Happy Endings, on Amazon Prime: When Alex and Dave break up, their friends (Max, Brad, Jane, Perry) have to choose sides.

I assume that Alex is a girl with a boy's name, since this problem would never occur with a gay couple:.  At least not in West Hollywood in the 1990s: when you broke up, you stayed friends, and often continued to live together, go out together, and have sex with each other.  Thus leading to problem: If I see him with another guy, should I tell his partner? Can I ask him for a date?  Should I invite them to my party as a couple?  

Memories light the corners of my mind

Misty water-colored memories of the way we were

Sorry, for a moment I was back in 1991.

Anyway, it seems that one of the friends, Max, is gay, and in Episode 8, he's not out to his visiting parents, so he asks one of the girls to be his beard.

How utterly retro!  Now I really feel like I'm back in 1991!

Ready to hate it:


Scene 1: The gang is having brunch. Candied walnuts, anyone?  So it's like Friends, with Blonde #1 as Monica the chef.  Max (Adam Pally, left)  who I'm guessing is Ross, tells Blonde #2 (Phoebe?), "My parents are visiting.  You have to be my beard."  But she sick of being his beard; he's embarrassingly unable to act straight.

Flashback to Max and Blonde #2 at dinner with an elderly couple: "I can't get enough of these things" (pointing to her breasts).  "And don't even get me started on what's down there!"

Max: "Ugh!  Coming out is so gay! Besides, my parents only visit every two years."

Don't you talk to them on the telephone (or on Zoom)?  I used to tell my parents about every guy I was dating.

The two other women refuse to be beards, telling him that "it's time to come out."



Scene 2: Max and Dave (Zachary Knighton) walking in Manhattan.  How is he going to find a beard by 7:00 pm?  (he's over 30, unmarried, and living in New York?  I think his parents know).  Dave points out that his parents are "sweet liberal Jews," but Max insists: "They'll freak out!"

Scene 3: Blonde #1 (sorry, they look alike) and Brad (Damon Wayons) are cleaning up after the brunch.  Wait -- I thought Damon Wayons was homophobic.  How's he starring in a show with a gay character?  Well, I guess they never actually interacted at the brunch.  

Brad is against the idea of Max coming out.  If he's comfortable in the closet, why force the issue?  Um..so his parents can be part of his life?  

Scene 4: Penny in a bar to meet her blind date.  She sees that he's ugly, so ignores him and flirts with Doug (Greg Cromer, top photo) instead.  

Scene 5: Dinner with the parents. Max brings Dave, his roommate.  Two guys over 30 living together?  Surely Mom and Dad will assume that they're a couple! Way to stay in the closet!

Max wants to bolt, but Dave tells him, "Man up and tell them you like dudes.'  I guess this is supposed to be funny because liking dudes is unmanly?

Mom and Dad are sorry that Dave broke up with his girlfriend (the premise, remember?), but at least now "you are free to be who you are and find happiness with a man."  So they think that Dave is gay and Max is straight?  Har-har.

Dave is unhappy with the "accusation."

Suddenly Blonde #2 shows up to be the beard after all.  "I love lady parts!" Max exclaims.

Scene 6: Penny and Doug in the bar, bonding over their mutual hatred of reading and making fun of the ugly guy who is Penny's real date (hey, just because you don't find him attractive, he deserves to be ridiculed?).  

Whoops, Doug's last name is Hitler!

Nonsense! There are no Hitler last names. Anyone who may have had that name changed it 80 years ago!  A few white supremacists have changed their birth names to Hitler.

Scene 7: Back to the annoying, uncomfortable dinner.  Max brings Blonde #2 aside to fill her in on the backstory of their fake relationship.  Dave continues to insist that he's not gay, even when he is ordering a daiquiri (a feminine drink -- see, gay guys are all feminine).

Meanwhile, at the bar, Doug explains that the Hitler family has been in America for 200 years, they are proud of their name and don't want to change it just because of that guy. 

Scene 8: Blonde #2 goes home and tells Brad (Damon Wayons, remember?) that she nailed this beard thing. Max calls to congratulate her on keeping his deceit intact. Unfortunately, the parents were called away on business, so they can't hang out tomorrow.


Scene 9: Blonde #2 and Penny discussing their respective dates. Suddenly they see Max having breakfast with his parents (darn that small-town Manhattan).  He lied about them being called away!

Scene 10: Max comes home. Blonde #2 is sitting in the dark to confront him about his "infidelity".  He explains that his parents hated her: inappropriate kissing, mocking Jewish people with inappropriate Yiddish.

Meanwhile, Penny is getting ready for her date with Doug Hitler.  Blonde #1 makes fun of her. Max calls to ask Blonde #1 to be his beard tonight.  Again? Oy vey!

Max and Dave discuss it.  Blonde #2 and Brad discuss it.  Just come out, you friggin idiot!

Scene 11: Doug Hitler shows up for dinner with Penny.  He sees her notebook, where she has been writing their names: "Mr. and Mrs. Doug Hitler," like in junior high  He assumes that she's a white supremacist with a Hitler fetish (apparently he gets hit on by white supremacists a lot).  He bolts.

Scene 12: Dinner #2.  Is that all Max does when his parents visit?  How about taking them to the Statue of Liberty or a Broadway show?

Blonde #2 shows up, apologizing for last night, wanting another chance.  Then Brad shows up and asks Max to stop kissing his wife.  Then Blonde #1 shows up to be a beard. 

Then Penny shows up: "Guess what?  I finally decide I'm into Hitler, and I'm too much of a Nazi for him!"  

I have to admit, that was funny.

Finally Max comes out.  His parents are thrilled that he's not dating any of those wacko women.  They immediately start trying to hooking up with their friends' eligible sons. Dave gets them to lay off by pretending to be Max's boyfriend.

Max: "I told you that coming out would be gay."




Remember the  intensely homophobic "Men on Film" sketches on In Living Color?  Damon Wayans and David Allan Grier played two extremely offensive swishy critics who gave films "snaps," or else lisped "Hated it!"

I didn't actually hate Happy Endings, but I didn't like it much.  1990s retro with annoying characters doing things that make no sense.  

By the way, the "ugly guy" they were ridiculing was played by Nathan Barnatt.  I'd date him.