30 greatest Thanksgiving episodes of all time
By Reed Gaudens
14. Happy Endings
Episode: Season 3, Episode 4, “More Like Stanksgiving”
What’s on the menu: Alex almost got away with preparing the turkey… until Jane arrives and replaces it with her own brined masterpiece. And if Dave had his way, he’d be serving clams as a means to teach the group about the first Thanksgiving in an effort to honor his Navajo roots. But Dave and Alex’s first dinner party at their new place doesn’t go as smoothly as Jane’s turkey swap, and it’s the perfect kind of chaos Happy Endings could pull off in its sleep.
While Dave runs out to gather supplies for his Navajo Thanksgiving spread, the gang watches their unaired episode of The Real World: Sacramento from college. That’s right, out of thin air, the writers added that hilarious tidbit into the series’ backstory. In the process of watching The Real World, the gang soon unearths shocking secrets, including Brad’s first impression of Jane and the possibility of Penny sabotaging Alex’s relationship with Dave. It’s the stuff sitcom gold is made of.
Why we’re thankful for it: To be anything but thankful for Happy Endings should be held as a punishable crime, but we should all be especially grateful for “More Like Stanksgiving.” You could compare the episode to Friends, but that would undercut the fearless originality of this surprise backstory. It’s almost ludicrous to think that a show could claim that its characters met on an abandoned season of The Real World, during which one of the seven strangers burned down the house, but Happy Endings makes its own rules on Stanksgiving.