Not So Happy Town..

On Thursday I proceeded to watch the first five episodes of the new ABC show called Happy Town. Go figure that the title of the show would be a ironic joke when of course within the first five minutes of the pilot we hear blood curdling screaming coming from an ice shanty in the middle of the lake, clearly very late at night. Happy Town, or Haplin County, Minnesota, turns out to be not so happy when our first meeting with one of the residences of the town ends when he gets a railroad stake through the skull. What dark secrets could this quaint little Minnesota town possibly be hiding? After this opening scene the show turns to the beautiful young Henley, one of our shows main characters (or is her name really Chloe?), who has just arrived in happy town. Greeting her is an over enthused welcoming committee comprised of the jolliest most talkative lady you'll probably ever meet. Clearly the towns not as bad as all that, there's even a bakery on the hill that makes the town smell like fresh baked bread 24/7! That sounds a little like heaven if you ask me. Throughout the next twenty minutes of the show we're introduced to a number of main and influential characters...

T.C. is the handsome lovable father and husband who just happens to be a cop and also seems to have a little bit of bad boy past...

Rachel is T.C.'s beautiful and loving wife. If you ever loved the dollhouse you'll love the return of Whiskey or rather Dr. Saunders in this new television mystery drama...

Emma C is the adorable first grade daughter of the two

Georgia is the beautiful daughter of the town's seemingly only drug dealer and meth head, she is Emma C's babysitter and Rachel and T.C. treat her as part of their family...

The Sheriff of Haplin County, T.C.'s father, seems to be going a little of his rocker when in the first episode he spouts nonsense about some girl named Chloe repeatedly to multiple people who have no idea what he's talking about

Big Dave or Big D who owns the pizza parlor in Haplin and happens to be T.C.'s best friend since probably forever

Grandma Haplin who practically runs the town and eludes several times to connections with T.C.'s mother, she also has an unnatural way of making things happen just the way she wants them to...

Jonathan Haplin owns Our Daily which is the bakery that gives employment to Rachel as well as a great number of the people of Haplin

Andrew Haplin, Jonathan's son.... who seems to be a bully but is in fact in a Romeo and Juliet romance with Georgia

Mr. Grieves is the strange British gentleman who lives at Dot Meadows bed and breakfast along with the widows of the town and Henley, he seems to have a bit of mystery to him that we are bound to find out more about as the series unfolds

However, there are small things within the pilot that make you start to wonder what the people of Haplin are really trying to hide. First there's the commotion involved in the banner being put up by Jonathan at the Thaw Festival. Nobody wants to talk about the disappearances of Haplin residences of five years ago, by an appropriately named Magic Man. In fact the Sheriff demands that the banner of the missing people be taken down from the main square in town and that the talk about the Magic Man cease. It just so happens that when the Magic Man begins to be mentioned T.C.'s father starts to go a little off his rocker and starts blabbering about Chloe when they go to investigate the murder in the ice shanty that we witnessed at the beginning of the show. When T.C. asks his father who Chloe is the Sheriff claims that he has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. Strange, right? Well this progresses throughout the rest of the show... culminating in the Sheriff's final crazy outburst where he proclaims "We can't stop him. We never could. He's the Magic Man" and proceeds to chop of his hand with an ax! What I really want to know is what power Mr. Grieves has if any in this situation when the Sheriff confronts him at Big Dave's not too long before he chops off his hand. He tells Mr. Grieves essentially "this town isn't big enough for the both of us". Yet Mr. Grieves brushes this comment away somewhat like an annoying fly and it seems as if the Sheriff has forgotten his initial purpose in talking to the Brit.

All these loosely ended conversations that occur throughout the pilot make me wonder what the hell is going on in this town and what influence do these people really have over each other? Who is Henley, why is she hiding who she really is, who is she always talking on the phone to? What is on the third floor of Dot's bed and breakfast and why is it strictly off limits? Who is this Chloe person? And who the hell is the Magic Man???

Although I found the pilot to be a little weak I must admit it was a nice set up to the following episodes where the ideas begin to coagulate a little more and you start to get a better understand for the mystery behind the town. It feels like there's an interconnectedness between all the townspeople and the Magic Man that T.C.'s going to have to try really hard to get at if he's going to be able to solve the mystery that's been ignored by Haplin for over 5 years. The nice thing about the pilot is that they definitely leave you on a note of wanting more when they end the show with the dramatic ax trick by the Sheriff and his continued mumblings about Chloe and the unstoppable Magic Man. Each episode keeps you wanting more, which is definitely something I look for when I'm choosing my weekly programming and I look forward to entertaining myself this week on Wednesday with Happy Town. What more can they possibly uncover about the Magic Man, the new residents of Haplin, those returning residents and of course the residents of Haplin who carry the name Haplin. What secrets could all these people possibly be hiding?