Apple TV+’s musical theater comedy is back for a second season with the same cast and a very different setting. Welcome to… Schmicago? Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa (Cecily Strong) escaped Schmigadoon with their relationship stronger than ever, but a few years pass and the monotony and disappointment of their lives leave them wanting to return. However, just like Brigadoon, you can’t go back. Instead, they find themselves in Schmicago, a smoky, dark, dreary town full of familiar faces with different personalities. Where season 1 of Schmigadoon! parodied musicals of the Golden Age (1940s and 1950s), season 2 goes for the darker and edgier musicals of the 1960s and 1970s where it’s all Fosse, all the time. Goodbye, Rodgers and Hammerstein; hello, Kander and Ebb! Season two, so far, is just as great as season one — if not better. Everyone is pitch perfect, from Key and Strong, whose chemistry has only grown, and Aaron Tveit, parodying a new kind of leading man, to series newcomer Titus Burgess, a standout as the narrator (because, of course, musicals of this era tended to have a narrator move the story along). In two episodes, the show has already taken noticeable influence from Chicago, Hair, Pippin, Cabaret, and A Chorus Line with original songs that’ll get stuck in your head, and teased elements of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Godspell, and Annie still to come. Theater kids, you won’t want to miss this one.
Photo: Apple TV+
