SCHITT'S CREEK Season 1

This review was requested by Sonja Dominguez. Many thanks to Sonja for supporting Post-Credit Coda through our Patreon.

Episode 1 - Our Cup Runneth Over

Schitt's Creek is a story about opulence gouged. This cuts two ways. It's exciting to have a tiptop production quality show that is so explicitly about class in America. The emperors robbed of their clothing, and banished to a podunk town that they have ironic ownership of. We see the underside of the great American success story.

But you can't have your cake and eat it too. This show asks us to sympathize with a family of rich entitled white people, the exact folks who are killing the world hardest and fastest. Even more troublesome and potentially tone deaf is the pilot's insistence that this family's wealth is not being repossessed because of anything wrong they did, but because of the shady dealings of another (unseen) member of the clan. This retreat from responsibility means the show is likely aware of its central dilemma: How can we make a show about the redemption of rich monsters without making them so monstrous that the audience can no longer sympathize? Or to put it more bluntly... nobody makes millions of dollars without stepping on the necks of thousands of people.

The writers are therefore savvy to begin the show by emphasizing the gouge rather than the opulence. The first scene shows the government ransacking their mansion, which is both an economical storytelling choice and a way to shift our focus away from the inherent evil of millionaires.

This leads directly to the first joke of the show that really lands. The family learns that the government neglected to repossess one asset, the town of Schitt's Creek, which the family purchased as a joke. "You mean you actually bought that town? I thought you photoshopped the deed," the family says to the father, who responds, "Of course I bought the town! The joke was owning the town! Why would I photoshop the deed? The joke was owning the town!" This bit is both about the excesses of the rich, and about a father who takes having fun with his family seriously. It emerges nicely from Eugene Levy's performance, which I already like quite a bit. There are layers in the way he later overreacts to the weird but amicable presence of Roland Schitt (Chris Elliott), the greasy town mayor.

Not all the actors come off so well right away. The daughter Alexis Rose (Annie Murphy) is little more than a mediocre valley girl impression at this point, although she does get an absurdist scene that consists entirely of her saying "OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK." on the phone while her brother David (Dan Levy) gawks aimlessly at their new motel home.

The real highlight of the episode is its production design, especially the props. At the local diner the simple act of a waitress handing the family their enormous laminated menus completely dominates the scene. There's a gag that consists entirely of the mother Moira (Catherine O'Hara) holding a lightbulb as if it were a foreign object. And of course, her gaudy earrings that go missing and lead to this fantastic piece of dialogue: "I politely accused that girl of stealing my earrings and she turned ice cold!" I have a feeling the props design is going to be a backbone of the show, both from a design and a direction perspective. What better way to talk about the rich and the poor than showcasing the Stuff that they respectively surround themselves with?

All in all the pilot is modest, far from spectacular. That may be a smart approach, familiarizing us with the character dynamics before adding some razzle-dazzle. That focus on character means I don't yet know how the show will tackle its tricky class themes. I will be very curious to find out.

7

IN BRUGES: Sin Stooge

This review was requested by Rafael Schneider. Many thanks to Rafael for supporting Post-Credit Coda through our Patreon.

Director: Martin McDonagh
Writer: Martin McDonagh
Cast: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clémence Poésy, Thekla Reuten, Jordan Prentice
Runtime: 107 mins.
2008

I have long wondered what to think about the very white, very male, very cis vulgarity that runs its tendrils through In Bruge's screenplay. The jokes are intentionally shocking in their casual malice. Writer/director Martin McDonagh intends protagonist Ray (Colin Farrell) to be a lovable hitman asshole with a heart of gold, which raises interesting questions: why are we in America so eager to condone and even celebrate physical violence in our media, but verbal violence is off the table? And can that verbal violence ever crack open our cultural norms in a cathartic way? Ray's brash ignorance lets him stumble into surprisingly honest conversations with people leading quite different lives. So we still wonder, does this screenplay excuse the violence of white men? Does it excoriate it? Or does it get at a truth deeper than purity politics allows-- the webs of contradiction at the heart of our culture that can only be confronted through perverse honesty? Ultimately, I don't know, but you don't get an onscreen discussion of the coming race war this raw and real unless you're willing to be offensive along the way.

Given the tone deaf treatment of race in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and the uneven meta-flailing of Seven Psychopaths, it's safe to say that McDonagh's flagrantly offensive impulses only work some of the time. In Bruges is the pinnacle of the McDonagh style on film. One of the screenplay's best tricks is that each time a character delivers an offensive or inhumane joke, the movie makes a point of weaving tragedy into the joke's callback. What once struck us as humor in ill taste takes on a surprising resonance when it leads to a real relationship, a moment of intimacy, or a horrifying misunderstanding.

McDonagh is writing about flawed people, broken murderers. Ray's attitudes about others are callous, but so are his feelings about himself. The slow reveal of the way Ray masks his own pain with childish lashing out offers a keen character study. It's also a smart foil for the warmth and soulfulness of Ray's partner in assassinry, Ken (Brendan Gleeson). This is a story about condemnation, redemption, and purgatory. It's also a riproaring comedy.