As Happy Face Season 1 Ends, An Appreciation Of Dennis Quaid's 'Very Female' Serial Killer Glasses — Plus, Grade The Finale
Make no mistake: I'm aware of how dangerous convicted serial killer Keith Hunter Jesperson is. The real-life criminal, portrayed in Paramount+'s Happy Face by Dennis Quaid, is serving multiple life sentences for murdering at least eight women in the 1990s. And Quaid's performance throughout the season, which ends with the finale released today, has driven home the trauma that Jesperson unleashed on so many: his victims, their families and his own daughter, Mel (played by Annaleigh Ashford).
That said: Those glasses.
They bring to mind your Nana Gladys. Bingo games. Hard candies wrapped in cellophane and retrieved from the depths of a massive purse. On their own, I don't want to run from them. I want them to knit me a sweater and press $5 into my hand while my parents aren't looking. The idea of very scary murderers wearing this type of eyewear isn't new — Racked and Slate have excellent breakdowns on the topic — but I found myself so distracted by the incongruity of the frames throughout the thriller's season that I had to ask Quaid about them when we spoke.
While he had no desire to contact Jesperson before or during filming, the distinctive eyewear was "one thing I did take from him," Quaid said. "They're actually very female, those glasses. Women like big glasses. He's a big guy in real life, 6'6" or whatever. But the glasses are very, like, female." He thought for a moment. "That kinda made me understand something I don't have words for."
Ponder that for a moment while I give you a brief recap of the finale:
Mel and Ivy use footage from Heather's open-mic performance, as well as a yearbook, to figure out that the letterman's jacket the soon-to-be-dead woman was wearing belonged to Cody, the younger guy they talked to at Whiskey River earlier in the season. Turns out, Cody has a history of violence — and when Mel and Ivy start interviewing him at the bar, he slaps the camera away and storms out.
Cody winds up leading the police on a chase; when they catch him, all he can say is, "My father is a good man." Wait, what? Yep — Cody's dad, Carl, is the true killer... as Mel comes to realize when she returns to Whiskey River and realizes a) that Heather's guitar neck doubles as the establishment's tap handle, and b) that Carl has a gun trained on her.
They're all alone in the bar, but he's unaware that her phone is recording everything. He talks about how he and Heather "loved each other, for a time," and I should note here that Carl has been drinking, heavily. He takes Mel through the night Heather died: Basically, Carl gave Heather a ride to the open mic and then got drunk and angry that she was going to leave town for Nashville. So he tried to have sex with her, and when she fought back, he chased her out of the car and killed her. "I needed reminding about my biggest mistake on a regular basis," he says sadly, indicating the tap handle. And then he puts his gun to his head and pulls the trigger.
What about the hit Ben put out on his father-in-law? He wakes up the morning after making the deal, throws up, and texts the guard to call it off. But the plan is in motion, and Keith conveniently (?) has a heart attack that afternoon as he sees a guy coming for him with a shiv.
After Shane calls to give her the news, Mel eventually makes it to the hospital — mainly to confront Keith about falsifying his complicity in Heather's death. He admits he lied about everything, but that he did it "for you. I did it to make you a star, because that's what you are."
She points out that he had no problem setting the fire at the lake that nearly killed her when she was a baby, but he cries and apologizes, reasoning that "I didn't know you yet!" She leaves him there in the bed despite his claims that he has something important to tell her.
Some time later, Mel appears on Dr. Greg's show to talk about catching Carl. They announce that she'll continue to work with people "who have been touched by the trauma of crime" as the producer (with Ivy) of a new, true-crime segment on the show. Everyone applauds.
Ben never mentioned his hit to Mel, which comes back to bite him when he gets a call at work from a number he doesn't recognize. "I know what you did, or what you tried to do," Keith tells his son-in-law, who visibly blanches. "Did you really think it wouldn't get back to me? Did you think I wouldn't find out?!"
Now it's your turn. What did you think of Happy Face's finale? Grade it, and the season as a whole, via the polls below. Then hit the comments with your thoughts, glasses-related and otherwise.