This post contains spoilers from Paramount+'s Happy Face episode 7, “My Jesperson Girls.”
We’ve reached the Happy Face penultimate episode, my friends, and it's a curveball we never saw coming (but that makes total sense). Bombshells have abounded throughout the Paramount+ series, but episode 7 drops earth-shattering revelations that change everything about our narrative and alter our characters’ lives on a much grander scale. In this penultimate recap, Happy Face (Dennis Quaid) unnervingly asserts his dominance, Melissa (Annaleigh Ashford) is hit with revelations about her past that break her, and Ben (James Wolk) makes a risky move to protect his family.
Happy Face asserts his dominance
After discovering Hazel (Khiyla Aynne) and Keith’s relationship, Melissa and Ben take her phone away and relocate the family to an Oregon hotel room so they can confront Keith. While her mother watches the kids, Melissa and Ben head to the prison.
Ben is uncomfortable being there. It’s driving him crazy not knowing what Keith and Hazel talked about or what he wants. Ben is angry, and what's happening is clearly creating tension between him and Melissa. As a father, he needs to look Keith in the eye and tell him to stay away from his daughter, but Happy Face asserts his dominance by making them wait to see him, choosing to relax in his cell instead.
As the couple leave, they fight, which is exactly what Keith wants. Ben blames Melissa for the fact that her father is even in their lives at all, and she blames him for failing to realize one of their kids had a burner phone. Eventually, Keith calls with apologies, and Ben tells him to stay away from Hazel “or else.” Keith laughs but, in a snap, becomes enraged when Melissa calls him Keith instead of Dad.
“AFTER ALL I’VE DONE FOR YOU AND THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT ME?! JUST LEAVE ME BE!” he screams before hanging up the phone.
Melissa gets earth-shattering news
This poor girl, y’all. Can you imagine how torn apart, overwhelmed, and in shock she must be? Bear with me here. After their fight, Ben goes to a bar and Melissa returns to the hotel, where June (Kathleen Duborg) warns Hazel not to throw her life away on Keith. Hazel defends himf: He was bullied in school, his dad drank and abused him, he had a head injury as a kid - things she believes are proof that he wasn’t born a monster. Melissa points out that all of his stories make him the victim, that he was grooming Hazel to get her on his side.
She then recalls how Keith groomed her as a child (gross) and reveals what Keith said to her after she told him she was raped and had an abortion: “You’re a killer just like me.” Melissa says the only reason she's had any contact with him since then is because of Elijah (Damon Gupton), but now that he’s out, there will be no more Keith. June calls her out as a liar who secretly wishes things were different, then she drops a bombshell. “Your father never loved us, not even in Chilliwack” she says. “He tried to kill us.”
On Melissa's first family vacation, June awoke in the night to their cabin on fire. As she rushed out with her baby, she saw Keith standing in the woods with his hands in his pockets, wide-eyed and grinning. This earth-shattering revelation disorients Melissa, who has lived her life convinced that her father wasn’t always a bad man, that he truly loved her and would never hurt his family. Knowing he tried to kill her and took pleasure in doing so breaks her, and she leaves abruptly, winding up in the wilderness with Ash (Teach Grant), apologizing. The two have a heart-to-heart and he helps her realize that, like him, she’s a survivor and will be okay.
Back at the hotel, she and Ben make up and she swears she is done with Keith… until the next morning when he sends her a message with a drawing of a Jefferson, Texas evidence department employee named Bob (Toby Hargrave) - the same Bob from episode 5. The drawing reads, "GOTCHA." Jesperson again has asserted his dominance and lured his Jesperson girl back into his game. On her way out, Ben tells her not to be surprised if things are different at home when she returns.
In Texas, Bob drops a revelation so earth-shattering that we viewers feel the immediate panic. Bob doesn’t know Keith, and Calloway (Michael O'Neill) didn’t order Elijah's evidence destroyed, but weeks prior to Melissa and Ivy (Tamera Tomakili) showing up, “Heather’s daughter showed up hysterical about a necklace that belonged to her mother,” saying she "needed it for her wedding day." So, Bob left her alone with the box and when he returned, both the necklace and Heather's bloody dress were gone. He panicked and destroyed the what was left in the purge.
So, what does all this mean? It means that Keith didn’t kill Heather Richmond and this entire thing has been a rouse to lure Melissa back into his life. It was likely Gillian (Jenn Lyon) who posed as Heather’s daughter, took the items, and transferred trace DNA from the dress to the wrench Happy Face says he used to kill Heather. In a matter of 48 hours, Melissa discovered her father tried to kill her as a baby and lied about killing another victim just to have contact with her, rope her into his game, and gain more notoriety. Furthermore, the future of her family hangs in the balance.
Ben takes a risk to protect his family
At the bar, Ben meets a prison guard named Chave (Philip Granger), and the two express their disdain for Keith. Chave asks Ben if there’s anything he’d like to do about it, and when Ben mentions a beatdown, Chave points out that Happy Face isn’t the kind of man you beat down: "You either get rid of him or leave him alone."
With Melissa in Texas, Ben moves the kids back home, where he finds Hazel’s sketch pad. He’s horrified when he sees a drawing of a girl with tape over her mouth and a smiley face sticker over her lips. Later that night, he sneaks into her room and finds her drawings of Keith and Keith’s drawings of her. It’s clear the two have bonded more deeply than he and Melissa realized, and Ben flashes back to the first time he met Keith.
Jesperson asserted his dominance when he leaned in close to Ben and said, “You can have them now, my Jesperson girls, but just know that I can take them away from you anytime that I want, and when I decide to take them, Ben, there won’t be a damn thing you can do about it.” Ben has no choice and makes a risky move when he gives Chave the go-ahead to take out Keith. He must protect his family.
Happy Face episode 7 review
When Happy Face premiered, there was a moment where I wondered if Keith was making this up just to work his way back into his daughter's life; however, probably like the rest of you, I fell into his game and wanted to believe he was doing the right thing in confessing, even if he did have an ulterior motive. We've seen him struggle so much with his own morality and identity, so to discover it's all been a rouse was earth-shattering even for us viewers.
Heading into the season finale, we're left wondering who killed Heather Richmond. What if--and this is just a thought--Keith made Shane (Philip Ettinger) kill Heather on their trip together? Moreover, will Chave go through with his and Ben's plan, or will he rat on Ben because he's under Happy Face's control along with the rest of the guards, and, considering it was Gillian who stole the evidence, will she be charged with a crime? Will Happy Face be reprimanded for his false confession, and how is all of this going to change Melissa's and her family's lives forever? Don't miss the season finale's answers!
Happy Face releases new episodes on Thursdays on Paramount+.