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Schitt’s Creek Season 2 Review

The second season of Schitt’s Creek is another stellar one with many wonderful plot developments and great character moments.

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“Can no one find nude photos of me on the internet?!“

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Before I dive into analyzing each episode, I have to first commend the acting as I had forgotten to do that before. It’s uniformly fantastic. Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara are both excellent. The former is terrific at facial expressions while the latter plays Moira’s many funny quirks perfectly with just the right element of theatricality.

But the younger members of the cast steal the show, even more so for being less established as those two. Annie Murphy plays Alexis with such confidence and abundant, clear details that she becomes a real person. The same should be said for Dan Levy who has to play the emotional anchor of the show, being basically its protagonist. He portrays David so vividly that he instantly became a real person, which is so important for a sitcom.

Getting back to this season, the first episode is Finding David where they find him living with the Amish. The entire episode works dramatically speaking, and comedically those scenes with the Amish were the funniest, but I wanted more of those as they were ridiculously shortened. Family Dinner has those uninteresting scenes with Johnny finding an office. I found that subplot in this season tiresome. But the other subplot with David and Moira cooking was suitably amusing.

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Jazzagals and Estate Sale both progress the office job, David’s looming new job and Alexis’ ongoing relationship with Mutt, but still both episodes represent the weakest point of this season, which only went to greater places from here on.

Bob’s Bagels finally sees David get a job at a clothes shop and I loved that storyline for him. He finally became his own man and he continues to grow as a person in a great, natural manner. Moira vs. Town Council sees Alexis break up with Mutt. I found both of her relationships so far problematic as they felt too extreme and cliched, but these break-up scenes continue to be very well written. The highlight of this episode is David not knowing what tax write-offs mean, resulting in one absolutely hilarious exchange with his father.

The Candidate sees Moira become a town council candidate, and I found that arc perfect for her. She is supposed to get some powerful position, and this entire arc was consistently entertaining to follow with her interactions with other women being suitably awkward.

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Milk Money is such a great episode! David backstabbing his mother was definitely very memorable, but Johnny’s subplot with the milk business was so much fun. The scene where Alexis bought too much milk was incredibly funny whereas her scene with the police is another hilarious case of her having this very dark, dangerous past life where she learned how to get out of sticky situations amusingly.

Moira’s Nudes is at its best when dealing with the titular story. This is probably the best showcase so far of Catherine O’Hara’s acting talents and of her wonderfully theatrical, hilarious creation. I found her plight her ridiculous, but also strangely relatable, and especially that scene of hers with the kids searching on the web for her nudes was one of the funniest scenes of the entire show so far.

Ronnie’s Party is a bit messy, but all of the subplots worked to a certain degree with the best one being Alexis’s new job at the vet clinic. She is dumb, but strangely competent at whatever she gets her hands on. That’s what makes her character a joy to follow. The Motel Guest utilizes Roland and Jocelyn so well and I really liked the scenes where the two couples talked. Lawn Signs is a fantastic episode that is at its best in the scene where David and Alexis hilariously negotiate for his boss to get a larger sum for a deal.

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But Happy Anniversary is by far the greatest episode of the whole show so far. I adored this episode as it’s so moving, but never manipulatively so. All of this emotion was earned after spending two seasons with these people. Johnny telling off his past rich friends was utterly beautiful and containing rich sentiment about living in a small town and how its residents can be great people regardless of their far from narrow backgrounds. And the final scene where the family expresses their love for one another for the first time for real moved me how sweet it was.

At the end of the day, this was a wonderfully familial, beautifully realized sitcom season that started off somewhat weakly, but ended off in a terrific fashion. The second half of its run is filled with many classic, instantly memorable episodes that contain some iconic scenes.

Worst Episodes: Jazzagals and Estate Sale.

Best Episodes: Milk Money, Moira’s Nudes, Lawn Signs and Happy Anniversary.