'Schitt's Creek' Season 6 Episode 10 Review: The Roses look to their past to find their way forward
Spoiler alert for 'Schitt's Creek' Season 6 Episode 10 'Sunrise, Sunset'
With the series finale getting closer episode by episode, 'Schitt's Creek' has been giving its characters a lot more time to reflect on the life they were forcibly ejected from all those seasons ago.
The one member of the Rose family who has had the least amount of acclimatization to Schitt's Creek is Moira Rose (Catherine O'Hara), who perhaps needs to grapple with her past more than most. This episode gives her the opportunity to do exactly that.
With her rediscovered popularity, Moira is in demand. Big investors are looking to reboot an old soap opera of hers, 'Sunrise Bay,' which has been name-dropped quite a few times through the series.
It seems like an easy yes, at first, but a little digging from Alexis (Annie Murphy) shows Moira that her original exit from the show wasn't because of her contract demands, but from the jealousy of her co-star, Clifton Sparks (Victor Gerber).
While Saul Rubinek — who plays the executive producer of 'Sunset Bay,' Tippy Berenstein — is always fun to see on screen, it's Victor Gerber's Clifton Sparks who nearly steals every scene he's in.
His over-the-top performance as an alcoholic actor with a colossal ego and a deeply ingrained sense of denial rivals Moira's own. The brief clip we see of 'Sunset Bay' shows just how amazingly terrible the two were together and the episode's biggest tragedy is that there weren't more 'Sunset Bay' clips to watch.
Alexis' role in this episode is an interesting one. She has reached the sweatpants and binge-watching stage of her post-breakup depression, and her exhaustion with life, in general, is clear.
Looking out for her mother, however, in her role as Moira's publicist is when we see her completely energized again. The show doesn't call a lot of attention to it, but it really highlights just how much being a publicist is Alexis' calling.
Meeting with her old 'Sunrise Bay' colleagues shows a new side of Moira as well — an apologist for those who've treated her badly. As big as Moira's ego has been, she stuffs it down at the mere glimmer of the limelight.
With Alexis on her side, though, we see for the first time that Moira demanding more for life not out of ego, but from a healthy amount of self-esteem.
Moira is not the only one struggling with her past though. As Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) struggles to find a way to pay for his son's wedding as well as emergency motel expenses, he's haunted by the memory of how much easier everything used to be.
Johnny has really come to enjoy the closeness that Schitt's Creek has brought to him and his family, so much so that it's easy to forget just how much harder everything has been for him to not be able to provide for his family in all the ways he used to.
It takes a little help from Stevie Budd (Emily Hampshire) to snap him out of his regrets for the past and find a new way forward. She's come up with a plan to not just incrementally increase the motel business' expansion, but to find an investor to pitch to in order to purchase motels in bulk.
It's an ambitious risk, but one that Stevie seems absolutely comfortable with - she is tying her future inextricably with the Roses, and she couldn't be happier.
The episode is one of the season's highlights. It perfectly puts into context all that the Roses have lost v/s all that they've built together. It's the episode that is going to make the series finale that much more satisfying because with it, you know the Roses are moving on to a better life — and this time, it's one they've earned, as a family.
The next episode of 'Schitt's Creek' airs on March 17 on Pop TV.
