Happy’s Place Season 2, Episode 16, “AI-AI-No” Spoilers Ahead
The moment I saw the title of this week’s episode of Happy’s Place, I knew I’d spend the majority of it being frustrated, and that’s exactly what happened. The humor and the value of an episode like this make sense in this day and age, but when you’re someone like me, and AI has singlehandedly ruined your job, you can’t even laugh about it. It’s too soon. Way too soon. It’s all too fresh.
Because really, it’s hard to look beyond the fact that even testing AI is contributing to the environment’s ruination, and Steve’s decision to sacrifice his job is absolutely silly throughout.
Steve Is Irreplaceable
The best part of Happy’s Place’s “AI-AI-No” is Steve’s realization that he’s irreplaceable. The world we live in today will tirelessly pretend that people are replaceable, but they aren’t. They could never be. Steve isn’t just a numbers person. He is, as Bobbie states, “a huge part of this family.” And I can understand his fears when the tavern isn’t doing well, but Steve is a human being with too much heart for any human to replace, let alone a robot. Every single person, especially when they’re one of the good ones, is irreplaceable, and every market out there trying to make a point about how AI will someday take over is actually…the worst.
It’s hard not to get sucked into the dread of it all, too. While this episode also resolves everything right away, that’s not the case for us in the real world. We don’t get a resolution immediately, and even if we do, it comes right back to haunt us the next morning. We can’t escape it, and the dread that looms over us because of AI is too substantial. It’s probably why it’s so easy to have such a negative reaction to an episode like this, because we’ve all been in Steve’s shoes, but we might not be lucky enough because we aren’t in a place like Happy’s. So, really, I almost wish my safe space sitcom didn’t remind me of the awful thing in the real world that’s severely disrupting everything in our day-to-day lives like this.
Emmett Continues to Be Frustrating in Happy’s Place Season 2, Episode 16
After last week’s “Emotional Real Estate,” I really thought we’d make a dent in Emmett trying to give more when he’s in a relationship, but we also just spent a whole episode trying to teach him the importance of texting back, and it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as it should’ve been. It wasn’t entertaining when a simple phone call then presumably fixed the problem. You could’ve just done this before? Why did I have to watch a whole episode of this back and forth? And while it’s understandable that no one changes overnight, the fact that we’re continuing to harp on little things with Emmett’s inability to communicate is now tiring.
Ultimately, while Happy’s Place Season 2, Episode 16, “AI-AI-No,” is a well-written episode, the execution doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for me personally, and that’s okay. It’s not every episode that needs to be perfect. This one just hits way closer to home than I would like and not in a comforting way.
Now streaming on NBC and Peacock: What are your thoughts on Happy’s Place Season 2, Episode 16, “AI-AI-No?” Let us know in the comments below.
First Featured Image Credit: (Photo by: Casey Durkin/NBC)