Happy Face Tiptoes True Crime Tightrope In Two-Episode Premiere — Read Recap
At the heart of every true crime show, movie, book and podcast lies the same uncomfortable reality: The worst epoch in a victim's life, the pain from which ripples through their loved ones' lives forever, becomes a form of ghastly entertainment for the masses.
Happy Face, which premiered today on Paramount+, acknowledges and wrestles with that quandary as it tells the story of Melissa G. Moore, who learned at age 15 that her father was a serial killer. The series is inspired by on Moore's podcast of the same name and her book Shattered Silence, which chronicled her experiences as the daughter of Keith Jesperson. Jesperson murdered eight women in the 1990s, earning the name of the Happy Face Killer for how he signed letters describing the crimes to newspapers, and currently is serving multiple life sentences at a prison in Oregon.
Moore is an executive producer on the series, alongside Jennifer Cacicio (Your Honor), Robert and Michelle King (The Good Wife, Evil), Michael Showalter (Spoiler Alert) and others. Annaleigh Ashford (B Positive) plays Melissa and Dennis Quaid (Lawmen: Bass Reeves) plays Keith; the cast also includes James Wolk (Mad Men) as Melissa's husband, Ben; Tamera Tomakili (Winning Time) as a TV producer, Ivy; and David Harewood (Supergirl) as a Dr. Phil-like talk-show host, Dr. Greg.
Cacicio, who also serves as showrunner, says she understood how crucial it was to strike the right balance in the show. "It's definitely tricky, because I wanted to stay true to Melissa's emotional story, which is what drew me to the podcast in telling this to begin with. I also am very aware that Keith's victims were real people with real families, and we want to be respectful," she tells me. "But, we also are making a TV show that needs to have twists and turns. It's just a balance, I think, and always just making sure that I was staying true to Melissa's story. We always came back to 'This is Melissa's story.' And that was part of the choice to fictionalize a lot of the other characters, because we have Melissa's consent, and Melissa wanted to tell this story and collaborate. So that's why we chose to fictionalize a lot of the other people in the story while still being able to tell a story about the impact on a variety of people from these kinds of crimes without actually having to force people into the light that don't want to be there."
Moore, who sits next to her, nods. The fictional gloss "gave me the freedom to be honest," she says. "Because when you're not facing the real individuals, you can actually express the real feelings of what it felt like."
In a moment, we'll want to know what you thought of the two-episode premiere. (Here's how to stream it.) But first, here are the highlights of "The Confession" and "Killing Shame."
THE PAST IN THE PRESENT | Melissa is a makeup artist on Dr. Greg, a daytime talk show, when we meet her. We quickly learn that she and Ben have two kids, Hazel — whose 15th birthday coincides with the events of the premiere — and Max, and that she has a natural ability to connect with people. This ability comes in useful to Ivy when a guest is balking at appearing on the show: A few minutes of gentle conversation in Mel's chair, and she's good to go.
Mel is unsettled when Hazel opens a birthday card that came in the mail, accompanied by a slightly lascivious drawing of a mermaid. The card is from Keith, and it quickly becomes clear that Max and Hazel have no idea who their grandfather is, or that he's even alive. Hazel covers, saying that the note is from a strange uncle in a facility far away, then she throws the card in a safe in her bedroom, which already holds a pile of similar mail.
After buying a burner phone, she calls Keith's penitentiary that night and leaves him a message: "Stay the f—k away from me and my kids... You did what you did, and now you have to live with it, for the rest of your f–king life, in a f–king box, alone." But Keith does not comply: The next day, Mel is called into Dr. Greg's office, because the inmate has contacted the show, claiming to have new information on an old murder — and he'll only give up the details if he can talk to Melissa. Though Mel claims not to know what Keith is talking about, eventually, she's caught. "He's my father," she says dejectedly.
MEET KEITH | Mel has only visited Keith in prison twice: Once when she was 15, after he was first arrested, and once when she was pregnant with Hazel. And though Mel is sure her dad is lying about his alleged ninth victim, she gets talked into going to see him when Ivy points out that she may be able to help bring that victim's family some closure.
Ben thinks it's a bad idea (and, honestly, so does Mel), but she, Ivy and a cameraman go talk to Keith. He wastes no time in being extremely creepy as he details how he'd kill during his stints as a long-haul trucker, then bring rewards back to his children. "Every time a woman took her last breath, you got presents," he says. "Time with Daddy. I needed to be around you after, because it kept me out of the darkness. So I brought you little trinkets and big presents I knew your mom couldn't afford. Lots of candy. Seeing you happy, it just erased all that I'd done. Because if you loved me that much, and I loved you that much, then I couldn't be all that bad." When Mel needs to take a minute outside the room, Ivy presses Keigh for the name and location of his ninth victim. "Ask Missy," he says. "She knows."
'SPAGHETTI SAUCE' | And that, right there, is the crux of why Mel's even doing this: As a kid, she had an inkling that her father was doing very bad things. But she never said anything, and so she feels guilt about the women he raped and strangled. Flashbacks show Keith explaining how hypothetically you shouldn't leave duct tape at a crime scene, because the police can lift fingerprints from it, and explaining away a splatter of blood on his ceiling fan as "spaghetti sauce."
Mel brings Ivy to her mother's house to look for clues that can corroborate Keith's new story. While there, Mel's mom, June, warns her daughter that Keith has a Following-like network of minions both inside and outside the prison who are willing to do his bidding. "In the right circumstances," she adds, "he would hurt anyone" — even his daughter.
HAZEL FINDS OUT | The visit to June's house helps Ivy and Mel corroborate the location of the murder — a town in Texas — and another visit to him offers up more details. He says he gave a ride to a hitchhiking bartender named Heather in Texas, slept with her, and then her talking about her dreams of being a star "rubbed me the wrong way" so he strangled her and then delivered a killing blow with a wrench in his truck.
But the admission doesn't come for free: He starts needling Mel about how she's secretly filled with insecurity. "You're afraid you can't love, and you're afraid you can't be loved," he says, adding in some details from her life that prove he's been keeping close tabs. The name of the bar the murder victim worked at rings a bell, and Mel calls Ben to check her trove of trinkets: He confirms that her dad gave her a guitar pick with the bar's logo on it when he came back from one of his trips.
While they're on the phone, Ben begs Mel not to pursue anything further with her dad, because everyone will find out she's the child of a serial killer. But the victim's boyfriend, Elijah, is on death row for her murder, and Mel feels a responsibility to try to clear his name.
Meanwhile, Hazel is eavesdropping on her parents' conversation and later searches "Happy Face Killer" online.
MEL MAKES A CHOICE | Elijah's lawyer tells Mel and Ivy that the police coerced a confession from him and fudged the time-of-death details to invalidate his alibi. Their only hope, she says, is to cause a media "ruckus" that will force the conservative court to give Elijah a new hearing. But that also means that she expects Mel to testify in court, and she's not ready for that. Ivy is irked. "Maybe I would like you to care as much about the Black man on death row as you do about your anonymity," she says.
Later, while they're filming a reenactment of the dumping of Heather's body, Mel notices something disturbing: a happy face carved into a tree nearby. But even if she wants to help Elijah, it doesn't matter: The district attorney won't reopen the case. And when the DA also revokes their permission to visit and interview Elijah, Mel knows what she has to do.
HIDEY-HO, MURDERINOS! | Meanwhile, at home, we learn that Hazel is undergoing some typical, yet gutting, mean-girl BS at her high school. The only thing that gets the teen jerks, who are "murderinos," to back off a little is when she blurts out that her grandfather is a serial killer.
Ben and Mel are arguing about whether it's a good idea to out herself as Keith's daughter on national TV when Hazel interrupts them and says that she already knows about her grandfather, she's told some kids at school, and "they think it's super cool." Oy. Mel immediately pronounces that her daughter will have no relationship with Keith whatsoever, which is the surest way to cement Hazel's desire to do so, no?
Case in point: Hazel and those terrible classmates visit a murder museum and learn that there's a robust market for Keith's art online.
'WHAT IF I'M LIKE HIM?' | Mel does, indeed, go through with appearing on Dr. Greg's show to talk about her father. "I'm not here to humanize him," she makes clear at the start of the segment, which Dr. Greg wants to focus on her family rather than Elijah's deadly situation. (Side note: Props to Harewood, who is so perfectly smarmy here.) As Dr. Greg pushes Mel to talk more about her dad and his victims — including his last confirmed one, who was his girlfriend at the time — she gets increasingly upset. And when Dr. Greg smells blood in the water, he goes for it. He's doing some weird motivational coaching, Mel is crying and asking "What if I'm like him?!" as she admits that she's worried they're more similar than different, and it's important to note: It does not take much at all to get her to this place. Dr. Greg assures her that she'll never be like her father and makes her repeat it, which is just so weird.
Meanwhile, in his cell, Keith tapes up a news story about his ninth victim. And elsewhere, some guy in a convenience store sees the newspaper, opens to an article about Mel, and looks real mad about it.
Now it's your turn. What did you think of the premiere? Grade it via the poll below, then hit the comments with your thoughts!