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This week’s episode of Schmigadoon! is titled ‘Something Real’ and, while it has some more laugh-out-loud moments, it’s also full of heart. Maybe more heart than we’ve seen in the series thus far, with one of the most straight-forward songs the show has presented since it began.
Things pick up right where we left off as Josh and Melissa are making their way back to the car to escape Schmicago — but the car is up on bricks now, the tires stolen. So what, they can walk out just like they did last time, certain that proving Josh was innocent for a crime he didn’t commit is their happy ending. The Narrator just bids them farewell … and welcome back because of course that wasn’t their happy ending. They didn’t really do anything to earn it. When the Narrator tells them they have to figure out themselves and they say he’s no help, his reply that they aren’t either seems like a clue. Is it a clue? Maybe. Melissa went off on the Narrator about how happy everyone was in Schmigadoon, and now she realizes that no one is happy in Schmicago to their happy ending is to give everyone else a happy ending to their story. Could it work?
Making drawings of everyone they’ve met so far it seems that the ultimate goal is to make Octavius Kratt unhappy and that will make everyone else happy, but figuring out who needs whom to be happy is like figuring out a seating chart at a wedding reception. Josh wonders if it’s even bigger than giving everyone a happy ending, maybe they have to kill baby Hitler. Melissa asks him exactly what year he thinks this would even be, but he has no answer because it’s very unclear. Melissa reminds him they just got him out of jail so they aren’t killing anyone, but it’s obvious who they need to help first: Dooley the butcher and his daughter Jenny. Trying to broach the subject with Jenny, Melissa tells her that she ran into her father but Jenny says she has no father. He killed her mother and left her alone, so to her he is dead, end of story. That didn’t go as planned.
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But Josh suggests there is someplace they can take Jenny where everyone is happy — Topher’s hippie commune. Jenny loves the place, it’s so bohemian, and Melissa warns her that not everyone there is friendly but … they all love Jenny. It’s just Melissa they have a problem with. Topher gathers everyone so he can deliver a parable — and asks for a subject. This isn’t a parable, this is an improv. After a bunch of topics that Topher seems to get every time, Josh throws out ‘father’, and he and Melissa keep micromanaging the ‘parable’ to steer Topher into delivering the message they want to send to Jenny. Topher just gets fed up and storms off, leaving Josh and Melissa to deliver the parable themselves with Josh launching into song (I believe for the first time) and Melissa joining as they try to guide Jenny into reconciling with her father. She either doesn’t get it or doesn’t want to get it and instead she takes an interest in Topher. Wait … could finding love for the people of Schmicago be the reason they’re here? It sure seems that way, especially with the truly lovely and heartfelt song Jenny and Topher sing to each other. Okay, so one down, who’s next? Who else needs to find love in Schmicago so Josh and Melissa can get the hell out of the place?
Since it doesn’t seem like Jenny and Dooley will reconcile, perhaps Dooley needs to find love with Miss Codwell. Melissa knows the head of the orphanage has a crush on the butcher, so maybe setting the two up will be their second good deed. They both approach Dooley — and Josh gets a taste of those shrieking door hinges at the butcher shop — and Codwell, suggesting they all go out to dinner together. The two accept but once there it doesn’t seem to be going well. Especially when Dooley pulls out his meat cleaver, sort of a show and tell. But he never goes anywhere without it. Josh and Melissa thinks he’s blown his chance with Codwell but … she’s kind of turned on by the cleaver, even when Dooley starts using it as an eating utensil. Codwell takes the cleaver from him and chops up his sausage for him, and this ‘act of kindness’ finally gets Dooley warmed up to the idea of a romance with Miss Codwell.
Back at their buildings, Codwell asks Dooley if he’d like to come in for a nightcap — she’s trained the orphans on the fine art of bartending, after all — and Dooley surprises everyone when he accepts. Josh and Melissa are thrilled Dooley is going to spend more time with Codwell, so it seems they’ve made another love connection. Inside the orphanage, Dooley and Codwell talk about their lives, about how she has too many orphans that she hates, and he doesn’t have enough meat to keep his shop open. Such a shame but … maybe they can kill two birds with one stone (pun intended), and they launch into a hilarious song in which the verses compare each child to a specific cut of meat. With this idea to turn the children into product for the butcher shop, Miss Codwell has instantly gone from Annie‘s Miss Hannigan to Sweeney Todd‘s Mrs. Lovett. Melissa and Josh may think, as they watch through the window, that everyone is happy but the expression of the Narrator on the other side of the wall says something quite the opposite. Oh, Josh and Melissa, what hath you wrought?
What did you think of this episode? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.
New episodes of Schmigadoon! stream Wednesdays on Apple TV Plus. Subscribe through our affiliate link and catch up on Season 1.
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