You know it’s that time of year when even snarky David Rose (Daniel Levy) gets into the holiday spirit — and he does, grudgingly, on Wednesday night’s holiday episode of “Schitt’s Creek” (10 p.m. on Pop).
The clever series, which airs on the CBC in Canada (it’s produced there), returns “For One Night Only!” before its Jan. 16 Season 5 premiere. This follows a breakout fourth season in which “Schitt’s Creek” struck a well-deserved fan-friendly nerve, emerging from its under-the-radar status to become a bona fide watercooler hit — thanks to clever writing (on display Wednesday night) and a winning cast.
For the uninitiated, “Schitt’s Creek” is the name of the podunk town in which the once wealthy Rose family — father Johnny (Eugene Levy), wife Moira (Catherine O’Hara) and globetrotting grown children David and Alexis (Annie Murphy) — found themselves after Johnny’s home-video empire went belly-up. Kicked out of their palatial home, the Roses were forced to move to a sketchy motel in Schitt’s Creek, the hick town Johnny once bought for David as a gag gift. Since then, they’ve managed, mostly through trial and error, to fit in: both David and Alexis have found love, Johnny bought the motel (in tandem with sarcastic local Stevie, played by Emily Hampshire) and Moira ingratiated herself (well, mostly) into the local community.
Wednesday night’s episode finds Johnny in the Christmas spirit — but his family isn’t sharing his enthusiasm, with memories of their once-lavish, but emotionally cold, holiday parties dancing in their heads. Johnny wants to throw a big party at the motel — just like old times — but he meets with a lot of resistance (for various reasons). Will Johnny get his way? Will everyone come together at the last minute and find their inner holiday spirit?
I think you know the answers, but the half-hour episode unwinds in typical “Schitt’s Creek” fashion, festooned with terrific dialogue that hews closely to each character. “I’m a delightful half-half situation,” David says to Stevie in describing his Jewish-Christian heritage while complaining that he won’t have “any time to mood-board a color scheme” for the hoped-for party. Alexis, meanwhile, is nervous about meeting fiancee Ted’s (Dustin Milligan) “cool, scary, judgy friends” and doesn’t want to be “caroling in front of Mom’s wig wall” while David describes the family’s newly purchased Christmas tree as “charming … in a war-torn sort of way.” Funny stuff.
Most of the main supporting cast makes an appearance, including standouts Chris Elliott and Jennifer Robertson as Roland and Jocelyn Schitt (he of the mullet; the town takes its name from Roland’s founding forefathers).
This “Schitt’s Creek” holiday special will fit the bill nicely until the series returns next month. And if you haven’t yet seen the series, there’s still plenty of time to binge its first four seasons to prepare for the big January return.
It’s worth the time and effort.
