I should have perhaps written about Schitt’$ Creek six years ago when it first aired. I could have written about it six months ago when the Canadian sitcom — bowing out with its sixth season — stunned the world with its unprecedented Emmy sweep. But I am glad that I am writing about the show now. Because not only did I discover and binge watch all 80 episodes of Schitt’$ Creek over two weeks last month, I am very glad the show happened to me now.
Why, you ask? Because there’s no better time than the present to usher in some laughs into our lives. It’s morbid outside, to put it politely, and it has been so for the better part of one year. Unless I am compelled to for the work that I do, I have given up actively watching anything that’s dark and dystopian, because right now, it’s too close for comfort. Even the Netflix banner ad of Contagion — the 2011 Steven Soderbergh film that mimics (or rather predicts) moment by moment the virus outbreak that has wreaked the world — gives me goosebumps.
Schitt’$ Creek has been recommended to me for years now, but I was finally pushed to hit the play button a few weeks ago, at a time when I was at my lowest mentally. And I am so glad I did. Who says destiny doesn’t work in dictating what you watch, as much as it decrees every other aspect of your life?
The world of Schitt’$ Creek
Eighty episodes may seem like a lot when it’s first thrown at you — especially for someone like me whose attention span is waning with age and circumstance — but Schitt’$ Creek, with each episode playing at no more than 25 minutes, is literally a breeze. Winningly building on what is a honestly hackneyed premise — a rich, dysfunctional family of four losing their riches overnight and forced to slum it out in a backwater town — the show, created by the dad-son duo of Eugene and Daniel Levy — is today a go-to watch (and rewatch) globally because not only does it deliver laughs, but also themes itself around community living, the need to adapt and be inclusive and most importantly, what family really means (or should mean) to us.
Initially positioned as a classic fish-out-of-water story — the Roses (with Eugene and Dan themselves playing father and son Johnny and David, with Catherine O’ Hara as mother Moira and Annie Murphy as daughter Alexis) — Schitt’$ Creek quickly found its bearings, blossoming into a cult classic that has earned its stripes as possibly the best sitcom produced in the last decade.
With its razor-sharp wit matched with genuine warmth, Schitt’$ Creek is a journey of self-discovery for the Roses, whose dysfunctionality as a family perfectly rivals that of the Tenenbaums in the Wes Anderson-directed classic The Royal Tenenbaums. The Roses deplore everything in Schitt’$ Creek — including its name and its embarrassingly semi-erotic town sign, their only asset left and something that Johnny bought as a ‘joke’ for David’s birthday when he was 11 — but as they spend years at the town’s rundown motel, simply named ‘Motel’ and have their meals at the town’s only hangout Cafe Tropical, they gradually warm to the place, and the people, evolving as humans, but never losing their individuality.
‘The Royal Roses’
What will the Roses be without their quirks, anyway? That’s what powers so much of Schitt’$ Creek. Johnny’s ever-patient but eyebrow-raising reactions to his family, Moira’s mind-boggling vocabulary (the strangest words strung together only in the way Moira can, followed by her trademark “Bebe”) only matched by her collection of the craziest wigs you would have ever seen, pansexual David’s snobbish aesthete attitude (“I am trying very hard not to connect with people right now”) and Alexis, who can best be described as a curious mix of every Kardashian family member out there , is what makes Schitt’$ Creek so engaging.
The family, initially awkward about even hugging and honestly expressing their feelings, evolve to becoming pillars of strength for each other, with Schitt’$ Creek no longer limiting itself to the rather shallow riches-to-rags story it started off as. Moira, played with amazing showmanship by Catherine O’Hara, may be the one bringing on the maximum chuckles (Moira, a former soap star, is a riot, especially when she struts off to Bosnia to play a, well, crow in a production of ‘The Crows Have Eyes 2’) but it’s David and Alexis’s transformation through the seasons — as well as the evolution in their relationship — that lifts the show several notches. David finds love in Patrick (Noah Reid), with the show’s non-dramatic treatment of same-sex relationships earning it many fans. David wooing Patrick with a (typically David-styled dramatic) rendition of Tina Turner’s Simply The Best is one of the show’s best moments.
The big and small
And what would Schitt’$ Creek be without its moments, big and small? Most of them, of course, belong to the Roses. Alexis — Paris Hilton with a heart — describing her various celebrity boyfriends (the range covers the gamut from Prince Harry to Harry Styles, Vin Diesel to Sean Penn) and how she was kidnapped by Somali pirates and held hostage in a Dubai palace, is insane. But she’s also the one who ends up with the maximum character development at the end of six seasons. Her staple “Ew, David” reaction to her brother is now a pop-culture phenomenon, finding its way to T-shirts and coffee mugs. So is David and Stevie’s (Emily Hampshire) blow hot-blow cold friendship, the sarcastic, “Best wishes. Warmest regards” often accompanying a conversation after they are done subtly insulting each other. In one of the final moments of the show, David and Stevie — who graduate from a one-night stand to becoming best buddies — leaning on each other and staring at David and Patrick’s dream house, the emotional moment marred by David asking Stevie if she’s used a deodorant, is well, typically David and Stevie.
And that’s what makes Schitt’$ Creek such a winner. The Roses may be at the centre of it, but would Schitt’$ Creek have been Schitt’$ Creek without the embarrassing but heart-warming Roland, the ever-smiling Jocelyn, Ted’s
Mr Nice Guy, Bob and his strange swagger, Twyla’s stories about her mom and her mom’s multiple boyfriends, Mutt’s breathtaking handsomeness or Ronnie’s spot-on sarcasm?! It’s a rare show that works all around.
Schitt’$ sticking power
Initially rejected by HBO and Showtime before CBC aired it, Schitt’$ Creek’s global success has been courtesy Netflix picking it up and making it available for the world at one go (or what is known in streaming parlance as the “Netflix bump”). Dan Levy, who came up with the idea after merging his fascination with what would happen to the Kardashians if they lost all their money with a story involving Kim Basinger buying a town in Georgia, has relied on the show’s strong writing, coupled with ample screen space given to every character, to make it a consistent winner. That has resulted in Schitt’$ Creek not only having celebrity fans like Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence and Oprah Winfrey, among many others, but also seeing sold-out auditoriums across the world whenever the cast and crew have held ‘up and close’ tours, of course in the pre-pandemic world.
What makes Schitt’$ Creek a panacea for me, and hopefully for many others, in these troubling times is perhaps best summed up by Annie Murphy, who plays Alexis: “This show is a symbol of love and hope and inclusivity and that’s what people are thirsty for. I see no world in which people will stop wanting those things.” Just add the laughs. And yes, Season 7, please!
