QUICK GLANCE AT THE SECOND EPISODE OF HAPPYISH

E2 Grade: C

As mentioned previously, Steve Coogan replaced the late Philip Seymour Hoffman on Showtime's original series HAPPYISH, but Kathryn Hahn as wife/mom Lee Payne was there all along...

Episode Two, eclectically titled "Starring Marc Chagall, Abuela and Adolf Hitler", is really her vehicle, providing a pissed off narration/prologue with Carol Brady BRADY BUNCH bashing, which segues into an "Annoying Jewish Mother" plotline very cliche in nature yet not typical in delivery... Pun intended as a delivered Amazon Dot Com box's logo-arrow speaks with her dead mom's lecturing voice... Meanwhile, Coogan's Thom is like a completely helpless and hopeless version of MAD MEN Don Draper, reluctantly stressed over an office sofa while not taking to a new concept for Keebler cookies.

More or less a bridge episode extended from the far superior pilot, the overall destination isn't clear as neither husband nor wife successfully progressed or humorously regressed from their comfortably pessimistic suburban hell. Instead of covering new sullen ground, they shifted gears to another perturbed driver and rounded the same track.