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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: March 21, 2012
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Happy Endings, “You Snooze, You Bruise” (Season 2, Episode 19) [Stream on Hulu]
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Sometimes all it takes is one moment of divinely inspired lunacy to turn a great TV episode into a hall-of-fame TV episode.
“You Snooze, You Bruise” is an episode that makes fantastic use of Happy Endings‘ best asset: their phenomenally funny and mix-and-matchable cast. All six cast members — Eliza Coupe, Damon Wayans Jr., Casey Wilson, Zachary Knighton, Elisha Cuthbert, and Adam Pally — worked so well in any of the endless combinations you put them in, making every week on Happy Endings an unpredictable fun-house. In this particular episode, Max and Dave go to the gym, where they have to fend off a gay bully (played by SNL‘s Bobby Moynihan).
But the best part of this episode, and what makes it an all-timer, is when Penny convinces Jane to “sleep on it” the next time she gets angry, using a story about a troublesome cockatoo that on many shows would have been the best gag of the night, as it’s impeccably delivered by Casey Wilson.
This leads to Jane massively mellowing out, which … it turns out is so much scarier and worse than classic Type-A Jane. It’s a phenomenal showcase for Eliza Coupe, whose full-body intensity was so much a part of our concept of Jane that seeing her without it was unmooring. For us and for the characters on the show. Jane becomes such a slothful, easygoing, laissez-faire creature (oh God, the way she eats nachos!) that she’s unrecognizable to her friends, and her home-owners’ association (including Speechless‘ John Ross Bowie) completely falls apart without her leadership to hold it together.
And while it’s a delight to watch Mellow Jane talk about “buzz[ing] one out” and taking a nap, this isn’t the natural order of things. It gets to the point where they need an intervention from Alex, who uses her nascent former-bully tactics to get Jane back to her old self.
But here’s what puts the episode over the top: the credits tag that sees Jane and Brad restored to their old status: Jane as HOA president, Brad as first lady, and all the fully cooked hams they can eat as perks, all set to Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day.”
Perfect episode, you are perfect.
