Schitt’s Creek is so much more than its title

Every week, we pick a new episode of the week. It could be good. It could be bad. It will always be interesting. You can read the archives here. The episode of the week for March 4 through 10 is “The Barbecue,” the seventh episode of the fourth season of Pop TV’s Schitt’s Creek.

I’ll be upfront: I’ve been looking for an excuse to write about Schitt’s Creek all season. What started as a decent show about a spoiled, selfish family fleeing bankruptcy to a tiny town they forgot they owned has evolved over four seasons to become a real gem. It’s become far and away one of my favorite comedies to throw on after a long day, because I always know it will deliver.

Chances are that you’re reading this either as an established Schitt’s Creek fan who knows exactly how delightful this show is or, more likely, as a curious bystander skeptical that a show called Schitt’s Creek can be worth anything more than a passing “uh, what?” laugh. Either way, as a card-carrying member of the Schitt’s Creek fan club, I’ve been ready and waiting to explain exactly why this show is so much more than what it appears.

So now that I finally have the chance, let me be even more upfront: The true Schitt’s Creek Episode of the Week would have been last week’s “Open Mic Night,” which served as a particularly good — and surprisingly touching — example of how a show called Schitt’s Creek became such a sleeper delight. But since “Barbecue” is a perfectly solid episode — and because my colleague had already called dibs on the last Episode of the Week for a particularly strange edition of The X-Files — I am going to shamelessly use this space to bring any curious naysayers on board the Schitt’s Creek train, because life is tough and you deserve to laugh.

There is no comedic duo quite like O’Hara and Levy, who have worked together on and off for literally decades. And just as they did so memorably for the Christopher Guest mockumentaries Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, they come together in Schitt’s Creek to play a couple whose eccentricities are underlined by a real, deep affection for each other.

Levy (who co-created Schitt’s Creek with his son Dan —more about him later) plays Johnny Rose, the frustrated former head of the Rose family’s now-defunct corporate empire. In Schitt’s Creek — the town he forgot he owned until he needed a cheaper place to relocate — Johnny finds himself spinning his wheels for the first time in his life. Though Johnny rarely has the show’s strongest storylines, he’s found a new purpose in season four as he helps acerbic local Stevie (Emily Hampshire) manage the motel they all live in.

It says a lot about how deep Schitt’s Creek’s pool of comedy talent runs that Levy is almost always playing the straight man. He still gets his moments, like the perfect touch in “Barbecue” when lunch goes horribly wrong and Johnny ends the scene by asking with wide-eyed confusion what the hell just happened, he only looked down at his plate for a second. But for the most part, Levy is happy to sit back and let the rest of the Rose family shine — which mostly translates to sitting back and letting O’Hara do her glorious thing.

It’s hard to describe what O’Hara, one of our most brilliant comedic presences, regularly and somehow even casually achieves on Schitt’s Creek. Moira Rose — a former soap actress turned theatrical wig enthusiast — is a juicy steak of a role that O’Hara tears into gleefully, turning every gesture into a master class in melodrama.

Her Moira swans about the local diner in all the luxurious silks she could salvage from her former life, and speaks with the ambiguous British-ish accent favored by those who are equally ambitious and pretentious. She fancies herself the star of every interaction lucky enough to feature her, and, to be fair, she usually is. But when she allows herself a moment of authenticity — which, as in “Barbecue,” usually happens when comforting her son — O’Hara’s ability to emit tenderness from underneath 15 pounds of fake hair is a godsend.

But for all the reliable greatness from O’Hara and Levy, they are not the true secret weapons of Schitt’s Creek. As any good parents would, O’Hara and Levy seem more than happy to let their TV kids shine.

As Moira and Johnny’s spoiled children turned hesitantly conscientious Schitt’s Creek residents, Dan Levy and Annie Murphy are both the backbone and beating heart of this show.

After the company’s bankruptcy forces David (Levy) out of his glamorous lifestyle running art galleries, and Alexis (Murphy) out of the high-stakes world of fleeing kidnappers in Dubai with an array of Grecian boyfriends, they find themselves sharing a dingy motel room in Schitt’s Creek with no clue how to function.

At first, the show got most of its mileage from letting David and Alexis spin out as they tried and failed to adjust. David couldn’t get over his perpetual horror at encountering idiocy, while Alexis struggled to understand a world in which her looks couldn’t guarantee success.

As Decider’s Joe Reid put it, “you could build a summer home in the space left by Levy’s arch, exasperated pauses,” as David blinks at the world around him, wondering why no one understands that they’re awful.

Murphy, meanwhile, elevates vocal fry to an art form. She also almost always boasts the best comic timing on the show — which says a lot, given this cast — and routinely dishes out the best physical comedy as well. (Seriously: mute it sometime and just watch her walk. You won’t be sorry.) And as Alexis has become more tender-hearted over time, Murphy has let her signature simper crack just enough to reveal the person underneath.

Over the seasons, in fact, both David and Alexis have (reluctantly) settled into Schitt’s Creek as their actual home and found ways to carve out their own spaces there.

In season four, David is going through a particularly pivotal time. He now runs an artisanal shop in town, and after trying out a series of romantic misadventures with Stevie and a mysterious woodsman — David identifies as pansexual, a fact he dropped with a casual “yeah, so what?” eyebrow raise I’ll be trying to replicate for the rest of my life — he’s now in a committed relationship for the first time ever. What’s more, he is the first man his new boyfriend Patrick (Noah Reid) has ever dated.

So in season four, David and Patrick are both trying new things with each other, and trying to give themselves and the other the room and support to do so. And it works even better in light of the show’s exploration of David gradually taking on more responsibility and allowing himself to be happy when he succeeds. But Levy and Reid are also just so good together, making Patrick’s wry refusal to take bullshit complement David’s anxious snobbery perfectly.

In “Open Mic Night,” their most vulnerable moment yet featured Patrick serenading David with a cover of Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” — a moment made exponentially sweeter by Moira recognizing its significance and reaching out a supportive hand to David.

But in “Barbecue,” their happiness comes crashing down when Patrick runs into his ex-fiancée, who has apparently been trying to get back together with him. David, hurt and furious that Patrick kept this from him, reminds his boyfriend that his trust issues have kept him from relationships before. Patrick, stung and scared, reveals that he “never felt right” before meeting David and realizing he could love him.

While David acknowledges that this is “maybe the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” maybe the best part of “Barbecue” is that it does not, in fact, have a happy ending. Instead, it leaves off with David sadly eating the rest of the barbecue as his concerned family listens through the wall, hoping he can bounce back from this heartbreak.

The season isn’t over yet, so a Patrick-David reunion is likelier than not. But David’s family is there to support him — which, even though he greeted their enthusiasm for his relationship with an “ew” in this episode, he clearly appreciates. The Rose family is no longer the collection of selfish dilettantes who first crashed Schitt’s Creek, and both they and the show are better for it.

Schitt’s Creek airs Wednesdays at 8 pm on Pop. The first three seasons are currently available to stream on Netflix.