Schitt's Creek (Season six) * * 1/2

 

Starring:  Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Annie Murphy, Daniel Levy, Chris Elliott, Jenn Robertson, Noah Reid, Dustin Milligan, Karen Robinson, Emily Hampshire

The sixth and final season of Schitt's Creek made Emmy history recently by sweeping the comedy awards, including wins for its four acting leads, directing, writing...you name it.   The wins feel more like a makeup for all of the better seasons which were overlooked by Emmy voters.    This final season wraps things up in a tidy manner, but there is nothing here which convinces me that it was even necessary.   

Schitt's Creek was about two seasons past its sell-by date.   The characters are who they are in all of their self-contained glory.   David (Daniel Levy) sheds a few more tears and Alexis (Murphy) gives us some dimension after a tough breakup from a long-distance relationship, but Johnny (Eugene Levy) remains the pillar of strength and decency, while Moira (O'Hara) hams things up not only in the crummy movies she stars in, but at town meetings also.   O'Hara throws all subtlety out the window in this season, and she is trying to be hard to be FUNNY.   O'Hara was awarded a Best Comedy Actress Emmy, but this is by far her least appealing season.

Schitt's Creek remains subtly amusing in its last season.   It ends with the wedding of David and his eternally patient fiance Patrick (Reid).   I say check back in a year or so to see if they're still together.   Another subplot involves Johnny, Roland (Elliott), and Stevie (Hampshire) trying to gain funding for an ambitious capital venture involving the purchase of thousands of hotels similar to the Rosebud, which builds to a solid payoff.   The final sequence which puts a bow on everything feels muted, and doesn't even contain a goodbye between Johnny and Roland, which has comic and sentimental possibilities which were sidestepped.    Johnny's relationship with Roland, in my opinion, is the heart of the show, because it is a dovetailing of two worlds into one.   Levy and Elliott have exquisite comic timing together.

The final season is worth a look for those who watched the first five seasons.   It isn't bad, but just further evidence that the final episode of season three still feels like the more natural conclusion to the show.    The next three seasons were more of the same old, same old.