Our Cup Runneth Over

Season 1, Episode 1

Written by Daniel Levy
Directed by Jerry Ciccoritti

The formerly wealthy Rose family lose everything and are forced to relocate to a motel in a small remote town.

★★★☆☆

And so it begins.

The first episode of any new TV series has a lot of work to do in terms of setting up the show’s premise and the main characters while also telling an interesting story in its own right, and ‘Our Cup Runneth Over’ does a fair job in this regard.

We meet the Roses – Johnny (Eugene Levy) and Moira (Catherine O’Hara) and their adult offspring David (Dan Levy) and Alexis (Annie Murphy) – at their lowest point. The family’s business manager has absconded to the Caymans having stolen all their financial wealth, and now their opulent mansion home has been invaded by a swarm of black-clad government officials who have come to seize all their assets in recompense for unpaid taxes. (Here, incidentally, is one of the first clues as to where the series is set. Although it’s never mentioned explicitly in the show whether Schitt’s Creek is in the US or Canada, the jackets worn by the repossession agents have ‘REVENUE AGENCY’ printed on the back, implying they’re CRA rather than IRS.)

Moira is screaming hysterically. Alexis is yelling down the phone to her boyfriend. David is petulantly obstructing the officials in the course of their business. And Johnny is angry at having been betrayed by someone he trusted. ‘Eli was family, for god’s sake,’ he fumes bitterly. ‘Leave your finances to me, he said – son of a bitch!’

The family are allowed to keep a small sum of money and just one asset: a town with a funny name which Johnny bought as a joke gift for David back in 1991. (Assuming David is the same age as Dan Levy, he would have been eight – it seems a bizarre gift for an eight-year-old but there you go.) Moving to the town for the time being will allow the Roses to live cheaply until they can find a way to get back on their feet.

And that’s the set-up, all achieved in an incredibly economical two and a half minutes of screen time. Then after the opening theme music and title graphics (lasting barely five seconds) we’re outside the Schitt’s Creek Motel as the family heave their boxes and cases off the coach, watched balefully by Roland Schitt, the town’s mayor...

Ah yes, Roland. There’s a major problem with the way the character is introduced here, which, for me, is more down to the writing than to Chris Elliott’s performance (although Elliott fully commits to the material, and then some). The reasons are understandable, kind of. One of the main jokes in these early episodes is the inevitable culture clash that occurs when entitled (formerly) rich people find themselves rubbing up against country ‘hicks’; and, as representative and mouthpiece for the town, I can see how the writers would want to accentuate and play on the contrast between the uncouth mayor and the snobby Roses. But, for my money, they push it too far. In this first episode Roland comes across as not merely vulgar, but actively unpleasant, even vindictive.

At the same time you have the Roses themselves showing their most unattractive side, with Moira’s constant screaming and the siblings bickering like children (‘You shut up!’ ‘Um, YOU shut up!’). I know we have to see how self-centred the family are to begin with in order to appreciate the journey they go on; but, as depicted here, it all gets a bit repetitious and wearing, and makes it hard to feel interested or invested in these characters. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve spoken to who’ve said, ‘Schitt’s Creek? Oh yeah, I watched a couple of episodes but I couldn’t warm to it.’ Such a shame when you know of the riches to come. It feels like a crucial misstep for an opening episode.

On the more positive side, Emily Hampshire shines from the off as deadpan motel receptionist Stevie; and we get a first hint of the bond that will develop between her and David, one rooted in common feelings of isolation and a shared tendency for sarcasm to be the default mode of conversation. ‘Yes, we do have a business centre,’ she explains in response to a query from David. ‘It’s right outside the door, to your left, right next to the hammam spa.’

There’s an intriguing moment in the brief scene where David inspects the bathroom that he and Alexis will be sharing. After glancing with distaste at whatever unseen horrors lurk behind the shower curtain, and noting that there is only a single towel, his face suddenly screws up as if he is about to... what? Vomit? Or burst into tears? Whatever it is, he quickly clamps his hand over his mouth and nose to stop himself; he looks shocked, exhales sharply, and walks out of the room. The whole scene lasts twelve seconds, and it’s the only time in this episode we see David alone. Watching it again now, I can't help but think it’s a stifled sob, a glimpse of the vulnerability behind the mask.

Or maybe he’s just trying not to throw up. 😊

We get our first look inside Café Tropical, with some fine visual comedy arising from the family’s attempts to read the ridiculously oversized menus. We also meet the diner’s relentlessly cheerful waitress, Twyla (Sarah Levy), whose attempts at empathy with the Roses’ predicament misfire somewhat. Apparently her second cousin lost all his money when his telemarketing business turned out to be illegal: ‘He went to prison, which was terrible; but... he is learning Spanish. “¡No mas, le duele!”... I think it means: stop, it hurts.’

As for the main cast, the basic characters are there, and they all work hard at selling the gags (of which there are some corkers), but at this early stage there are few hints of much beneath the surface. The late and widely mourned Catherine O’Hara still seems to be testing the water with her characterisation of Moira; she has yet to develop the vividly eccentric personality and bizarre quirks of vocal delivery that will make her an icon as the fledgling comedy learns to spread its wings and take flight.

Moira-ism: ‘Children, keep an eye on these bags. Apparently in hell there’s no bell man.’

Fun fact: the interiors of the Rose family home in the opening scenes were filmed at a lavish French-inspired mansion in a prestigious area of Toronto, but the opening aerial shot is stock footage of Lisa Vanderpump’s former home in Beverly Hills, California.

Next episode: The Drip