overnights

Schitt’s Creek Recap: Dressed to the Nines in Choking Hazards

Schitt’s Creek

Housewarming
Season 5 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating 4 stars

Schitt’s Creek

Housewarming
Season 5 Episode 5
Editor’s Rating 4 stars
Photo: Ian Watson/Pop

Eugene Levy wearing a suit while holding a baby is an image I never knew I needed, but it’s one I will treasure for the rest of my life. He was born to do it and I was born to see it. We find ourselves at this momentous occasion thanks to what sounds like a harrowing couples massage and Roland and Jocelyn’s failure to procure a babysitter.

Alexis doesn’t think she was the one who said that she would be there for Jocelyn if she ever needed her, and regardless, she has Patrick’s housewarming to attend. When the Schitts skip over Johnny and Moira as potential sitters, Johnny get offended. Sure, he and Moira weren’t hands-on parents, and yes, they very much relied on their nanny Adelina, who sometimes they’d call and have her rush home from her daughter’s wedding, and, okay, Alexis and David’s nursery was in a separate wing of the Rose mansion — but that doesn’t mean that Johnny couldn’t take care of a baby, and he wants to prove it.

Johnny and Moira should write a child-rearing book. Not because they are particularly good at it, but because it is beyond entertaining to watch them with Roland Jr. There would be chapters about building “cumbersome laundry hampers,” or, you know, pack ‘n plays, and schedules for when your child should be dormant (go to sleep). It would be a real hoot and not at all informative — as evidenced by the shenanigans that take place almost immediately after Jocelyn and Roland take off. Moira even skips the viewing party for the rerun of her Lifetime movie, Not Without My Cousin (it’s why she’s dressed up in an outfit of oversized sequins that Jocelyn refers to as “dressed to the nines in choking hazards”), to help her husband. And that’s a big deal, because as it turns out, Not Without My Cousin, which is about two astrophysicist cousins who go hiking in Lebanon, really holds up. It’s not like Moira does much more than scream suggestions from Jocelyn’s baby binder while Johnny does all the work, but hey, it’s the thought that counts. Maybe?

One poopy diaper and a spit-up later, Johnny gets Roland Jr. down to sleep and he has officially proven his point. Like any caregiver who has survived, he promptly falls asleep. Jocelyn and Roland couldn’t be more thrilled to find their baby asleep with no major problems. They are so thrilled, in fact, that they might have to use Johnny and Moira as sitters more often. As if Moira would ever allow that.

Elsewhere, Moira and Johnny’s actual kids are living through some real teen drama at Patrick’s “High School Slumber Party”-themed housewarming. David, obviously, had nothing to do with it. If he had, that theme would’ve called for “models and teen actors [lounging] around in their bras and thongs” and a “salad bowl full of E.” Um, he had a very different high school experience from Patrick. His party is actually just people in their pajamas drinking Jell-O shots — excuse me, “party shots” — and playing Spin the Bottle and Never Have I Ever. (David gets very drunk during that one, naturally.) Like any good high school party, someone rolls in and gets people very, very excited. The Party King. Meet Fun Ted.

Fun Ted arrives after feeling bad for ditching his girlfriend, even though he explained to Alexis that he couldn’t go out partying because he was currently in the middle of “Neuter-palooza” at work. The vet needs his rest! But after watching Alexis leave for the party in her Playboy Bunny lingerie (another weird high school experience), Ted shows up at Patrick’s already very drunk and wearing a tight tank and short boxers. This is Fun Ted. Everyone is into it. Okay, maybe not Alexis, who isn’t completely loving all the attention her boyfriend is getting. Things only get worse during Spin the Bottle when Ted takes a turn and the bottle lands on David. He wastes no time grabbing his girlfriend’s brother’s face and planting a big on one him. It is … not comfortable.

Alexis and Patrick aren’t pleased. I definitely get Patrick’s jealousy — it would be hard to watch your boyfriend kiss a hot dude on your living room floor — but Alexis’s anger toward her brother? Don’t get me wrong, that is a thing you cannot unsee, but it wasn’t David’s fault. It was all Fun (Drunk) Ted. Still, David takes the brunt of it. To try and assuage things, he tells his sister and his boyfriend that if it would make them feel better, they can kiss. Much to Patrick’s chagrin, they do. You guys, this kiss will go down as one of the most awkward kisses in TV history. It does not make anyone feel better, least of all me.

What does fix the situation, as you might have guessed, is a little ol’ thing called communication. David and Patrick talk through Patrick’s feelings of jealousy over his boyfriend kissing a guy who definitely goes to the gym, and Fun Ted wins over Alexis with some goofy flirting back at home. These two couples are too happy to let a little Spin the Bottle ruin things.

The Wig Wall

• I know we’re all waiting for some clips from Sunrise Bay, but now I really need to see Not Without My Cousin. It has an aerial shot of Moira’s love scene! And an astrophysicist wearing pigtails! Roll the tapes!

• I want Moira to call me a “slice of meringue!”

• That little moment of Patrick being offended when Alexis takes off her shoes to kiss him made me laugh so hard.

• Now we all know that David once dressed up as a pizza delivery guy in order to sneak into Jared Leto’s Halloween party. FLASHBACK, PLEASE.

• Ted’s impression of Alexis’s “ew, ew, ew” is perfection.

• “A nighttime couple’s massage? What is this, 1985?”

Schitt’s Creek Recap: Dressed to the 9s in Choking Hazards