This is a recap for Happy Town, episode 2, “I Came to Haplin for the Water,” and it will have spoilers in order to discuss plot points. If you did not see the pilot for Happy Town last week, you can watch it on the official ABC website.

Now that I have seen the first two episodes of Happy Town, here are a few of my initial thoughts on the series. I enjoyed the second half of both episodes quite a bit more than the first. I have found it difficult to initially get into the show, but by the end of each episode I have been completely engrossed.

I enjoy quirky, but I do not enjoy goofy, and some of the characters are quickly veering into annoying territory (I’m looking at you, Stiviletto brothers.) I feel like some of these characters are coming across as being badly acted, and it seems to take down the quality of the show a notch. There are still plenty of talented actors on the show, and that might be why some of the weaker ones stand out.

I do think the show suffers in the writing department. I didn’t notice it so much the first episode, when I was trying to keep all the characters and plot-lines straight, but in the second episode I noticed sloppy dialogue and meandering scenes that easily could have been tightened up.

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ABC has been heavily promoting the new serial drama Happy Town during Lost this season, touting it as “from the network that brought you Twin Peaks.” Let’s face it, there will never be another Twin Peaks, but the Happy Town premiere is intriguing enough to keep my interest. It boasts a town mystery and some quirky characters, but the comparisons to Twin Peaks should stop right there. Happy Town is more accessible to mainstream audiences, though it still throws enough oddities in the mix to satisfy the more serious television fan.

This post will not have spoilers beyond those that can be seen in the promotional trailer for the series. Haplin, Minnesota is a quaint little town, home of “Daily Bread” bakery and confectionery, and a mysterious character called “the Magic Man.” The Magic Man earned his name because for eight consecutive years, someone would go missing, never to be heard from again. The missing residents were all children or teenagers. Suddenly, five years ago, the disappearances abruptly came to an end, and the townspeople have been enjoying a peaceful community.

The calm is shattered when a brutal murder is discovered. This time a body is quickly found, but rumors begin swirling about the Magic Man. Town sheriff Griffin Conroy is joined by his son (and fellow deputy) Tommy Conroy, and the two start investigating the murder. Griffin starts having some very odd spells where he seems entranced, and he keeps speaking of “Chloe”. As soon as he snaps back to reality, he has no idea what he has just said. Naturally, this concerns his son.

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Martin Scorsese’s latest potboiler bears the unmistakable markings of a classic film noir. Cigarette smoke  hangs heavy in the air  and tendrils about the characters, almost taking on a life of its own. Dream sequences become engulfed in flames and smoke. The camera lingers on one character taking a drag off of a cigarette and inhaling the smoke directly into his nostrils.

The smoke  is so pervasive that I kept thinking there has to be a reason for it, beyond atmosphere.  My conclusion is that the smoke is an allegorical symbol for “smoke and mirrors”, quite apropo because on Shutter Island, nothing is as it appears.

Leonardo DiCaprio (with a thick Boston accent) plays Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshal who has been summoned to the mysterious Shutter Island, a foreboding chunk of land surrounded by rocky precipices. This makes the island ideal for housing dangerous and severely disturbed psychiatric patients. The movie takes place in 1954, when psychiatric patients were routinely given lobotomies, and other “treatments” were inflicted that are considered unethical and inhumane today.

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