The Schitt’s Creek Heartfelt and Bittersweet Tears Tour continues this week, this time with a focus on Alexis and David. The entire episode plays out around David and Patrick’s joint bachelor party — it’s a small affair with only the the grooms, Stevie, and the Roses invited — but is mostly concerned with Alexis picking herself up after her breakup and figuring out what’s next for her, even if that doesn’t include a life in Schitt’s Creek.
Let’s be honest: This is the saddest bachelor party I’ve ever peeped my eyes on. Stevie does her best with David and Patrick’s requests and lands on a “reception” at the Wobbly Elm (it’s the closest she could get to a Tahitian dolphin cruise) after a rousing hour at “Elmdale’s finest and only escape room.” After David learns that no, an escape room is not a Jodie Foster movie, he then has to go make sure his family is actually going to attend because, well, none of them particularly want to. Alexis is wearing a nice blouse with her sweatpants, because in her wallowing she couldn’t bring herself to get fully dressed and, honestly, that paired with her three opened yogurts is an image that is just too real right now. Seeing that the succulent — I’m sorry, “weird-little-desert-daisy thing” — Ted gave her, something almost impossible to kill, is now dead, has sent her into a tailspin. She doesn’t want to do anything. David attempts some tough love to get his sister out of her funk by reminding her that there’s “only space in this family for one unstable sibling, and [he has] held that title for a very long time, so [she is] going to have to get it together.”
Alexis doesn’t really have time to angst over how lonely she is or how impossible it is to make something of her business in a town where almost no one needs a publicist, because she does have one client and that client is super high maintenance. In the wake of the Sunrise Bay contract-negotiation debacle, Alexis has tried to get Moira work, and has landed on what Moira calls “every actor’s dream”: voice-over work for Larry Air. Moira in a soundbooth having to read terrible copy with as much energy as possible is its own sort of escape room, and when Alexis, realizing this was a horrible gig to take, offers to cover for her mother if she wants to leave, Moira tells her daughter she couldn’t possibly abandon her while also slowly backing out of the room. You know, if you want to know how that job went. At the very least, it allowed us to see Annie Murphy’s impression of Catherine O’Hara’s Moira Rose again, and kids, that ain’t nothing.
Unfortunately, this disastrous experience ahead of the escape room now has both of our Rose ladies in a tailspin: Alexis doesn’t know what she’s doing in Schitt’s Creek, and Moira doesn’t know how she’ll ever get out.
Unbeknownst to Moira, her problem is, at least, being worked on. Johnny has some big news to share with his Rosebud Motel team. Okay, well it’s really almost nonexistent news, but Johnny is pumped about it. Johnny Rose is our true beacon of hope in desperate times, because if that man can get excited about a phone call with his former assistant turned venture capitalist Mike Morrison that might lead to a meeting that might lead to an investment in the business, wow, honestly, we can do anything. Let Johnny Rose be a role model to you all. There is one problem with this glimmer of hope: Because Roland missed Mike’s first call (Roland’s gonna Roland, I guess), Johnny is still waiting for that important phone call when he has to hand over his phone before entering the escape room. At this point (okay, let’s be honest, from the very beginning), the only person actually excited to be doing this group activity is Patrick.
And then they get into the escape room and find out it is Galápagos-themed. Alexis takes it as a sign that she made a huge mistake not going with Ted. Again, it’s David who has to stop her from spiraling. He tells her matter-of-factly that it would’ve been a huge mistake to go. Is she just going to “follow another guy around the world?” Of course not, but she has no idea what she is doing here. “Where do you want to be?” David asks. Alexis can’t even attempt to answer that question because, as is customary in an escape room, everyone starts getting into the game. (Well, not Moira. Never Moira.) And when Johnny finally reveals why he’s been so anxious about not having his phone, and what that call about a meeting that could lead to some real money for the business could mean for their whole family, well, everyone is down to get the hell out of the Galápagos.
It turns out that Alexis is a puzzle master. Thanks to things like weekends with Tom Hardy in England and seventh-grade friends with Egyptian-symbol tattoos (it means they need to “find something from Egypt, like mummies, Rami Malek”), Alexis solves all the puzzles, finds the key, and sets them all free. There’s little time to be impressed because they are all anxious to check Johnny’s phone. And after a voice-mail from Moira about discussing a way to get out of the escape-room thing, and a voice-mail from David about not ditching the escape-room thing even though no one wants to do it, they finally get to a voice-mail from Mike Morrison. He loves Johnny’s proposal and wants to set up a pitch meeting immediately. Well, if that isn’t the best news they’ve heard in a long, long time. There are hugs and applause and maybe tears! Everyone is so excited. Honestly, nothing warms my self-isolated heart like seeing this family unit, who wanted so little to do with one another when we first met them, cheering on each other’s small victories.
Before this all gets too heartwarming, though, David and Alexis need to finish their conversation about Alexis’s plans for the future. At the Wobbly Elm, he asks her if she thinks it was also a sign that she was the one person who could get them out of the Galápagos. Maybe, he says, it’s time to “let go of that succulent.” And then Alexis runs through a whole metaphor about how maybe the succulent died because it outgrew its tiny pot (“No, I watched you slowly kill it”), and how it can’t live up to its full potential in a place that small, and how yes, in case you hadn’t figured it out, she is that plant and the pot is Schitt’s Creek. When she says she wants to move somewhere else, to “find a bigger pot to grow in,” David looks devastated. Again, they don’t get to finish this conversation because it’s time for a toast and a reminder of Johnny’s good news, but you know this good-bye is coming, and it is going to be a doozy.
The Wig Wall
• Legit can’t get enough of the running gag that all the Roses think an escape room is actually Panic Room — here’s Moira: “Is it all right if I don’t watch Panic Room with everyone tonight? Jo Foster once screened it for me privately, and I would like to keep that memory safe.”
• Johnny’s voice-mail to Mike in which he basically just repeats his name over and over again is Eugene Levy-does-awkward at its finest.
• Patrick announces that sadly, his family, who loves escape rooms, couldn’t be here today. Moira: “Have they passed?”
• David and Patrick get so into the escape room, I hope they continue this beautiful, manic tradition throughout their marriage because David screaming things like “52 minutes!” and “I’m blowing!” are just gifts that cannot be matched.
• So someone is definitely going to make a GIF of Moira’s dire “the reality is, we’re never getting out of here” line so that we can all share it during our self-isolation, yes? Please? Give us some joy, internets, I’m begging you.
