If you’re like me, one of the most fascinating parts of true crime stories isn’t the crime or the perpetrators but who gets carried along in their mess.
The odds of me being a master criminal are pretty low. The odds of me being victimized or traumatized by being close to a criminal through no doing of my own are pretty high — astronomical, as I’ve already been there.
True Crime shows like Dateline and Death by Fame (two of my favorites) use friend, family, and victim accounts to build a crime narrative, so we know the interest in exploring those people exists. Happy Face is the first scripted series to dig in deep.
If you’ve read reviews, you’ll see that other critics aren’t keen on Happy Face. They consider it pulled in two diametrically opposed directions, often getting mired in what they wanted to escape — glorifying the killer.
Maybe that’s because they hired Dennis Quaid to portray Keith Jesperson. Dennis has always been charismatic, but in recent years, he’s had time to explore some really off-kilter characters, such as Harvey in The Substance. You’re naturally drawn to him even when he’s playing someone disgusting.
Melissa Moore (Reed in the show) would not be who she is today without being Keith Jesperson’s daughter, so any attempt at understanding what she’s gone through would have to come with a sprinkle of Keith. There’s no getting around it.
But what Happy Face doesn’t do is go into detail about Keith’s crimes or paint him as anything other than what he is — a sorry excuse for a man who managed to dazzle enough people to have his way with them, whether by killing them, being their family, or conning them into thinking he’s worth their time despite all of it.
But this is also not a true story. It’s inspired by a true story.
Melissa’s essence is the heart of Happy Face. She successfully managed to escape her father and have a happy family of her own, and when she gets dragged back in, she focuses on the stories of others who were left in his wake.
It is inspiring.
I’m also a big fan of other shows inspired by true stories. I just finished a rewatch of Medium, based on Allison DuBois’s experiences. I still rue the day Netflix canceled Mindhunter.
Boardwalk Empire, Narcos, The Offer, and the Feud series (Bette & Joan and Capote vs. The Swans) were all inspired by true stories, but none of them were wholly true, either. We fictionalize real-life stories for dramatic purposes all the time.
So, I don’t care what everyone else says. Happy Face works for me. It’s not perfect, but I’ve seen all eight episodes of the first season, and it remains enjoyable throughout. It’s well worth your time if you’re a crime buff.
Annaleigh Ashford gives a marvelous performance as Melissa, Dennis Quaid nails all of the awful things Keith represents, and everyone around them is totally up to the task.
This is fiction, inspired by Melissa’s journey, not an autobiographical tale.
So, I hope you’re planning on sticking around with me throughout the season, which began with a birthday card from Keith to the granddaughter he never met on Happy Face Season 1 Episode 1.
After years of unsuccessful attempts to reconnect with his daughter, the Happy Face killer decided he needed to up the ante. What better way to do that than to lasso granddaughter Hazel and out Melissa on the successful Dr. Greg show where she works?
Melissa doesn’t work with trauma survivors, but by doing the makeup of Dr. Greg’s guests, she gets to see them when they’re most anxious — just before they go on camera to share their tales.
Melissa is a good listener. With her father’s intrusion on her mind, she uses her skills to engage a reluctant guest to tell her story.
The guest mentions something that sets the stage for the whole series: every violent death is like a rock in a pond, and if you stay silent about what you experienced, ripples of trauma will continue outward, pulling everyone they touch underneath the water.
Melissa pretends the past can’t touch her present, and her husband, Ben, goes along with it. But Melissa got lucky when Keith called into the show. They were somewhat prepared for her story, even if they were unaware of it.
Of course, they want to take advantage of the opportunity, but their pushes seem well-meaning. Dr. Greg could have taken all of the credit for himself. Instead, he looped Melissa in immediately, securing an audience to help her take her impending notoriety to the next level.
But the series isn’t perfect, and my biggest gripe comes from that approach. Nobody really asks Melissa how she feels or if she even wants to explore sharing her story with a broader audience; they just kind of expect it.
It’s their business, but she’s just a makeup artist. They should have recognized how carefully she’d hidden this side of herself away. But Hollywood is going to be Hollywood, and if someone or something can be exploited, it will be.
Melissa barely had time to think before showing up at Keith’s cell, film crew in tow. Now, it makes sense that she’d want to confront him sooner than later, especially if he’s sending Hazel letters. However, the timeline for how quickly she picks up the torch and runs with it is a little unrealistic.
It’s a great storytelling device, but running the new track shouldn’t be easy when you’ve carefully crafted your existence for so long.
Right away, though, Keith was funny. It’s sometimes hard to imagine serial killers as family types, but when Melissa told him to eff off in front of Dr. Greg, Keith asked, “Is that how I raised you to speak in front of your boss?”
Of course, he raised her to do much worse, but that sentiment helps us to understand how hard it would be to separate the dad you grew up with from the serial killer, despite everything you know about him and want to resist.
The turning point for Melissa is that after a life of wondering if she could have stopped him (this comes into play in much greater detail as Happy Face Season 1 progresses) and feeling powerless under the weight of his crimes, he confesses to a new crime, a death for which another man has been sentenced to death.
I don’t know about you, but I’d move heaven and earth to uncover my father’s part in it if I could save another man’s life. And from a storytelling perspective, it lights a fire under Melissa’s ass. She’s not alone in her life’s journey anymore. Time is literally of the essence.
Once that fire is lit, Melissa doesn’t need much prodding to go deep into investigation mode. Seeing her father face to face again helps, as does Ivy’s research into Keith, but whatever Melissa had repressed comes back with a vengeance.
She’s on a whirlwind tour of her childhood by the time “The Confession” ends; they’ve dug up clues that had no right to exist, Keith has shared his version of the crime, and they’ve located the murder he’s confessed to: a woman named Heather Richmond.
By the time we begin Happy Face Season 1 Episode 2, Melissa and Ivy are already producing a reelection segment for Dr. Greg at the crime scene. Things are going very fast, and I can only guess it was done because it’s an eight-episode season with much to cover.
Melissa’s occupation on the show put the story into overdrive, and it didn’t feel as if she was entirely ready for everything happening to or around her, but maybe that’s not wholly unexpected.
It’s not difficult to track things down on the internet these days, and if you’re following a lead down the rabbit hole to save someone from death row, you can and would act fast.
But Melissa had no time to discuss this with her family, not Ben or Max, and certainly not Hazel, who is a teenage girl not much different in age than she was when she learned her father was a serial killer.
She knows how significant events can be at that age, and it’s a little disappointing that after working so hard to protect Hazel and Max from who she was, she took off the moment her father entered her life again without much explanation.
But if I was thinking about that, writer Jennifer Cacicio was too, and it was addressed by subjecting Hazel to bullying, feeling as if she had nowhere to turn for help.
I can also tell you that as a teenage girl, I would have jumped off a bridge rather than buy bikini wax in a store. I couldn’t even purchase a box of pads or tampons without wanting to die. That stuff is beyond traumatic when kids will take every opportunity to rub the banalities of life in your face.
Making matters worse, Hazel got flustered when cute boy Josh interrupted her purchase, and she got caught “shoplifting,” which was really her attempt to save face by holding the box in her hand.
I’ve wondered if life has gotten easier for relatives of criminals as true crime has become so prevalent in our lives. Would kids think you’re cool for having a serial killer as a grandfather, or would they be as cruel as always?
It’s hard to tell with this bunch. I don’t trust any of them. They all come off as mean girls (and boys), with Hazel’s insecurities leading her to trust them because she wants friends so badly. A serial killer grandpa can’t possibly make mean girls go good, right?
Time is moving relatively slowly for Hazel at home, but in Texas, Melissa, Ivy, and Tyler have done recreations, set up meet-and-greets with a man on death row, and been approved and turned away by a DA. There’s a lot happening that seems near impossible.
I understand why the timelines intersect to make the point about Melissa being Hazel’s age when she learned about her dad, but it does make it harder to connect the two sides of her story.
Surely, there will be parallels between how the DA spoke to Melissa about her father and what Hazel experiences with her friends, too. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and all that. But I’d think Hazel would be proud of her mom, even if she lied to her her whole life.
There’s not much of Keith’s history to make Melissa proud.
And I’ll be honest. I felt it was incredibly tacky for Ivy to produce Dr. Greg while he questioned Melissa on camera. I believe that if it happened in real life, that’s how it would be, but it’s tacky nonetheless.
Maybe some people need that kind of public reckoning to realize what they’re going through. As much as I feel it’s disingenuous to let go on the world’s stage, it’s been happening for decades. For the longest time, daytime talk shows thrived on those reveals.
At least Dr. Greg knew that Keith was, again, manipulating Melissa. He’s manipulating the whole family. How long will he get away with it? Criminals, especially killers, always find ways to stay relevant and pull the strings.
Look at that Mangione creep. He’s got a whole flock of fans who hang on his every word. The sad fact is that, in many ways, it’s harder to be related to a criminal than to be one because criminals have no conscience.
Happy Face will slowly reveal how hard it is to live in their orbit as the season progresses. We’ll also find out if Keith retains any of his humanity. Did he reach out about Heather’s murder because of a change of heart, or is he doing it for other nefarious purposes?
We’ll certainly have a lot to think about and discuss along the way.
Other things that stood out:
- What did you think of Melissa’s new neighbor interrupting her on the phone? Melissa was in the dark on the street and amid a private conversation. What was that all about?
- Say your show was filmed in Canada without saying your show was filmed in Canada. The actress who plays Renee (Jennifer Spence) is a Canadian staple, and so is bartender Cody (Patrick Gilmore, most recently seen on School Spirits). Spence and Gilmore worked together on Travelers!
- There’s no way Cody won’t have a more prominent role eventually. He may not be a huge name, but Gilmore is a busy man. He didn’t show up to be a random bartender in Texas.
- The killer museum chick only offered 100 bucks for Keith’s drawing? Seriously? Wouldn’t crime aficionados (or “murderinos,” as the kids on the show called them) pay handsomely for a drawing by a genuine serial killer??
Happy Face has some flaws, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. If you can take it at face value, you’ll have a good time with the series.
And I promise to write a more normal review next time. Two-episode premieres are difficult to write about, as you’re torn between sharing your general thoughts and digging into the episodic details.
The episode links in the text above provide full recaps, so if you need more, that’s where to start! We also spoke with the Happy Face cast and creators, and our first article from those interviews is already on the site.
Now, it’s your turn. What did you think? Drop below and share your comments. Will you be in it for the long haul (trucker joke!)?
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