Ironic happy makes me actual happy

This show, man.

This is the Christmas miracle I didn’t know I needed. I think I heard rumblings about it last year, but it was on SyFy and we ditched our cable TV some years back, deciding to subsist on a diet of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. Far, far cheaper, although it’s cost us the ability to watch some things in any sort of timely manner. Happy! would be one of those, but the first Season finally dropped on Netflix and I am having such a great time watching it. It genuinely brings me joy.

Considering what goes on in the show, that makes me a twisted bastard. Don’t be fooled by the cartoon unicorn, this is as TV-MA as it gets. This is “holy shit they showed this on SyFy unedited?” level stuff. I mean you figure HBO is no holds barred territory but when I was growing up the channel formerly known as Sci-Fi was fairly restrained. Hell, the Battlestar Galactica reboot and Farscape were only a decade or so ago and everyone was saying “fracking” and “frelling.” Happy! drops the true f-bomb like it was being paid for every four letters, and that’s just the tip of a cavalcade of sex and violence that would put a Scorcese mob flick to shame.

Put the kids and anyone else of sensitive constitution to bed before watching, is what I’m saying here. But then watch. If you’re worried that Happy! is mired in gratuitous sex and violence for its own sake, well… okay, let’s get right to brass tacks: if you enjoyed Garth Ennis comics like Hitman and Preacher, you’ll love this show.

In fact, Happy! did start out as a comic. A graphic novel, to be precise, though not from the twisted minds of Ennis and Steve Dillon. Instead Happy! is the brainchild of the arguably equally twisted minds of Darick Robertson (most famously the penciller of Transmetropolitan) and Grant Morrison, who should need no introduction to comics fans. Transmetropolitan was rather brilliantly twisted in its own right but there’s an even closer connection since Robertson and Ennis worked together on The Boys.

Full disclosure is that I haven’t read the graphic novel, but from the preview pages I’ve scared up the TV show seems to be a pretty faithful adaptation which in no way waters down the tale of a rogue junkie ex-cop and the upbeat imaginary unicorn that befriends him.

Ever played the video game Max Payne? It’s kind of like that. And Who Framed Roger Rabbit? And Harvey. And an aforementioned Ennis comic. Put it all in a blender and you get magic. Dark, dark magic, but for a guy like me Happy! isn’t just an ironic title but something that is fiendishly imaginative in its storytelling and performances and keeps going in unexpected directions that delighted me to the depths of my soiled soul. Hey, it even manages moments of genuine pathos… and reality television.

I could go on and on but for now I’ll just give it my recommendation. Sadly, although it’s been renewed for another Season that won’t be until March and will be exclusively on SyFy then, so I’ll probably be waiting several more months before being able to watch. But for now, what a nice early Christmas present — dark like a lump of coal but also shining like a diamond.