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With this week’s third episode, we’re now halfway through the first — and hopefully not only — season of Schmigadoon!, which I am going to have to dub ‘the funniest new show of the year!’ I don’t often laugh out loud when I’m watching a TV by myself, especially when it’s late and my significant other is asleep. I don’t want to be waking anyone up, but this show is funny. And I love how the show is giving Broadway vets, both mainstream names and those not as well known to the public, this big musical showcase to strut their stuff.
Case in point on this week’s episode ‘Cross The Bridge’, Ann Harada as the mayor’s wife Florence Menlove. After Melissa bails on carny Danny Bailey after sleeping with him and enduring a song about how they’re now basically married and she’s pregnant — they aren’t and she isn’t, which she explains why in hilarious detail — she finds out that town busybody Mildred Layton, leader of the group ‘Women Against the Future’, has had her and Josh thrown out of the hotel because of their behavior, Melissa hopes Mayor Menlove will be able to help them find a new place to stay even though Mildred has made it clear they are not welcome anywhere in Schmigadoon.
But the mayor isn’t home. He’s out on another one of his walks. He loves to walk, and walk and walk and walk according to Florence, and Melissa tries in the most delicate way to suggest that Florence’s husband is gay. Florence breaks into her own song about all the lovely things she sees in her husband, but of course the punchline of the song comes in the chorus when she says he’s ‘a queer man’. Of course to her, queer means odd and Melissa is struggling to not say what she wants to say. But through it all, Harada’s performance is just laced with sweetness and love, and even though the song is a joke, Harada gives it a lot of heart. Of course, it’s also punctuated by some editing showing small statues of nude men wrestling (?) that are on display throughout the Menlove parlor (there are some holds I don’t think are quite legal in wrestling), and Melissa can’t help but take notice. Florence is also reticent to allow Melissa and Josh to stay at their house, together, but she notes the doctor is looking for a new nurse, and the position comes with room and board. Doctor Melissa has to swallow a whole lot of pride as she comes to realize this may be her only shot at having a roof over her head for the time being, especially after she and Josh had another spat over what he’d been doing all day.
After finding out Josh was suddenly engaged to Betsy — and they finally address the hugely uncomfortable age difference between the two in very funny fashion — Melissa freaked out a bit but when he explained it was a shotgun engagement — literally, Betsy’s father was holding a shotgun on Josh — Melissa wasn’t as angry, because she’d been trying to hint for some time that she’d like to get engaged. Josh also learns that Melissa slept with Danny, but she’s able to quickly divert the subject back to their current predicament of not having a place to stay, and trying to find a way out of Schmigadoon.
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Josh thinks that maybe Betsy, regardless of her age, is truly in love with him and is his way out of town, so he takes her to the bridge and gives her a story about this feeling his family gets when they feel true love. Betsy agrees to cross the bridge with him, oblivious to his plan, but nothing happens. Before he knows it, all the single women from Schmigadoon are turning out another big musical number and he walks each and every one of them across the bridge to no avail. Defeated, he goes back to town and makes his way into the church where Reverend Layton gives him a few wise words about what true love really is. Josh seems to think for a moment that maybe he can make this work with Melissa, but he sees a woman walk by the window, a woman who was not at the bridge, and the rev tells him she’s the town’s schoolmarm. Josh is smitten just by catching a glimpse and goes in pursuit.
Melissa was still hurting after finding out about Josh’s attempts to cross the bridge without her, and is quite surprised when she gets to the doctor’s office. Finding an older couple there, she inquires about the job but they tell her she wants to see the younger Doctor Lopez. And yes, yes she does as the handsome gentleman steps into the doorway and takes her breath away.
So will Melissa and Josh find true love with the doctor and schoolmarm, or are they really and truly destined for each other? Stay tuned.
New episodes of Schmigadoon! drop Fridays on Apple TV Plus. Subscribe through the link below.
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I almost lost it at the “literal bridge” line.