Taking eight episodes for what would, in more efficient hands, be a pilot — and setting up a second season that’s somehow even less necessary — Paramount+’s Happy Face vacillates between sanctimonious and hypocritical, lashing out at the exploitative tropes of true crime and then embodying the genre’s worst instincts, with nothing especially perceptive to offer as compensation.
It’s a show that’s at least paying lip service to doing something interesting, but there are too many intellectual hurdles it can’t clear.
Happy Face
The Bottom Line A bitter blend of santimony and hypocrisy.
Airdate: Thursday, March 20 (Paramount+)
Cast: Annaleigh Ashford, Dennis Quaid, James Wolk, David Harewood, Tamera Tomakili, Khiyla Aynne, Benjamin Mackey
Creator: Jennifer Cacicio
Created by Jennifer Cacicio (Your Honor), the series describes itself as “Inspired by a True Life Story.”
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