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Melissa and Josh are living in two different musicals at this point, making us wonder if they’ll ever find true love as both face major roadblocks in their new relationships. Also, there’s the introduction of a major new character — one episode before the finale — and a whole lot of story to wrap up in that one last episode (which judging from the time listed on the screener, one of the shortest of the series at 23 minutes).
Each episode since the couple found themselves in Schmigadoon has given us a moment from their life together, both the ups and downs. This week’s down moment revolved around Melissa’s unwillingness to accept the fact that she’s been saying an old, well-known phrase wrong for basically her entire life, turning ‘dog eat dog’ into ‘doggy dog’ … because dogs don’t wat other dogs! Try as he might to correct her, she refuses to believe she’s wrong and Josh finally gives in and let’s her believe she’s right (which will be embarrassing if she every uses the phrase in company other than Josh’s). But what does this tell us about the couple in general? Melissa is overbearing and Josh is p-whipped? And how can a relationship survive, or be happy, if one person is always acquiescing to the other even when that person knows they are right? Been there, done that and it never works out.
In Schmigadoon, Melissa’s feelings for Doc Lopez are growing deeper, even when he’s shocked by her forwardness of … taking off her shoes after work. Gasp! But as in any good musical, the two share another number together and instantly fall in love as they dance around the office The King & I style. That is until Melissa bumps into an unexpected guest in the office — Countess Gabriele Von Blerkom (Jane Krakowski), who it turns out is the doctor’s fiancee. She’s also appalled at the sight of Melissa’s shoeless feet. But having switched from The King & I to The Sound of Music, Melissa realizes the Countess is basically Baroness Elsa Schraeder, and in the end she’ll step aside and let Melissa have Doc Lopez.
But this script isn’t playing out that way as the Countess gets Melissa in her car and takes her for a nice long ride to the middle of nowhere. Of course she also gets a hilarious show-stopping number that has her dancing all over the moving car (a very funny nod to the old rear screen projection process) that has Melissa wondering if she should take the wheel. But the Countess lets her know in no uncertain terms that she is not backing away from her man this time and drives off. As Melissa wonders how she’ll get back to town, a dream ballet dancer appears from the field and Melissa shuts that down right away. No one has time for a dream ballet right now! But she does find something among her belongings strewn at her feet — the rock with her name on it, the one that started the whole argument that landed them in Schmigadoon. Melissa rewinds her memory to that argument and once again we see that Josh did tell her to check her backpack and she insisted that he lost it. Lo and behold she had it the whole time. So she really needs to get back to town before things progress further with Josh and the school marm.
And progressing they are as the couple enjoys a picnic with Emma’s brother Carson in tow. She asks him to go count ants to keep himself busy (and out of their romantic conversations). But the lovely day takes a bad turn when Josh compliments Emma on how well she’s raised her little brother. Josh is baffled by Emma’s sudden upset about a compliment as she drags Carson away, putting an end to their date. Emma is also upset with Carson for listening in on the conversation and punishes him by making him write an ‘I will not…’ line 500 times. Josh shows up and teaches Carson a trick by tying two pencils together so he can get done in half the time. Josh finally gets Emma to open up and she lays a doozy of a secret on him — Carson is her son, not her brother. She’s just been putting on the act that he’s her brother so Mildred Layton won’t be on her back about her ‘immoral behavior’ at having a child out of wedlock. Unfortunately, Carson again overhears the conversation and is not too happy about having been lied to his whole life. Josh goes into the woods to search for Carson but runs into Danny Bailey, who still has a thing for Melissa. He knocks Josh to the ground where he discovers the rock with his name on it that Melissa threw away when they had the fight over her rock. Does this mean these two actually do have true love for each other?
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Getting out of Schmigadoon may still be an issue as Mildred begins to lay the groundwork for taking over the town. She has one of her Women Against the Future ladies surreptitiously toss some peanut shells on the ground so Mildred can point them out and suggest if there are peanut shells littering the ground, there’s most likely a drunk in the gutter as well. And Schmigadoon can’t have that kind of tribulation and strife. That kicks her off into a fast-paced riff on The Music Man‘s ‘Ya Got Trouble’ that is so fast and so crammed with words it’s a wonder Kristin Chenoweth didn’t pass out from not having a second to breathe. And the entire four minute song was shot in a single, continuous take to really give it some of that Broadway musical feel. It was quite stunning to behold and in the end it got us to the point: Mildred has decided to challenge Mayor Menlove in the upcoming election. There were some funny lines too as she went after Menlove, at one point saying his poor wife was so ashamed of his coming out to the town that she locked herself in the house. And this time on purpose! Poor Florence.
This episode just had me laughing and smiling the whole time — there are some very funny lines of dialogue this week — but I have no clue how they are going to wrap all this up in 23 minutes. I hope they can stick the landing, or at least give us hope for a second season.
What did you think of this episodes? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
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