Note: This story contains spoilers from “Happy Face” Episode 4.
In this week’s episode of “Happy Face,” Melissa (Annaleigh Ashford) reconnects with her brother Shane (Philip Ettinger) after going public with the fact that their father is serial killer Keith Jesperson (Dennis Quaid).
TheWrap spoke to the real Melissa, Melissa G. Moore, as well as Ashford about the complicated relationship they have with their father and with each other.
“There are a lot of fictionalized series of serial killers, and we don’t [usually] see the serial killer portrayed as a parent or the relationships that they have with their family,” said Moore, noting that “Happy Face” also shows how Melissa and her family interact with the victim’s families.
“I just never felt seen watching any [other] shows,” said Moore, who is an executive producer on the series. “I always felt like I was alone and that I had an experience that maybe wasn’t relatable to other people. But over time, I started to realize that while the details of my experience are unique, the emotions of it are not. They’re universal feelings.
She added, “While we’re a unique and strange family, we have some of the same struggles with just like, for example, with my own family, we gave our own unique struggles of how to write patterns in our family that we always want to be a better parent than the one that we had. I think that’s universal.”
Ashford told TheWrap that her character choosing to reveal the truth about her father was like “a bomb going off,” one that affected everyone connected to her.
'Happy Face' Cast and Character Guide
“What do you do when somebody that you love, somebody that got you into this world and took care of you and protected you and nourished you and made you who you are… what do you do with the love and the memory of that person before they became a monster? And all of the families of perpetrators struggle with, “How did I not know? What could I have done?,” she said.
Melissa is surprised to find out that, unlike her, Shane, a firefighter who lives like a recluse, has been in regular contact with Keith. “In Episode 4, we see the two of them struggle with that together. You spend your entire life wondering if you could have stopped it, and if you could have saved someone and protected them. We don’t often see that in a true crime show. We’re so focused on the killer, and we don’t focus enough on the victims and their families and the families of the perpetrator.”
Ashford added, “It’s about Melissa’s mother and her brother and sister and how they navigated this as an immediate family, but it is also generational. This is a drama that affects the generations beyond for them and for the families of the victims.”
“Happy Face” releases new episodes Thursdays on Paramount.+
