This week on Apple TV+ musical comedy fantasia Schmigadoon!, Melissa and Paul try to leave Schmicago but learn that nothing is ever easy in a musical. The two lost lovers must figure out a way to sew a little harmony in their new digs. However, these people aren’t just garden-variety sad — they’re deranged and miserable.
This is going to be harder than they think. It’s also quite entertaining, thanks to a handful of great musical numbers in the episode, entitled “Something Real.”
Schmigadoon! recap: ‘Something Real’
Season 2, episode 4: Josh (played by Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa (Cecily Strong) want to leave Schmicago, but they keep running into problems. First they find their car destroyed and vandalized, thanks to Josh becoming a town pariah because he was accused of murder. Then the narrator (Tituss Burgess) stops them with a question: “Aren’t they having fun?”
Melissa admits some of it was fun, but that’s not a good enough reason to stay. They’re leaving and that’s that. Well … it would be except that they cross the bridge out of town and wind up right back where they started.
The narrator laughs at them and leaves, and they try to figure out how to get out of town. The rule of these magic, musical towns is that you need to find a truly happy ending before you can leave. Maybe the point is they not only have to figure out their own happy ending, but a happy ending for everyone in Schmicago.
It’s hard to be happy
Unfortunately, they’re not particularly happy campers themselves. Melissa reasons that a good place to start would be fixing the relationship between Jenny (Dove Cameron) and her estranged father, Dooley Flint the butcher (Alan Cumming). That’s tough, because Jenny has grown to hate her dad over the years. Otavius Kratt (Patrick Page), the local magnate, framed Flint for the murder of his wife, which Jenny believes.
Josh decides maybe the way to cool her tensions would be to introduce her to Topher the hippie (Aaron Tveit) and his band of frequently nude, free-spirited friends. They do love a good parable, so Melissa and Josh ask him to tell a story about a daughter and her estranged father. They nitpick him to death getting him there, though, so he abandons the idea and Josh must make something up on the spot.
He fumbles at first, but then music comes from nowhere and he starts singing, which makes everything easier. Their song, about reconnecting with your dad, fails to stir much in Jenny but sympathy for Topher, who sat dejectedly through the whole song. She goes to comfort him and they fall for each other.
OK, so if they can’t make that work, maybe they can give Dooley something else. Why not set him up with the crusty owner of the orphanage, Mrs. Coldwell (Kristin Chenoweth)? They take them to dinner (on a dinner date reminiscent of the one in The Fisher King), and they get on quite well indeed. Mrs. Coldwell even invites Dooley back to her apartment, where her gaggle of orphans make them cocktails. Then they hit upon a good idea: Kill the orphans and sell their meat.
Naturally, they discuss this in a musical number parodying “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd. This isn’t the happy ending Josh and Melissa were hoping for, but they don’t know that yet.
Talk to Daddy
Photo: Apple TV+
The Bob Fosse-style choreography in “Talk to Daddy” is pretty impressively baroque and athletic. The dancing on Schmigadoon! is usually suitable, of course, and last season it was quite old-fashioned on purpose, so I’m enjoying the more presentational style this season. I’m glad to have had the big strong start to the episode’s musical numbers, because the soppy love song Dove Cameron and Aaron Tveit sing next is way too dull to be as long as it is. (Plus, it doesn’t remind me enough of any real musical number from the ’70s.)
Still, things recover during the date and subsequent Sweeney Todd number. The kids appearing out of nowhere so Kristen Chenoweth can include their names in the song is pretty funny. And Alan Cumming is always a joy to watch. He’s hampered somewhat by playing someone so outwardly miserable as Flint, however. Not because he can’t do it, but it just feels so wrong not to see Cumming smile more.
Watching him coming out of his shell in this episode is just wonderful stuff, funny and compelling and odd thanks to his hair and attire. The musical number continues after its initial Sweeney crib — switching to up-tempo jazz and including tap dancing and sight gags — which makes thing even more joyous. Two out of three ain’t bad.
I’m bummed these seasons os Schmigadoon! aren’t longer. I like spending time in this world, problems and all.
★★★☆☆
Watch Schmigadoon! on Apple TV+
New episodes of Schmigadoon! arrive every Wednesday on Apple TV+.
Rated: TV-14
Watch on: Apple TV+
Scout Tafoya is a film and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay series The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Film Comment, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Nylon Magazine. He is the author of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper and But God Made Him A Poet: Watching John Ford in the 21st Century, the director of 30 feature films, and the director and editor of more than 300 video essays, which can be found at Patreon.com/honorszombie.
