Schitt’s Creek Episode 4 Recap: Can We Just Get Married Already?

It feels too flippant to write that it’s been a shitty week, but it really has. The world has been collectively grieving a sports icon gone too soon and grappling with his complicated legacy. The fear-mongering news cycle makes it seem as if we are all one sneeze away from succumbing to a deadly virus. Scrolling through our timelines can be emotional and exhausting.

Enter: Schitt’s Creek. This show is the reprieve we need. Season 6, episode 4 of Schitt’s Creek may have been the most joyful of the season so far, but since the series is coming to an end soon, it was also bittersweet. Every time Alexis and David shared a knowing glance or Moira pronounced “crows” in the way only she can, I thought of how few moments we have left with the Roses. So, let’s enjoy them while we can, shall we?

The episode kicks off with Alexis (in oversized gold hoop earrings I would like surgically attached to my earlobes) announcing to her family that the highly anticipated trailer for Moira’s B-movie masterpiece The Crows Have Eyes III is finally here. I could watch a whole episode of the Roses huddled around a laptop suffering through auto-ads while waiting for videos to load, but the gang gives up after the third sign of the buffering icon. Relatable. We’ll have to wait to find out how bad The Crows Have Eyes III is. First, Alexis and her amazing hoops are snooping through David’s “wedding dream book.”

My favourite thing we learn from David’s childhood dream wedding is that he wanted to marry JC Chasez (the correct *NSYNC member to choose) and Jenna Elfman. Alexis says that Patrick is the best of both. I mean, he can sing and he’s kind of funny, so I guess that tracks. As soon as Alexis mentions she is going to wear “Kiera Knightley’s green dress from Atonement” (we all know exactly which one) as her maid of honour look and David deflects, I knew he had chosen Stevie instead. Alexis decides that she’s going to take the responsibility from Stevie “gently” since Stevie probably doesn’t want to do it — except that she does.

Alexis, David, and Patrick pick up Stevie from her new job at Larry Air in an outfit that screams Catch Me If You Can. David quips, “you know Pan Am was cancelled after a season?” Stevie is freaking out because Larry Air doesn’t seem like the most legit airline and only flies to Hoboken, Windsor and South Dakota. (No disrespect to Hoboken, Windsor, and South Dakota.) In the midst of Stevie’s meltdown, she admits that she’s actually looking forward to being a bridesmaid in David’s wedding: “I feel like it’s the only job I can’t mess up at this point.” Alexis’s faux supportive and repulsed reaction to this goes down as one of my all-time Annie Murphy facial expressions. This where my weekly “give this show all the awards” pitch comes in.

At Tuxedo Tailors, Stevie proves she is terrible at “fashion stuff” and at planning David’s dream bachelor party. David then strings a bunch of rich words together I did not understand (I clocked “gorgeous,” “Rio,” “hot spring,” balcony” and “private chef optional”) so I’m just as unqualified to be his maid of honour as Stevie is. Good to know. When Stevie finally realizes she should probably hand over the reins to Alexis, she breaks down over the fact that she is 30 and unemployed. Alexis sweetly and unselfishly — and mostly out of pity — convinces Stevie to continue being David’s maid of honour. You know what that’s called? Growth.

So far this season, Johnny and Roland’s adventures haven’t quite landed for me, but this week, they pretty much paid off with some light laughs and a storyline about a bag of cash and a loaded gun. Johnny and Roland discover some shady stuff in one of the rooms of their new motel and immediately think someone is squatting there. Johnny is sure because they find a cup of coffee that is still hot. “It’s called global warming, Johnny,” Roland rebuts, and I laughed out loud at a Roland joke for the first time this season. Johnny and Roland then stake out the room — turns out the tenant is a prosecutor who likes to lay low, so he paid for the room in cash to the former landlord. Okay, so the payoff for this storyline wasn’t great but at least I laughed!

I saved the worst-best for last. We finally see the trailer for The Crows Have Eyes III and it’s as spectacularly awful/amazing as I imagined. Moira squawks like a crow twice (as a treat) and we see her transform into a crow at the end (which was teased last season). Moira make the other women in the Jazzagals watch the trailer. Every episode I ask for more Ronnie and every episode I am let down. Ronnie’s one line this week is, “wait, did you get the virus in the end?” and “the special effects look way better than what I pictured when you described it.” JUSTICE FOR RONNIE. At least she gets to lob Catherine O’Hara up for the pitch-perfect delivery of, “credit the technical wizardry of our team of imaginateurs.” Moira refuses to entertain Twyla’s suggestion that she might get nominated for an Oscar (“Golden Globe perhaps,” she says while knocking on wood). Jocelyn is uncharacteristically quiet, and when prompted she says, “it looks like a real movie.” High praise. She hated it as much as everyone hated Cats.

The episode ends on a touching moment between siblings David and Alexis, who would usually rather insult each other’s outfits than engage in a touching moment. David asks Alexis to give him away to Patrick on his wedding day. I’m not sure how Moira and Johnny are going to feel about that, but I’m sure they will have their own equally important jobs. I’m crying already. As David would say, “can we just get married already!?”

Stevie is having a bit of a crisis, but she takes the honour this week because Emily Hampshire is playing our goth, introverted former motel owner with so much vulnerability and uncertainty this season. It feels really authentic. Who among us hasn’t felt a bit of a life crisis when we turned 30 and we weren’t exactly where we wanted to be professionally? If anyone asks, I am still in my twenties and would not know, but like, it seemed really real.

Alexis wins this episode with many name drops from her former life including a tidbit about planning Megan Fox’s bachelorette on a tiny island off the coast of Montenegro (of course), but the best one is a tie between “I once hooked up with three different Men of the Year at the GQ Men of the Year party,” and “Diplo still sends me nudes.” Diplo would definitely send Alexis nudes.

The Crows Have Eyes trailer gives us Moira in a short black “I’m a real scientist” bob but the best headpiece worn by Moira Rose this episode is her feathery, crow-inspired headband. It’s insane and I want it.

— Last week I said that Twyla needs to find love, but after that quip about her uncle having a parrot that told her to take her bra off, I think homegirl just needs some therapy.

— My prediction for David and Patrick’s wedding is that Moira and Johnny are going to get ordained online and will actually be the ones to marry our fave couple. Can they just get married already!

— The shady dude from the motel seemed way too random to be a one-off character. Maybe he will come back and his prosecutor cover story will fall through? At this point, I’m just grasping at more interesting things for Johnny and Roland to get up to.

— Once more with feeling: JUSTICE FOR RONNIE.