryce Lorenzo). At the real school, Mr. Blue (Ritchie Coster) and family are there to see the kids in their Christmas play, right behind him is Mr. Sax. Nick asks his old pal Blue about the Very Bad Santa (Joseph D. Reitman). He explains that he wants his daughter back. And that he’s got nephew Mikey.
The priest is trying to take care of the young Scaramucci. He finds Mikey in the confessional booth, so he tries talking to him. That’s when the young man speaks a bit of Latin creepily, in a voice not his own. After that he leaves. Oh, shit.
Smoothie knows now that one of the kids belongs to Sax, a girl named Hailey. So, he stalks around the class with a ruler, smacking all the kids across the knuckles, waiting for someone to confess. One girl steps up trying to claim she’s Hailey, but she can’t answer the question: “What is your father‘s name?” Before Smoothie can inflict more ruler pain, Hailey admits Nick is her father. He claims her dad is dead, he tries scaring her. But she’s too tough, he won’t break her.
At the Scaramucci house, the old woman (Antonia Rey) calls out while Isabella (Debi Mazar) stirs the sauce with the “menstrual marinara.” And on the street, Mikey seems to smell something that he likes. Yuck.
Raspberry brings Happy to meet his new friend. It’s a young boy who seems okay at first. That is, before it becomes clear he’s a bit of a little psychopath. They’re going to play Russian Roulette. The little blue unicorn has to pull the trigger first. Then, poor Captain Pancake, crying syrup, must take his turn. Only he can’t pull the trigger himself, so Raspberry does, and the guy’s fluffy, batter-y brains are blown out. This is the home of a child who tortures his toys.
When Dt. Meredith McCarthy (Lili Mirojnick) gets home, she finds Blue creeping in the dark. The gangster explains his disappointment with her, she never told him about Sax having a kid. While she’s no saint, Meredith is unimpressed with the really shady dealings Blue has a hand in, the kids. Things are getting much more tense between these two.
At home, Isabella and her family are drinking, the cameras on them, and she’s only concerned with her son. Soon a knock at the door. There, in front of them, is Mikey himself. As usual, all he can say is “Blue.”
Nick goes to see his tenuous pal Le Dic (Michael Maize). Of course, they argue. Certainly the hitman’s not going to admit any wrongdoing, to anybody. He just wants some help. He opens up about Hailey, the selflessness of what he’s trying to do by saving her. “Maybe this is the moment that I can stand for something other than something than just my own skin,” he says, hoping Le Dic will sell him some C4.
Meanwhile, Happy’s trying to make it out of that eerie kid’s house. He meets other imaginary friends who’ve been nailed to the wall like trophies. Later he’s chased by Raspberry, the I.F. complicit in helping this kid live out his sick torture fantasies.
Believing her father’s dead, Hailey leads the other kids on a rebellion. All of them rush from their classroom. They burst out into a place they believe is the outside, into the city. It isn’t, it’s just an elaborate setup which looks of the city. They’re found by Smoothie, and think they can still get away. They’ve been locked up tight, nowhere to flee.
Nick goes to Blue’s house. He says he has Mikey in the trunk, strapped with explosives. However, the gangster knows the difference, seeing as how the young Scaramucci is all over social media after walking into his mother’s place, alive once more. Shittier still, the explosives the hitman brought with him aren’t working correctly. Damn, Sax. Damn.
The henchmen take Nick into the garage, so they can kill him out of view of the public. One of them has respect for the infamous cop-turned-hitman, giving him a moment before they blow his brains out. During his reflection, Nick talks about Happy being the last person who believes in him anymore – turns out the little blue unicorn is in the Scaramucci house. “Fate is real,” proclaims the imaginary friend after killing Raspberry.
A commotion starts in the house after the kid runs, seeing Happy covered in Raspberry’s blood. This gives Nick the chance to get himself out of his jam, which includes a savage double chainsaw kill, blood spurting everywhere. When he’s finished, he picks up Happy, revealing his feelings: “I believe in you.” The team is back together!
This episode is my favourite of them all. Wow. Just full of fun, disturbing, wild ideas, as well as a bit of the emotional stuff that makes the story feel grounded, despite all the fantasy elements amongst the comedy-crime.
“Destroyer of Worlds” is next.