I Really Need The Final Season Of 'Schitt’s Creek' Right Now

Everywhere I look these days, there’s drama. We’ve got Karens and Kens throwing whiny-ass tantrums in grocery stores because they’re feeling too inconvenienced to wear a face mask. Teachers and students are about to be treated like specimens in a fucking petri dish because our nation isn’t patient enough to sit through a global pandemic. And then we’ve got Ivanka fucking Trump taking a stupid photo op with an 89-cent Goya can, because nothing says white privilege more than the daughter of arguably one of our most racist presidents pretending like she ever actually eats canned beans.

Oh, and did I mention there are a bunch of giant killer wasps in Texas that look almost identical to those pesky murder hornets that wreaked havoc in the U.S. a couple months ago?

I’m so damn tired of all the drama. As royally ridiculous as some of this shit is, I am in dire need of some good old fashioned comedy right now. I want comedic fireworks of epic proportions that take my mind off of the current shit show that is our country, and there’s one series I’m in major withdrawal over because it tickled my funny bone and tugged at my heartstrings like no other. I miss you, Schitt’s Creek. I miss you a lot.

I marathon-style watched this Pop TV show like my life depended on it earlier this year. Netflix had the first five seasons available, and I’ll admit I was feeling a tad bit curious to know why there was so much fanfare around it. Glimpsing at the first episode, I found myself laughing in moments, but wasn’t completely hooked. A rich white family loses all their cash and needs to hide out in a small town, and I’m supposed to care? It just didn’t seem like enough to keep me interested.

But then I watched the second episode. And the third. And before I knew it, I was knee-deep in Schitt’s Creek. In fact, it’s now one of my all-time favorite shows. Hell, it even inspired me to reflect on my own life’s priorities and celebrate living with purpose. Thanks, Rose family!

If you forced me to pick a favorite character, I’d probably start crying on the spot. There’s just too much hilarity to choose a favorite. Catherine O’Hara is a force of nature as Moira, a veteran television actress who is basically still starring in her own real-life soap opera. There’s co-creator Eugene Levy, whose Johnny Rose is packed to the brim with robust sentimentality. Every single time I hear Annie Murphy end her character Alexis’s sentences with “Daviiiid,” I bust a gut. And Emily Hampshire takes a role that’s basically the Rose family’s fifth wheel and jam packs Stevie with a sarcastic punch anyone would love.

But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a forever place in my heart for co-creator Dan Levy’s show-stopping role as David, the pansexual son who defies societal norms with so much humor and chutzpah that he steals focus in just about every scene he’s in. Watching David catwalk his way into each room, fall in love with a bundle of hilarious insecurity, and find his footing as a small business owner was a sight to behold. I’ll also never forget the scene where Stevie and David are walking through a wine store, and the new BFFs get to chatting about sexuality. The meaning behind it quietly snuck up on me, caught me by total surprise, and had me happy dancing at the screen.

“I do drink red wine,” David says. “But I also drink white wine. And I’ve been known to sample the occasional rose. And a couple summers back, I tried a Merlot that used to be a Chardonnay, which got a bit complicated. I like the wine and not the label. Does that make sense?”

In that magical moment, I felt like Dan Levy’s character was speaking directly to me. Yes, David, it makes a lot of fucking sense. As a 36-year old mom who just came out to the world as a queer and bisexual woman last year, it makes so much sense that I’ll never forget how much sense it makes.

While I’m not personally swimming in wealth like the Roses did in their former lives, I do have a shit ton of experience in making life choices from a place of solely prioritizing success. I chased the dream of being a famous actress for many years, in the hopes that I’d finally be loved and valued for something I accomplished. I had my sexual identity on complete lockdown, kept myself impossibly thin, was people pleasing out my ass, stayed stuck in a first marriage that felt safe, and hustled hard for an impossible kind of perfection I never achieved. When a new relationship, stepmomdom, and first-time motherhood hit me like a ton of bricks, I found myself broken down and completely lost. The career basket I had placed all of my eggs in wasn’t fulfilling me in the way I had once hoped, my body changed in ways I never anticipated, and I ended up temporarily moving from the bright lights of Los Angeles to a quiet spot in New Hampshire to raise my family and tend to my mental health. And that’s when a whole other career path unexpectedly fell into my lap.

On one particularly non-eventful day back in December, I caught myself smiling for no reason. As East Coast snow quietly fell down in front of me in big fluffy pieces for the first time in years, I realized something profound: although life looked radically different than how I had expected it would turn out, it finally felt like it made sense.

The magic of Schitt’s Creek is that it catches you off guard in the best of ways. One minute, you’re laughing at a bunch of privileged wealthy people bemoaning the loss of their cushy mansion and bundles of money. And the next, you’re ugly crying as you witness a family do things like actually care about each other for the very first time. Moira joins the town council and her local choir, and she learns how to finally be a real friend to the women around her. Johnny begins managing the motel his family’s been semi-squatting in and makes tangible connections with his community. Alexis prances around in fancy heels as she finds herself unexpectedly committing to a sweet, small-town veterinarian she previously wouldn’t have given the time of day. And lovably reclusive David meets his soulmate in Patrick, played with adorable sincerity by Noah Reid.

When I got to the fifth season finale with no promise from Netflix of an airdate for the final episodes, I sank into a pile of goopy sadness for a couple months. How was I going to get through this fucked up pandemic without the Rose family’s infectiously melodramatic delightfulness? Thankfully, enough online investigating led me down a rabbit hole that brought me to Amazon Prime Video, where I saw that I could purchase the sixth and final season. I couldn’t not do it. I had to find out how Schitt’s Creek ends.

I’m only three episodes in, and I’m taking my time this go around. It’s driving me bonkers to slow-date the rest of this enchanting series, but I can’t just breeze through it like I did last time. To be completely fucking honest, I have absolutely no idea how I’m going to move on once it’s over. The Rose family may be done with me after six hysterical seasons, but I’m definitely not done with them.