Carl’s Funeral
At the motel, Roland and Jocelyn knock on Johnny and Moira’s room. Their mood is uncharacteristically sober, and Moira asks if everything is all right. A tearful Jocelyn holds tissues and says they’ve got sad news. Someone very close has died. Roland says, do you remember Bob? Moira says no. Roland reminds her of the cabin sex, and Johnny and Moira assume Bob has died. It’s not Bob, however, but Bob’s brother Carl whom Johnny and Moira do not remember at all. Awkwardly, Carl thought the world of Johnny, and Bob has asked Roland to ask Johnny to be a pallbearer. Johnny claims to have a bad back.
David hears a sound and gets out of bed. It’s a baby and an arguing redneck couple. They are checking into the motel. David is startled by a noise he thinks might be a gun, but it’s just the redneck woman throwing something. Alexis decides to go to Ted’s, and David feels abandoned by her.
Johnny reads the paper at the cafe. Bob comes in, and Twyla consoles him with a series of loopy meditations on death. Bob sits in the next booth from Johnny, and he asks if can join Johnny because he could use company. Johnny insists on joining him, making a big deal of his “bad back.” Johnny sits down and gives his condolences about Carl, who he calls Chris at first. Bob talk-manipulates Johnny into giving the eulogy at the funeral. Johnny tries to get out of it, but Bob won’t relent.
Stevie reads a book on the lobby couch. David comes in grousing about the skaggy couple that has checked in. Stevie replies imagine what it would be like to be related to them. They are her cousins, Sean and Bree. David tries to backpedal, but she agrees they are skaggy. He asks if she was related to Carl, and she explains the convoluted way she is by marriage.
Alexis looks around Ted’s immaculate and decorator-perfect apartment. She praises it, and she giggles and kisses him. Then, Ted’s foster dogs, one wearing a cone and a diaper, come in and jump into their laps. Alexis isn’t used to being around animals. Ted says to think of them as their kids.
Moira and Johnny walk home with a bag of groceries. Moira can’t believe Johnny agreed to the eulogy. Johnny says Bob was weeping. Johnny doesn’t know what he’ll say, and Moira says the situation reminds her of the funeral of a crew member on Sunrise Bay. She was asked to speak, and she just sang "Danny Boy".
At Ted’s, Alexis and Ted get in bed. She says she’s happy he’s not her brother and kisses him. They kiss more, and the dog with the cone comes and stares at them. Ted says they do that sometimes. It looks happy as it continues to stare. Alexis asks if they could invite it to go away, but Ted says she’s fine. The second, bigger dog comes in, and it sniffs the diaper of the smaller. Ted shoos them away, but they return and start barking. Ted continues to kiss Alexis’s shoulder, and she mouths “Go away” at the dogs.
Stevie’s cousins are having a wild, smoke-filled party in their room, with the baby in the playpen. David enters, and Sean claims it’s a celebration of Carl’s life. David just asks them to keep it quiet, but Sean refuses. David spies Stevie, who has a drink and slurs that she hates them. They got her wasted. He says she smells flammable. He asks if she can get them to turn it down. David leaves as Stevie apologizes.
Johnny and Moira arrive at Carl’s funeral, and they make awkward small talk. Johnny asks how Carl went, and Bob explains it was a freak accident. Carl was apparently trying to unhook his belt from his ceiling fan and it got knotted around his neck.
Stevie is scrubbing Sean and Bree’s room carpet, and David asks if she knows what the stain is. She replies if she knew, she wouldn’t clean it up. He asks her why she is cleaning it up, and she says she threw most of the broken glass. He says she was a bit of a mess. She’s surprised and asks if they told him. He informs her they had a full blown conversation. She apologizes and asks if she tried to make out with him. He says no. She’s then worried that she made out with someone else, because it’s her go-to when boozy. He smiles and says his is “shame eating” so hers is more fun. David starts helping her by picking up items with a stick, including a thong, which is Bree’s. Stevie says his, meaning Sean’s, was wrapped around the remote. She threw out the remote. David looks into a pillow and says they have a side hustle. He retrieves a big bag of weed. She says if he’s offering, her answer is yes. He smiles and does a little dance, and she smiles.
The minister thanks a reader for her reading of an excerpt from Breaking Dawn, one of Carl’s favorite Twilight movies. The minister introduces Johnny as a close friend and one of Carl’s personal heroes. People clap, and Bree’s baby cries. Johnny tries his best, and he gives some generic comments about death and some vague comments, then he starts wondering what Carl was thinking when spinning around on the fan. He realizes Carl was born, lived and died in Schitt’s Creek. Bree starts yelling at Sean on her cell phone and then leaves with the baby. Johnny then says he’s here to talk about the misery of their lives in this place and how they might never escape. Johnny doesn’t want to end up like Carl…and Moira interrupts by singing “Danny Boy.” Everyone joins, including Johnny.
At the cafe, Ted apologizes for not being sensitive to Alexis’s animal issues. He also apologizes on behalf of the dogs, and she smiles. She says she’s dating a vet, and there will be slutty little animals around. Ted smiles and says he only takes in the slutty ones. She laughs. He says he loves the dogs, but he also loves…the way their relationship is going. He’s gotten them a hotel room in Elmdale. They thank each other.
In the smokey motel room, Stevie is on the bed, and David is sitting on the floor wearing Sean’s hat. He says he got his hat at a**holes ‘r us. They laugh. They hear Sean and Bree, and they scramble up and into the honeymoon suite next door. They just miss them, and they can hear Sean cursing and looking for his hat. David and Stevie laugh over the fact that he’s wearing the hat, and then David kisses her and presses her again the door, enthusiastically but awkwardly. He drops their beer bottles as the kiss turns less awkward.
Johnny and Moira are at the post-funeral gathering, and Johnny is telling her that he was thinking “Oh my god, what if I die here?” She replies that that was not lost on anyone. She suggests they pilfer a few sandwiches and make a graceful exit. Jocelyn thanks Moira for her beautiful singing, and Roland asks her to sing at his cousin’s funeral, who is not dead but has been coughing. Bob asks for one more chorus before they close the coffin. Moira sings very dramatically and slowly.
Snarkiest Person in Schitt’s Creek:
David Rose
Tropes that Appear in This Episode
- Black Comedy: Circumstances push Johnny into giving a eulogy for a man he can't even remember. Funeral + Cringe Comedy gets dialed up to eleven as Johnny struggles in the face of the man's grieving brother.
- Turns out Carl got his belt knotted around his neck when it got caught in the ceiling fan, then stayed there for two days.
- Character Development: The mostly selfish and self-involved David helps Stevie clean up the trashed motel room, and he shows genuine compassion for her.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Twyla’s thoughts on death are peculiar.
- Coming and Going: While most of the town attends Carl's funeral, Stevie and David begin their brief sexual relationship, and Ted and Alexis are also seen trying to find space to have sex, sans dogs.
- The "Fun" in "Funeral": Johnny’s eulogy for Carl escalates into funny existential horror, and Moira saves him by singing.
- Happily Married: Moira has Johnny’s back, and they make a great team in this episode.
- It's All About Me: The normally sane Johnny manages to make Carl’s eulogy all about himself and his family’s plight.
- Kissing Under the Influence: David and Stevie, after getting stoned and giggly.
- Running Gag: This is not the last time Johnny will try and weasel out of something by saying he has a bad back.
- The Stoner: David and Stevie get happily stoned.
- Suicide as Comedy: When Johnny asks how Carl passed away, Bob replies it was a freak accident that happened when Carl's belt looped around Carl's neck and a ceiling fan. Johnny realizes the truth, but Bob and most of the town continue to believe it was an accident.
- That Came Out Wrong: Johnny says Carl loved the feel of a big tool in his hand.
- Verbal Backspace: David tries to do this when Stevie tells him that his new neighbors are her cousins. She doubles down and insists that her family are the worst.
- White Sheep: Stevie is embarrassed by some rather sleazy branches of her family.
