Welcome back for another Roundtable here at Speculative Chic! Last month we brought on the tissues and tears as we covered the saddest moments in speculative fiction…and as a counter to that post, I asked our contributors this month to give me the happiest moments! People feel happiness differently, and sometimes moments that bring us joy aren’t the typical Happily Ever After…so the key here is that the scenes we’ve chosen satisfy, and from that satisfaction, we feel happiness. This is our speculative comfort food. Please join us at our table, and dig in!
Spoilers ahead!
Christina Kovar: I opted to select two moments from characters that make me happy watching them on screen. The portrayals are by actors that, to me, perform as if they know more about the character than just what’s on the page.
Angel (Season 4, Episode 13): “Salvage” — Even though we all really want to forget about the mistreatment of Charisma Carpenter in season 4, the multi-episode arc they give Eliza Dushku’s Faith Lehane is by far my favorite of her entire story. I believe the darker tone of the Angel series lent itself to be a better vehicle for her character and the writers leaned into her edginess far easier than they did on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This arc also starts with one of my favorite scenes.
Wesley, desperate and unsure of a path forward, visits his rogue Slayer in prison – despite the attempted murder. The banter starts out in top form and as the seriousness of the situation is relayed, Faith still opts to do her time. She trusts Angel will handle it. Wesley then offers her the facts in an exchange that I will always rewatch. Her entire disposition shifts as she immediately calculates her options. With Angelus’ return, it’s not just the people of LA she wants to save, but Angel himself. It’s with that mindset that she says, in the most bad-ass calm way, “Step away from the glass.”
It’s such a powerful moment and a true beginning to her redemption arc and one that I’ll always enjoy.
Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn – Aside from having a horrible marketing strategy, this movie was an hour and a half of pure joy. (I’m cutting time out for un-joyful face torture.) Margot Robbie started talks about this movie while she was filming Suicide Squad, because she loved Harley. Cut to BoP where not only do we get a prismatic display of color in a sea of grim, muted DC films, but we get to see Margot Robbie dazzle on screen. While I could list a handful of scenes that make me happy from this film, I’m opting for when Harley gets her “best idea” to blow up the ACE Chemicals plant.
It starts with Margot’s expressiveness as she has the “best idea.” You can watch her become thrilled at this crazy plan and devote herself entirely to its impulsive execution. As she pauses mid-sneak to steal the truck, her pose is reminiscent of a surprised pin-up girl. While Harley drives her plan into success, she recalls the beginnings of her relationship and her current identity. I’m unsure if they had someone relaying to her the scenes they’d edit into this sequence, but you can see her go through that pain and loss as it shifts to anger and determination. She sacrifices a shoe and rolls to safety as the plant erupts into a comic book worthy display of explosions and fireworks. It sets the tone, not just for the film, but for Harley’s desire to be her own person and make her own mark in the world. The movie itself is filled with witty dialogue and practical stunts, but watching this scene in the theaters just made me smile realizing what was to come.
Kelly McCarty: For a show that features the cryogenically frozen head of Richard Nixon and a robot whose catchphrase is “Bite my shiny metal ass,” Futurama packs an unexpected emotional wallop. I chose the ending of “Jurassic Bark” as my saddest moment ever in speculative media, but the series finale provides one of the happiest moments. The show was cancelled and revived so many times that it actually has four series finales, but the best one is “Meanwhile,” the final finale. For almost fifteen years and 140 episodes, time-traveler Fry is in unrequited love with one-eyed mutant Turanga Leela. Fry once rearranges the stars to read, “I Love You, Leela,” but an implosion destroys the message before she can see it. Throughout the show, Fry and Leela date other people but remain steadfast friends. In “Meanwhile,” Fry decides to ask Leela to marry him. He steals a button that resets time from the Professor, winds up breaking it, and freezing everyone in time except for himself and Leela. They bring the frozen bodies of their friends and family to a church to witness their wedding. They hike in the rainforest, visit the Arctic, and walk across the ocean to see the Eiffel Tower. Now old, they return to the Vampire State Building where Fry planned to propose all those years ago. They learn that the glimmer that they have been seeing is actually the Professor, who repairs the time button. He can fix time but the catch is that they won’t remember the lifetime they spent together. Fry asks Leela, “You want to go around again,” and she replies, “I do.” Letting Fry and Leela spend two lifetimes together is a truly happy moment.
True Blood is one of my favorite guilty pleasure TV shows, but the happiest moment on the show has nothing to do with vampires or paranormal romance. Waitress Arlene reluctantly tells gay short order cook Lafayette Reynolds (Nelsan Ellis) that some drunk rednecks sent back their burger because it might have AIDS. He takes off his earrings and apron. He takes the burger out to the table and says, “In this restaurant, a hamburger deluxe comes with lettuce, tomato, mayo, and AIDS.” When the rednecks stand up, Lafayette kicks some ass and says, “You come in my house, you eat my food the way I f**king make it.” As Lafayette walks away, he says, “Tip your waitress.” It was the show’s absolute best scene, a real “stand up and cheer” moment.
Lafayette was one of television’s first nuanced queer characters — he wore eye shadow but he could kick your ass; he was a drug dealer and a prostitute but he had principles; he was one of the show’s bravest characters. Sadly, Nelsan Ellis died in 2017, never truly getting the recognition he deserved for his groundbreaking portrayal of Lafayette.
Kristina Elyse Butke: They say good things come in threes, so I’m throwing you a triad of awesome.
First off, I’d like to mention a moment that doesn’t seem outright happy but made me happy when I saw it: in The Dark Knight, where the Joker performed the infamous “pencil-trick” scene.
When I learned of the casting news of Heath Ledger as the Joker, I was curious and kind of excited. What I was nervous about was this new depiction of the Clown Prince of Crime. I had grown up with the Mark Hamill Joker from Batman: the Animated series, and that iteration was madcap and gleeful. Here, Christopher Nolan made a rather scary, psychotic-looking Joker, and I was worried that the Joker would be much darker — too dark — for my tastes, based on the photos, release posters, etc.
So imagine my delight when I see the Joker perform a magic trick with a pencil and cavalierly smash a guy’s face into it. In real life? Yuck, disgusting, painful, horrible. But as a Batman villain, I smiled and thought, “Classic Joker.” What a satisfying scene!
Another happy moment for me comes from another superhero movie, Avengers: Endgame. After we lost so many superheroes from Thanos’s snap, and after we’ve followed survivors through different timelines trying to undo the worst that happened to humanity, we’re up to the newest climactic battle against Thanos, We see everyone we’ve loved and lost answer the call to fight. Then Captain America says the classic phrase, “Assemble,” and they all rush to battle. Ohhhh, that scene was so well done, I thought my heart would float out of my chest when I heard those words.
And lastly, a great moment in fantasy that brought me joy — in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, where “Gondor calls for aid!” and the beacons are lit, crossing mountains and snowy landscapes in gorgeous aerial shots. Howard Shore’s soundtrack really plays a strong part in hyping up this scene — the ascending scales and tremulous strings climb in their notes as we journey from bonfire to bonfire. It was a scene that made me smile, made my heart beat faster, and excited for what was to come, because “hope is kindled.”
Nicole Taft: Now mine might not necessarily be a typical “happy” moment, but when it all went down I was absolutely thrilled, so I’m counting it.
When I first saw Stranger Things I figured all the teens fit into typical tropes, and naturally Steve was the popular pretty boy of the school: good in sports, loved by everyone, etc. And for a while the show seemed to confirm that, although I did start to get a strong vibe that he wasn’t just out to get into Nancy’s pants, but in fact really did like her. I wasn’t even truly mad when he fought with Jonathan (because, let’s face it, even though you feel bad for Jonathan as the school outlier, taking photos of Nancy through a window was pretty creeptastic), although his trope-ness started to slip when Jonathan turned around and kicked the shit out of him.
I freakin’ love it when things subvert my expectations, and in the final episode of the first season, Nancy and Jonathan have set up a plan to lure the demogorgon to Jonathan’s home in an attempt to kill it. Unexpectedly, Steve shows up, hoping to apologize for everything he and his friends have done, among other things. That’s when the demogorgon shows up (despite Nancy and Jonathan trying to get Steve to buzz off). Steve, not surprisingly, freaks out. Once more Nancy tells him to leave, and he does, looking like he’s ready to hightail it out of there and save his own skin. My disappointment started to set in.
And then Steve pauses and looks back at the house. Hope flickers.
Cut to the demogorgon taking Jonathan to the ground. It gives zero fucks about the bullets Nancy is emptying into it, and then suddenly IN COMES STEVE! Not only does he go back into a house full of flickering lights knowing there’s going to be a horrific monster inside, he snatches up a nail-spiked bat and proceeds to beat the shit out of the demogorgon. I lost it. I clapped and hooted. I was so proud that Steve was allowed to escape the useless popular boy trope 100% and become something that was going to be wholly new character-wise for him.
That moment is by far my favorite ever in the Stranger Things franchise (with all others after that also including Steve as his role and exploits continue to evolve). I even own an exclusive Funko Pop figure of Steve with his bloody face and spiked bat, and I am not ashamed that I paid far more than the normal retail price for it because I love it so much.
There are plenty of cute and cheery happy moments out there in spec fic, but I am all about one man making the decision to smash a spiked bat into a monster’s face.
As with every Roundtable, our story isn’t complete without you. What moments in sci fi, fantasy, and horror make you break out into a grin? What gave you that delicious feeling of satisfaction on the screen or on the page? What joyful scenes do you turn to when the going gets tough? Share below, and we’ll see you next month for another Roundtable. And stay safe and healthy out there, friends!
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