Last year, some of the funniest actors alive were allowed to run quietly amuck on the Pop channel. As former millionaires Johnny and Moira Rose, Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara reach new heights of hilarity while trying to build new lives for themselves holed up in a seedy motel in the titular town they own.
Johnny and Moira are joined in their imperious imperviousness to real life by their adult children, Alexis and David, played by Annie Murphy and Dan Levy, the show’s creator (and Eugene’s son). Together, they squabble, plot, and scheme up ways to return to their former lives over the course of the first season—only to have their grandiose plans fall through at the last minute.
Now Season 2 is set to premiere March 16 (Season 1 is available to stream on Amazon Prime), and Levy couldn’t be more thrilled to bring back the Roses—and his actors.
“Listen, the first time I saw an episode and heard [O’Hara] say a line I had concocted in my living room was one of the more surreal experiences I’ve had,” he says with a laugh. “Season 1 we looked at how to get out. And with Season 2, it’s more about what do we do now that we’re going to be here longer. These characters, whether they’re aware of it or not, are slowly immersing themselves in this town in ways they never expected.”
Among those ways are O’Hara’s addled former soap star dabbling in politics while Johnny continues trying to rebuild his fallen empire and David gets a job; Alexis, meanwhile, finds herself accidentally engaged while pining for another man. “The freedom that we’re now stuck in this town and playing around with this family has created a really, really funny second season,” Levy says.
Part of that comedy rests squarely on the shoulders of its powerful ensemble. Eugene Levy and O’Hara may be the marquee names, but Dan Levy, Murphy, and Emily Hampshire, as the thoroughly bored motel clerk who becomes David’s closest friend, match them zinger for zinger.
“We found both [Murphy and Hampshire] through the audition process,” Levy says. “Emily I had known from being in Canada, but Annie was out of the blue; [she] walked in one day and brought the character to life in a way that no one else had. There’s such a blind self-absorption to this character that she plays with such sincerity. It was immediate. No one else could provide the level of warmth that Annie has done rather intrinsically with Alexis. And Emily, we did a chemistry test and it was just the right fit. She’s so funny and dry and dark and mysterious.”
But as anyone who watched Season 1 knows, “Schitt’s Creek” is more than jokes and zany behavior—there’s a deepening of the characters over the course of the first 13 episodes. And, according to Levy, that extends to the second season as well.
“There’s an emotional thread that runs through this second season that I think is really lovely and touching,” he says. “I think just being able to dig a little deeper into the characters and put them in situations that test their boundaries and strengths and weaknesses has allowed for some really comedic moments but also tender emotional beats that only engage the audience more.”
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