best Schitt's Creek character

xpost I did enjoy that the first game David had them playing at the game night in Season 1 is a game that actors always enjoy playing at game nights - where you write down the name of ten famous people, and in the first round, you can give unlimited verbal cues and hand gestures, second round can only use three words + hand gestures, third round just one word + hand gestures.

though it didn't seem they got very far into it!

I recently watched the absolutely terrible Hulu holiday movie 'Happiest Season', which really made clear how talented Daniel Levy is as a comic actor, and how effortless he makes it look. He's paired with Kristen Stewart as the friend and I basically started laughing in relief as soon as he appeared on screen.

Yeah, the only redeemable parts of that movie had Levy or Aubrey Plaza in them. I don't understand the rabid praise for it. Stewart's girlfriend never once shows why Stewart should give a shit about her selfish ass at all.

We shouldn't sully a Schitt's Creek thread talking about it, but there's praise??!

Tons of it on Twitter, 83% on Rotten Tomatoes (84% audience score) for whatever that's worth. But yeah, enough of this particular derail.

Back on track, anyone that votes Mutt earns the permanent side eye from me.

lol yeah, Mutt's definitely one of the least interesting. was kinda glad when he peaced out on the show - think he existed mostly just to wreck Alexis-Ted.

patrick is a sleeper here, he started out a little bland but i think has come into his own - his underplayed sarcasm and irritation work really well against david

I loved Patrick - their relationship was beautiful and I got choked up when he sang "Simply the Best" to David and David sat there beaming as Patrick kept looking at him during the song.

but yeah, he was also hella funny, when he'd try to navigate David's many eccentricities. Particularly the ep where David peed the bed.

Alexis was pretty one-dimensional, even for this type of show, but that scene with Ted (will not spoil with details) had me choked up too. Best five minutes of the entire run.

The behind the scenes special showed them shooting that scene and pretty much everyone onset was bawling.

Yeah, Eugene Levy couldn't hold it together at all for that one.

Patrick and David had one of the best rendered relationships in a recent sitcom, for sure. And I love how Patrick's sarcasm and irritation stayed consistent throughout. So many shows, once two characters like that get together, write out those tics and quirks, but Patrick was pretty consistently low-key exasperated by David's eccentricities until the end.

I love David's head shake/nod when he doesn't want to agree to something.

You know what, Alexis is growing on me. The lice episode where she's like CONSTITUTIONALLY INCAPABLE of telling Ted she has lice but she's desperate for help and she knows she can trust him, said a lot, I think. No spoilers I have not gotten to "that scene with Ted" yet, don't break my heart before time.

Love David and Patrick, obv, and I admire that Patrick has the confidence to stymy and annoy David esp in his first gay relationship that obviously means a lot to him--I'm in my 40s and I don't know if I could be that annoying without fearing losing someone early on.

Schitt’s Creek made a point to make viewers feel safe by showcasing women without harassment, queer love without trauma, sexual fluidity without shame, economic disparity without mockery, and creativity without limitation. What they built is just so special. They deserve it all. pic.twitter.com/a6xCPX9eUl

— Sarah McGonagall (@gothspiderbitch) September 21, 2020

that is what I enjoyed about the show. and there's no shortage of conflict, but it's not the destructive kind. everybody in the town drives each other nuts but they love each other whether they'll admit it or not.

it's also nice watching the Roses go from hating the town and wanting to gtfo to becoming fully integrated within it and having it feel like home.

I wonder if anyone will vote for Ted...

I did enjoy his dadjoeks

I admire that Patrick has the confidence to stymy and annoy David esp in his first gay relationship that obviously means a lot to him--I'm in my 40s and I don't know if I could be that annoying without fearing losing someone early on.

I love the banter between David/Patrick and David/Stevie, but it does bring to mind people who insist on only communicating via sarcasm, which can be exhausting irl

Don't want to come off too negative but to me Eugene is the weakest actor in this show. He just plays the straight man and does a bug eye thing whenever anyone else says something goofy. And I am disappointed his character didn't have a strong trait besides default naive and unsure of himself in ever situation.

Moira is a nightmare, I dread every scene where she makes normal things a complete disaster.

lol like the drug skit episode

Given how often he is surrounded by three larger than life personalities, I think it's the best move to have Eugene Levy play the befuddled straight man.

plus he's really good at it.

exhibit A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg1Uk60rBsc

yeah levy is great

Well point is more that his character kind lacked a distinct personality to me besides "pleasant casually pathetic push over fails at every task". Fish out of water makes sense but he was playing it deep into born yesterday territory and it undermined his backstory as mega successful businessman. Was that intended? Maybe, but I would have rather seen a little bit of a shrewd former shark from Shark Tank somewhere mixed in his approach.

I mean, doesn't season 6 kinda...do that?

I also got the impression that when their assets were seized, they were long divested of ownership in the video empire and living off of their riches and 'investments', and hadn't had to have an active role in a while.

Sure his 100% flailing and failing at all times straight man role is not totally unjustified, but I feel some more dimension would have been welcome. The other 3 characters are memorable and imo his wasn't rich enough (get it?).

Sure his 100% flailing and failing at all times straight man role is not totally unjustified, but I feel some more dimension would have been welcome. The other 3 characters are memorable and imo his wasn't rich enough (get it?).

the Jake romantic triangle subplot was one that didn't go anywhere, other than to give a brief obstacle for David to face when he shows up to pick up Stevie when David and Patrick are using her house for...privacy.

lol @ Moira confusing Asbestos Fest for Schitt's Creek trying to bring back asbestos

I love every ep where Patrick and David perform for each other

Jocelyn's unhinged tirade asking David to host her baby shower puts me in hysterics

(my folks have been watching this for hours)

I'm guessing nobody is going for Wendy Kurtz, who was the worst.

Her and Roland seem like they were written for a different, wackier show.

I didn't mind her, she wasn't really the 'focus' of any of the scenes she was in, other than the one ep where she's having issues with her daughter.

but she definitely shouldn't get any votes in this poll

i get why people don't like roland and i didn't either at first - it was like he'd wandered in from a farrelly brothers movie, instead of this show - but he's crucial imo. he's entitled, moronic, selfish, sexist, has no idea how much people hate him, purely driven by his own appetites... he's pure trump. instead of being born rich he was born in this place. imagine if he'd been born into the kind of family that alexis and david were. so he's kind of a warning: beware. this could be you. and chris eliot is just so good at what he does. in the godfather episode when he's choking on his fried chicken at the cafe i about had a heart attack myself watching him do it.

i can't decide how i feel about stevie. the actor's expressions and acting choices are very strange. i don't know if it works or not.

she does a lot of 'tool matching' with david i.e. they both swallow what they were going to actually say and instead communicate with their eyebrows which is funny but yes she doesn't seem to have a lot of other tools in the bag.

I think she's great! She has a lot of damage and hides behind sarcasm and dry humor as a coping mechanism but we see her walls come down towards the second half of the series.

am halfway thru s4 - lookin forward to everything everybody's hinting at itt including that!

She very much feels like someone whose family tree has a sordid history and she's so desperate to break free of it and be her own person, but she has no idea how...until the Roses pop in and inadvertently help her forge a new path.

(no spoilers!).

Enjoy!

I like how in the show's early going, David realises that Stevie is worth making friends with, but he needs to learn how to communicate with her, not because she's the stupid hick that he would've expected when he learned they were moving there, but because she's so sharp and so sarcastic, it's impossible to know what she really thinks about anything without really paying close attention to her. Which he does.

i agree. their friendship was a moving part of the show. david's development in general was pretty incredible. it's hard to fit that kind of growth into a modern sitcom without making it seem forced or hackneyed.

yes!! man thank you for articulating that so perfectly

xpost

David was incredible precisely because, other than Moira, he seemed least likely to adapt to the new surroundings.

Re Stevie: To understand her, I imagine if I had never been able to leave my rural hometown, pop. 3500, and had been surrounded by the same people I went to school with for the rest of my life; how embittered and isolated I would have been.

It's bleak, folks.

Come on, Alexis's favorite album is a total gimme.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKoxky2h2qc

We are somewhere in season 4, and this remains something like a cross between Local Hero and Three's Company.

haha that's dead on

started mainlining this show again in the wake of last month's events, strictly for the positive vibes, and already on S6. I think everyone in the show is pretty great but it's probably Annie Murphy for me, just the absolute ability to make such a character actually likable and hilarious and moving in ways that go beyond the writing and a character arc that makes sense within the show, plus the sort of unexpected ending for her. and that scene when she realizes Mutt has given her a bicycle is one of the most A+ of all time.

and jesus, i could watch Bob happily half-run into rooms all day.

Annie Murphy as Alexis grows so much over the seasons, and the arc of her relationship with Ted and its dissolution are very moving. She is my favorite character

gotta say Stevie carried first few eps for me

for the minor characters, i'm a big Jake fan. virtually every scene with him is a gold mine.

the goofy way Bob runs kills me

Alexis and David both had great arcs, will admit I got misty eyed at the latter's wedding.

Bob feel’s like he’s on some kind of improv venn diagram w Colin Mockery - i think it’s the rubbery body movements

*Mochrie

I was discussing the show with a friend who never got into it and my appreciation for how vexing Roland is came out.

The actor who plays Bob was apparently a long time improv guy, at Second City Toronto, I think?

kills me every time

https://media4.giphy.com/media/23k7z58XMbZJgvGX6l/200w.gif?cid=6c09b952sxjzio25ng0lhcwznci1lbqyccmdghuy6pn9yet7&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=200w.gif&ct=g

He (John Hemphill) was a featured performer on SCTV during its final days, when it appeared on Showtime; I don't know if he played any characters other than Happy Marsden, who hosted kids' TV from a barstool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAnS8g0HhIQ

Holy Cow Myonga didn’t know (or remember) he was on the show!

We don’t talk enough about Ted’s hotness.

kind of a bargain bin Chris Evans

Ehh, CanCon hot.

the Alexis-Ted relationship arc and Mutt's part in it is completely fascinating to me. She meets him and he's a genuinely nice awkward dude who is more than a bit square, but really adores her. Then she keeps connecting over and over again with this compellingly charismatic brotastic dude and they have this thoroughly cinematic moment where they declare their attraction to one another, have a brief relationship that has zero depth. And then Ted returns, and he hasn't changed but her perceptions have completely altered and she realizes what she threw away for something emptier. And I think the show is very, very smart to not have had Ted change at all, but her reactions to him change. So many lesser shows and movies lead with a character who's with someone and throws it away for someone a bit flashier, and it's shown to be the right decision, and maybe they have that discarded partner wind up with a similarly supposedly dull secondary character as a consolation prize. I'd be curious if it was their narrative plan from the start, because it feels like a very crafty and heartwarming bait and switch.

That's interesting but I can't think of those shows and movies! I thought the classic thing was for someone to go off with the flashy person then realise the unflashy person was who they really wanted

Yeah the show is at heart all about the family’s growth.

these types of shows and movies definitely exist, I’m not talking about a movie where there’s someone sitting on the sidelines pining for someone else while the latter wastes their time in a crappy relationship and then they get together in the end. It’s more about how Ted was presented as a really square guy, maybe even somewhat of a placeholder til the real thing came along, and the entire arc of Alexis and mutt brought them to the point of this huge moment where they declared how they felt to each other. That’s absolutely the traditional route of some of these stories, but this felt like it was an intentionally misleading arc.

And Mutt wound up being someone who simply vanished and no one seemed to notice.

Sleepless in Seattle is a key example of this. Poor old Bill Pullman. And, if you want to go back to the early days, there's Cary Grant's loving fiancee and secretary in Bringing Up Baby, whom he merrily discards for exciting Katherine Hepburn. I think there are probably loads more.