Quick Thoughts: HAPPY ENDINGS, "Makin' Changes!"

Man, when Happy Endings is working it's on fire, but when it's not it can be a big miss. Luckily, "Makin' Changes" was somewhere in the middle because two out of the three stories ran out of steam while one was pretty much non-stop hilarity.

I'm starting to think that the main reasons I watch this show are Alex and Max because their v-neck intervention for Dave was by far the source of the episode's best material. It was just one of those odd plots that really wouldn't happen in real life, but that's exactly why it worked. The jokes were just clicking with very few misses, and these three just nailed it. The only drawback was the continued crutch that is Alex's dimness. I still think she's cute when she's not quite getting things or says random comments, but they're starting to dominate her character.

I should have liked Penny's story about her changing a guy that she was dating because Casey Wilson's amazing, but this was one of those situations where the plot interfered with the jokes. I'm not a big fan when a show focuses characters on changing people for their own benefit, so even though Penny had some great one-liners, they were cancelled out by the fact that I didn't like what she was doing to Jeff. The same was true for the Brad and Jane C-plot, but they got bonus points for Punk Rocker Jane. Smokin'!

Lines of the Night

• "It's like Nordictrack only with wolves!"
• "Year of Penny. Suck it."
• Max: "These people make me look like I have my life together."
  Alex: "Aww, it's nice that you think that."
• Jane: "Did you guys zamboni? Did he make it to your penalty box?"
  Penny: "You done?"
  Jane: "Did you puck? I'll e-mail you the rest."
• "He's 30 going on 20, and he still says, 'sick' and 'dawg,' and sadly never when referring to a sick dog."
• "His apartment smells like appetizers, he's got street signs everywhere. It's like he's squatting in a vacant Bennigan's."
• Max: "David, you have a problem. How many v-neck t-shirt have you worn this weekend?"
  Dave: "I dunno. It's a baker's dozen."
  Alex: "11."
  Max: "13."
  Alex: "I think my baker's ripping me off."
• "Blackass, y'all!"
• "Guys, do what ever you except maybe don't take this one. It's kinda my date v. I get v in this v."
• "I haven't v-ed in three days."
• Penny: "Jane was right. You can change a man. I'm gonna start a blog, or a Twitter. And then it'll become a TV series starring Alyssa Milano."
  Alex: "Boy, I wish my last name was a cookie."
• "Damn, dawg. He looks sick."
• "Clutch the pearls."
• "Thee hours later, Dave Rose relapsed. He was last seen roaming an outlet mall, looking for that weet V-neck high."

Happy Endings keeps edging closer towards becoming one of the greatest comedies of the last few years, but episodes like "Makin' Changes" pulls it down because the writers still aren't able to come up with stories that work. While I didn't hate this one, it was hard to completely love it when half of the characters were wrapped up in dud plotlines, but it did make me laugh more than most comedies I watch, so I can't be mad at the show.