Syfy’s Happy!
Season 2, Episode 5: “19 Hours and 13 Minutes”
Directed by Marianna Palka
Written by Ahmadu Garba

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Blitzkrieg!!!” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “Pervapalooza” – click here
Poor Nick Sax (Chris Meloni) ain’t well.
Jump back, 19 hours and 13 minutes ago, after he had his wild shit fight with the weird substance in Merry’s (Lili Mirojnick) jam jar. He’s gone. Merry and Dayglo Doug (Curtis Armstrong) are left wondering what to do. She wants to head for Shine Tower. He’s more than scared. She’s curious about how someone’s walking around as one of the Wishies when she “emptied a gun” into the same one. She then assures Doug the blackmail tape Sonny Shine (Christopher Fitzgerald) had is no longer an issue.

On the street, Happy (Patton Oswalt) is left looking for his pal when he remembers it’s Hailey’s (Bryce Lorenzo) birthday— the kid is at home making her own breakfast, or trying to, anyway. Then there’s Nick, tripping balls, seeing Salvador Dalí elephants walking around everywhere. Suddenly he’s jumped by a group of people wearing Hillary Clinton masks and pulled into a clandestine bus. It’s the men he killed recently. Some guilt bubbling up to the surface while he’s under the influence of whatever the Wishie’s blood did to him. The dead dudes do help him remember his little girl’s birthday. We get more Dalí as Nick’s watch melts, as well. Eventually he’s kicked off the bus, sans-pants.

“I don’t do drugs, I am drugs.”
— Salvador Dalí

In prison, Blue a.k.a Orcus (Ritchie Coster) is reinforcing his army, using their shared lust for death to bond them. He wants to make a “perfect brotherhood” of terrifying men, cobbled together with rapists, murderers, and all manners of violent criminals. Perfect crowd for Orcus. And nobody minds if he sharts in the middle of a great speech, either. That’s Blue coming through. He’s worried Orcus has fully taken over. He enlists Big Pink (Big Show) for help to be rid of the demon.
To do that, he’ll need to die.

Merry and Doug grab one of the Wishies, finding it’s a regular guy inside the suit. He hasn’t seen any of the other Wishies with their “heads off.” He’s tried to move up— offering to blow Mr. Shine. He hasn’t figured anything out, despite his efforts. He tries to offer Doug a “blowie” to get loose. Merry doesn’t have time for that. She hops in his suit to slip further inside. She’s nearly sniffed out by Smoothie (Patrick Fischler) first.

A few hours later, Sax wanders the city wearing fishnets, continuing to trip. He sees Heaven-like visions. He sees Amanda (Medina Senghore) as a disco-era queen, rocking a white outfit and afro. She explains she’s been “a little off.” She tries to tell him Amanda is experiencing a type of addiction, and we see her, at home, chasing it with nitrous from the whipped cream can. The vision tries to throw Nick— “a construct of a man“— off his attempts at being better and changing his ways.
Doug winds up running into Sonny in the studio. The two of them have quite the confrontation about their past. Doug tells his former friend he won’t lie down and take things anymore. Sonny has a different idea. He’d rather beat Dayglo Doug into a bloody pulp and take his piece of blackmail back.

An amazing cameo scene features comedian and Roastmaster General Jeffrey Ross playing a pile of sticks at the bar where Happy’s drowning his sorrows in a sippy cup. Happy gets a drink sent to him by Bo Peep (Jaimie Kelton) and they talk a bit. They’re all interrupted by an angry, smoking baby (Weird Al Yankovic), who’s unimpressed to see Peep flirting around on him. The baby and Happy end up in a fist fight which sets the whole bar off in a mess of chaos, before the blue unicorn and Peep slip out.

At home, Amanda’s doing whip-its. She’s flashing back to Shine Tower. She sees the Wishies, and herself, barely clothed coming out of a white sac. Almost like she’s been born again. Did the Wishies do something nefarious to her? Has she been… infected, in some way? Regardless, it’s causing her to fuck up her life, especially with her daughter.

Merry sneaks her way into the inner Shine sanctum. She’s found the blackmail tape library. It contains hilarious notables like “Pee Pee Tape” and tapes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Taylor Swift, Mischa Barton, Aziz Ansari, David Tennant, politician Ban Ki-moon, and others. She’s interested in Kap G’s— the network executive.
Simultaneously, Sax is searching the tower for a birthday gift to give Hailey while tripping. He’s found… something. He wanders off again. He thinks he sees Hailey backstage in the studio. She’s got a gun. She shoots him in the stomach. Then he falls over, cradling her in his arms. Only we’re back at the beginning of the episode, and Sax is actually holding one of the Wishies tight against him, sobbing on the floor.

And Amanda’s turned up at the tower, too. Oh, man. This is all fucked.

“You bring pain and destruction
to every life you touch, Nick.”

One of the more batshit episodes of Happy!, and that’s saying something.
Spectacular use of Dalí imagery for the hallucinations. Not to mention the great acting by Meloni and the rest of the cast. Truly one of the best shows on television.

“Pervapalooza” is next time. Get ready.