Apple TV+ musical comedy Schmigadoon! wraps its second season with an action-packed episode this week entitled “Over and Completed.” Josh and Melissa are being held captive, and except some unlikely folks determine to alter their methods and recuperate from previous wounds, they’ll be killed or married — or each!
It’s a stunning little wrap to the big-hearted present’s second season.
Schmigadoon! recap: ‘Over and Completed’
Season 2, Episode 5: Because the Schmigadoon! season finale kicks off, Josh (performed by Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa (Cecily Robust) are in dire straits. Josh has been kidnapped by Otavius Kratt (Patrick Web page) and is being held at gunpoint by Sgt. Rivera (Jaime Camil). Until Melissa agrees to divorce Josh and marry Kratt, Josh shall be killed. Bobbie Flanagan (Jane Krakowski) reveals as much as get the paperwork filed.
Josh tries to speak Rivera out of killing him, and hits upon an thought. Kratt has been promising Rivera his personal act at his nightclub for 36 years. If Rivera kills Josh, certainly Kratt has to lastly grant it to him. Understanding a posh when he sees one, Josh takes a web page from Topher the hippie’s (Aaron Tveit) e book, and tells Rivera a parable a few man devastated by damaged guarantees. He tells him one parable after one other, making an attempt to instill guilt within the gunman till lastly Rivera cracks.
In the meantime, Dooley Flint the butcher (Alan Cumming) continues to be fuming that the plan to kill Kratt final evening didn’t work. He goes to Mrs. Coldwell’s (Kristen Chenoweth) orphanage to rage-kill an orphan to fulfill his bloodlust, however she hits on a greater thought. Why don’t they only sleep collectively? That’ll work, it appears.
Who will save Josh and Melissa? All people!
Photograph: Apple TV+
Flint lets slip that he noticed Rivera carting Josh off final evening, and feels dangerous that he didn’t cease it from occurring. In order that they conspire to seek out the 2 lovers. On the similar time, throughout city, Topher’s hippie gang involves him to ask them to assist free Josh and Melissa, too.
When the 2 events descend on the basement the place Rivera’s holding Josh, it implies that Jenny Banks (Dove Cameron) lastly sees Dooley, her father, for the primary time since she was a lady. Rivera lastly comes clear that he helped body Dooley for the homicide of his spouse, and Jenny and Dooley reconcile.
The crew all rush as much as the marriage ceremony, however the police cease Josh and Dooley’s meant dying blow misses. Earlier than he can pressure the marriage to its conclusion, Mrs. Coldwell cuts the rope holding a chandelier and it crushes him to dying.
The narrator (Titus Burgess) tries to ask Melissa and Josh to remain in Schmicago, however they agree that on the lookout for fantasy was a mistake. They should perceive themselves and their lives higher, not run away from all of it. They need one thing actual. In order that they bid a musical farewell to the city and head again to their actual lives, the place they lastly conceive a toddler.
Schmigadoon! is aware of the right way to do a finale
Photograph: Apple TV+
This week’s finale serves up some excellent stuff from the Schmigadoon! writers. When Topher and Jenny attempt to cease Rivera, they attempt to discuss him out of utilizing violence. Jenny places a flower within the barrel of his gun and says wistfully, “Love is stronger than any gun.”
“Are you positive about that?” he replies.
“No, I’m unsure about that,” she says, simply as wistfully. That acquired me.
After which there’s the bit the place Bobbie stands up on the wedding ceremony when Kratt pulls his gun. “As your lawyer, I need to advise…” Bobbie says, however as Kratt factors the gun at her, she completes her personal sentence … “myself to take a seat again down!” Krakowski sells it superbly.
Ariana DeBose additionally got here again because the emcee for this episode, thank heavens. And it’s simply in time for a showstopping, Dreamgirls–type quantity over a montage of the characters’ present predicaments. DeBose is such a star. She makes for an ideal introduction to the season finale.
What does the longer term maintain?
I discover when a present as whimsical as Schmigadoon! places on a set piece or tries for barely increased stakes, it normally doesn’t work. And it’s true that none of this week’s gun-toting or rescue stuff works in addition to it ought to — it seems to be like a highschool play reasonably than a Broadway present. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that the chandelier falling on Kratt, Phantom of the Opera-type, is an effective picture. I additionally like the best way Cecily Robust will get lined in his blood, in a rhyme together with her reminiscence of seeing Sweeney Todd as a little bit lady. It’s one other nice little stroke of the macabre.
I would really like the present to permit itself to get darker sooner or later, however I do know the Schmigadoon! inventive crew is strolling a tightrope of caprice. Even simply the concept they let Kristin Chenoweth and Alan Cumming spend three episodes speaking about killing and consuming kids was nervy for this crew, however I imply there was by no means any hazard they’d comply with via on the promise.
It’s a minor criticism. The present may be very clearly, and normally very efficiently, what it’s. However only a few TV reveals are good. The whole lot has room to develop. Nonetheless, I like Schmigadoon! greater than a lot of the Apple TV+ reveals, so that they’re doing one thing proper. Let’s hope there’s a 3rd season within the works.
★★★★☆
Watch Schmigadoon! on Apple TV+
New episodes of Schmigadoon! season two arrive each Wednesday on Apple TV+.
Rated: TV-14
Watch on: Apple TV+
Scout Tafoya is a movie and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay sequence The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Movie Remark, The Los Angeles Assessment of Books and Nylon Journal. He’s the creator of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Type of Tobe Hooper and However God Made Him A Poet: Watching John Ford within the twenty first Century, the director of 30 function movies, and the director and editor of greater than 300 video essays, which might be discovered at Patreon.com/honorszombie.
