Apple TV+’s musical comedy sequence Schmigadoon! returns for a second season this week with a two-episode premiere that hits the bottom working, and tosses our lead couple Josh (Keegan Michael Key) and Michelle (Cecily Robust) on a joyful experience into an entire new period of stage musical. It is sultrier. It is sexier. It is smokier. It is extra confused concerning the time interval it is imagined to be set in. Welcome to Schmicago!
Kicking off two years after the top of Season 1, Josh and Melissa have made it again to their lives in New York and are settling in properly, again at work with a brand new lease on life and on their relationship. The sunny outlook of Schmigadoon actually appears to have had an impression on them. Slowly, nevertheless, the hardships of actuality start to set in, and the 2 attain their breaking level as they battle to start out a household. In order that they pack their luggage and head again to Schmigadoon, hoping to a minimum of recapture a number of the magic, the place every little thing else has gone mistaken. Or, slightly, they fight. Simply as they offer up and determine to go house, their automobile stalls on a well-recognized stone bridge. They cross by the haze and the fog… and discover themselves within the seedy, smokey, brightly-lit streets of Schmicago, the place they’re greeted by The Narrator (Titus Burgess) and a few acquainted faces in unfamiliar roles, together with Dove Cameron and Alan Cumming, with brand-new elements to play on this brand-new period.
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In Season 2, regardless of their troubles on the outset, Schmigadoon! not dwells on Josh and Melissa’s relationship woes, as a substitute banding them collectively as their one-night keep in Schmicago dives into the unknown when Josh is mistakenly arrested for murdering a showgirl on the cabaret the place Jenny Banks (Cameron) works. It then falls to Melissa to show his innocence in a corrupt city overseen by the shady Octavius Kratt (a chilling Patrick Web page), the place everybody appears very keen to brush issues underneath the rug and transfer on.
Picture by way of Apple TV+
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Your complete forged previous and new, together with a splendidly over-the-top Kristin Chenoweth, and a well-meaning-if-oblivious Aaron Tveit, fall seamlessly into their new roles for the season. Although early on Josh and Melissa often reference their earlier encounters with Schmicago residents in Schmigadoon, the present by no means makes you are feeling as if one thing is lacking. That might have been a tougher promote, provided that the 2 lead characters stay the identical whereas the remainder of the forged shift roles fully, however the world round them feels so totally realized, it by no means misses a beat.
Because the alternate title of Season 2 suggests, the second go-around is not pulling from the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals — The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Oklahoma — however as a substitute from the darker, grittier musicals of the Seventies. The title, in fact, is derived from Chicago, however there are traces of Cabaret, Hair, Sweeny Todd, Annie, and even Jesus Christ Celebrity right here too. This period of musicals was in all probability much less widespread with the babysat-by-grandma bunch amongst us, however thankfully, the present does not rely an excessive amount of on familiarity with the premises so as to perceive what is going on on or respect the humor in Josh and Melissa’s latest predicament. Even when you end up much less aware of these musicals, you will be shocked simply how a lot has sunk in by pure cultural osmosis. The music, actually the spine of the present, is even catchier in Season 2. Showrunner Cinco Paul has actually pulled out all of the stops for the newest batch of tracks, which seamlessly bridge over from the flashy Rodgers & Hammerstein fashion to the brassier showstoppers of the brand new period.
Picture by way of Apple TV+
Schmigadoon! actually thrives in Season 2 with its method to the premise. Essentially, it stays the identical because it was within the first season, with Josh and Melissa trapped in a city confined by the foundations, logic, and stylings of a specific period of musicals — however the place it surpasses Season 1 is how keen it’s to actually lean into the absurd premise. Josh and Melissa spent a lot of Season 1 reacting to this unusual world and to the weird circumstance of breaking into track or the heightened habits of these round them. This time, they know the way the sport is performed, as does the viewers. By permitting them to rapidly embrace their actuality and roll with the bizarre, Season 2 lets them interact with and turn into immersed extra deeply with the plot earlier on, slightly than merely react to it.
The true energy of the second season is how considerate it manages to be, even whereas the absurdity and comedy from the primary season are nonetheless current. With Key and Robust taking the lead, it is exhausting for it to not. On the coronary heart of a narrative that might simply have been snarky and jaded is a refreshing sincerity, with a transparent message of what it means to thrive, slightly than merely survive. The sweeping, Golden Age fashion Season 1 of Schmigadoon! represented a brightly coloured veneer over the best way we see the world and the best way we want it may very well be. The grittier Season 2 takes that unique premise and drastically units wishful pondering apart in favor of tackling actuality head-on — however with out shedding its attraction and whimsy alongside the best way.
Score: A
Schmigadoon! Season 2 premieres on Apple TV+ with two episodes on April 5.