This week on Apple TV+ musical comedy fantasia Schmigadoon!, Melissa and Paul attempt to depart Schmicago however study that nothing is ever simple in a musical. The 2 misplaced lovers should work out a option to sew just a little concord of their new digs. Nevertheless, these folks aren’t simply garden-variety unhappy — they’re deranged and depressing.
That is going to be more durable than they suppose. It’s additionally fairly entertaining, due to a handful of nice musical numbers within the episode, entitled “One thing Actual.”
Schmigadoon! recap: ‘One thing Actual’
Season 2, episode 4: Josh (performed by Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa (Cecily Sturdy) need to depart Schmicago, however they preserve working into issues. First they discover their automotive destroyed and vandalized, due to Josh turning into a city pariah as a result of he was accused of homicide. Then the narrator (Tituss Burgess) stops them with a query: “Aren’t they having enjoyable?”
Melissa admits a few of it was enjoyable, however that’s not a ok cause to remain. They’re leaving and that’s that. Nicely … it might be besides that they cross the bridge out of city and wind up proper again the place they began.
The narrator laughs at them and leaves, and so they strive to determine get out of city. The rule of those magic, musical cities is that you might want to discover a actually completely happy ending earlier than you’ll be able to depart. Perhaps the purpose is that they not solely have to determine their very own completely happy ending, however a contented ending for everybody in Schmicago.
It’s arduous to be completely happy
Sadly, they’re not notably completely happy campers themselves. Melissa causes {that a} good place to start out could be fixing the connection between Jenny (Dove Cameron) and her estranged father, Dooley Flint the butcher (Alan Cumming). That’s robust, as a result of Jenny has grown to hate her dad over time. Otavius Kratt (Patrick Web page), the native magnate, framed Flint for the homicide of his spouse, which Jenny believes.
Josh decides perhaps the way in which to chill her tensions could be to introduce her to Topher the hippie (Aaron Tveit) and his band of steadily nude, free-spirited mates. They do love a very good parable, so Melissa and Josh ask him to inform a narrative a couple of daughter and her estranged father. They nitpick him to dying getting him there, although, so he abandons the concept and Josh should make one thing up on the spot.
He fumbles at first, however then music comes from nowhere and he begins singing, which makes every part simpler. Their tune, about reconnecting along with your dad, fails to stir a lot in Jenny however sympathy for Topher, who sat dejectedly by way of the entire tune. She goes to consolation him and so they fall for one another.
OK, so if they’ll’t make that work, perhaps they can provide Dooley one thing else. Why not set him up with the crusty proprietor of the orphanage, Mrs. Coldwell (Kristin Chenoweth)? They take them to dinner (on a dinner date harking back to the one in The Fisher King), and so they get on fairly effectively certainly. Mrs. Coldwell even invitations Dooley again to her condominium, the place her gaggle of orphans make them cocktails. Then they come across a good suggestion: Kill the orphans and promote their meat.
Naturally, they talk about this in a musical quantity parodying “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd. This isn’t the completely happy ending Josh and Melissa have been hoping for, however they don’t know that but.
Speak to Daddy
Picture: Apple TV+
The Bob Fosse-style choreography in “Speak to Daddy” is fairly impressively baroque and athletic. The dancing on Schmigadoon! is often appropriate, in fact, and final season it was fairly old style on objective, so I’m having fun with the extra presentational model this season. I’m glad to have had the massive robust begin to the episode’s musical numbers, as a result of the soppy love tune Dove Cameron and Aaron Tveit sing subsequent is method too boring to be so long as it’s. (Plus, it doesn’t remind me sufficient of any actual musical quantity from the ’70s.)
Nonetheless, issues get better in the course of the date and subsequent Sweeney Todd quantity. The children showing out of nowhere so Kristen Chenoweth can embrace their names within the tune is fairly humorous. And Alan Cumming is all the time a pleasure to observe. He’s hampered considerably by taking part in somebody so outwardly depressing as Flint, nevertheless. Not as a result of he can’t do it, nevertheless it simply feels so fallacious to not see Cumming smile extra.
Watching him popping out of his shell on this episode is simply great stuff, humorous and compelling and odd due to his hair and apparel. The musical quantity continues after its preliminary Sweeney crib — switching to up-tempo jazz and together with faucet dancing and sight gags — which makes factor much more joyous. Two out of three ain’t dangerous.
I’m bummed these seasons os Schmigadoon! aren’t longer. I like spending time on this world, issues and all.
★★★☆☆
Watch Schmigadoon! on Apple TV+
New episodes of Schmigadoon! 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 Evaluate of Books and Nylon Journal. He’s the writer 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 will be discovered at Patreon.com/honorszombie.
