Motel Review
Johnny tells Moira that he has to step out to pick up custom coasters for the motel and that he told Stevie that Moira would help her if she needed it. David mocks the coasters as well as his father’s complete lack of understanding of social media. David points out that there is no web address or twitter handle on Johnny’s coaster designs. Johnny asks David if hashtag is two words, to which David replies no.
Stevie knocks on the Rose parents’ door and Moira answers and tells her Johnny has gone to get coasters. Stevie says Johnny offered Moira’s help and offers her a choice of working the front desk or changing the sheets in all the rooms. Moira feigns enthusiasm for the front desk work.
Jocelyn asks Alexis to stay after class and asks if Alexis knows why. Alexis asks if it was because she was texting in class, but Jocelyn says her paper reads like someone else wrote it. Alexis is flattered until Jocelyn explains that she suspects Alexis plagiarized her paper. A horrified Alexis denies it, but when Jocelyn reads a passage from the paper Alexis realizes not only did she not write it, someone picked out a horrible font. Jocelyn tells Alexis she must write a new paper or fail.
David arrives at Ray’s office, where Ray is in the middle of a photo shoot. David taps Ray on the shoulder and says he has an appointment. David reminds Ray that he’s there to file his incorporation papers for his new business. Ray summons his assistant, a young man named Patrick. Patrick introduces himself to David and says “you bought the General Store” to which David replies that he “leased” it. As Ray continues with the photo shoot, Patrick tells David to have a seat. He begins to ask simple questions like the name and address of the business, to which David responds with complicated non-answers. David can’t even articulate the section that asks for a description of the business. Patrick is charmed and amused, and he tells David that he should come back when he has a clearer idea of what he wants to do with his business. They banter, and David leaves with Patrick’s business card.
Moira reads a book at the front desk when a small, bald man asks to check-in. She tosses him a key and goes back to her book. He asks if she needs his credit card and she says her associates will take care of that when he departs. He proceeds to make a number of petty requests, at which Moira becomes increasingly irritated to the point where she tells him she doesn’t care.
Alexis waits outside the motel for Johnny, who asks how school was. She replies “not great” and tells him that Jocelyn failed her economics paper. Johnny is incensed because “she worked so hard on it” and that it was founded on practical information from the field. An annoyed Alexis claims her original paper was totally fine, and Johnny still doesn’t comprehend why his “edits” constitute plagiarism. He also asks if Jocelyn mentioned the quote from Lee Iacocca.
David helps Stevie with the motel sheets and he tells her that “some guy” who works at Ray’s told him his business was a failure. A skeptical Stevie probes this claim, and David admits that he was the one who insinuated his business was a failure. Stevie tells David his business is a good idea, and she wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true because she’s incapable of faking sincerity. She also tells him the guy was probably just trying to help. She also offers him a joint she found under one of the beds, and David replies “that’s disgusting” before taking her up on her offer.
David stands alone in the empty General Store, with glassy eyes. He moves a chair around as the place echoes. He sits down, and then he leaves a series of messages for Patrick beginning with: “Hi David, it’s Patrick.” The messages become more and more flighty but he also manages to describe his business idea.
Johnny is looking at his laptop, and he asks Moira if anything happened that morning. Moira proudly says she “manned that front desk with the vigor of a wartime radio operator” and checked in one whole guest, with a litany of requests. Johnny tells her that he left a bad review for the motel and explains how bad that could be for their business. An angry Moira says that for Johnny she will get the man to take down the review, but she will not hide behind the internet.
David returns to Ray’s office and sheepishly asks for another incorporation form. Patrick teases David about the messages, but he also says he was able to fill out David’s forms. Patrick praises David’s plan as inventive and says the name “Rose Apothecary” is just pretentious enough. David asks if the name is pretentious or timeless. Patrick says he will call David when he hears something and smiles as David leaves.
Alexis is working on her paper, and Johnny looks over her shoulder. They discuss how he wasn’t there for her when she was in private school and that’s why he wanted to “help” her now. He also doesn’t think that taking something one’s dad wrote and passing it off as one’s own is plagiarism, to which Alexis replies it is. He also hints that she might have made a grammar mistake.
Moira confronts the motel guest at the vending machine, where he complains that the drinks are so cold they are hurting his fingers. She confronts him about the review, and then proceeds to act a monologue from her Sunrise Bay days that convinces him to take down the review. She thanks him, and then she turns around and smiles.
At the cafe, Jocelyn comes up to the Rose family to congratulate Alexis on her paper, on which she got a C+ but that was still better than the original because Alexis wrote it herself. David then shows Alexis the new motel coasters, which say “Follow Us on Tweeters.”
Snarkiest Person in Schitt's Creek: Patrick Brewer
Tropes that Appear in This Episode
- Best Friend: Stevie proves to be a great best friend, encouraging David's business plans and making him see reason about Patrick.
- Big "OMG!": Johnny when he reads the negative motel review.
- Catchphrase: David once again pops out his "I don't understand that." in response to Patrick saying "Batting 1000, here." in reference to David's inability to fill out any part of his incorporation papers, then again when Patrick notes he threw David a change-up.David: I'm sorry, I don't play cricket.
- Comically Missing the Point: Johnny is more concerned with how well Jocelyn received his alterations to Alexis's paper, and David confuses Patrick's baseball references for cricket.
- Establishing Character Moment: Not only is Patrick patient with David's drama, he's rather captivated by it. That said, he's also willing to call David out when necessary.
- Freak Out: David, as usual, has a little panic attack when trying to describe his business to Patrick. Stevie points out that his inability to describe it isn't because he doesn't know what he wants (he's walked her through it several times), but because he's freaking out about actually doing it.
- He Really Can Act: In-Universe, Moira calls back to her soap history and turns on the waterworks in order to convince a customer to remove a bad review by making him believe that her daughter married her uncle, believed to have been killed years before, who is now in debt to the Indian cartel, who demand the profits from the motel, and who almost kidnapped her pregnant daughter but agreed to just the profits, but not before shaving her daughter's head, and that's why Moira works at the motel for free, because this is her flesh and blood.
- Idiot Ball: Stevie asks Moira to work the front desk.
- Meet Cute: David babbles nonsense about his business plan to an amused, and in hindsight clearly smitten, Patrick. Then he calls Patrick and leaves a significant number of incoherent text.... voicemails, sorry.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: Ironically, it is the Book Dumb Alexis who understands that plagiarism is wrong, while Johnny does not.
- Precision F-Strike: In response to a negative review calling her out specifically, Moira calls the intimidated man she "checked in" "That fussy little fucker.".
- Soap Within a Show: Moira's experience on Sunrise Bay helps her make up for her incompetence as a desk clerk.
- The Stoner: David and Stevie get stoned offscreen, and this leads to David leaving a series of adorably incoherent messages for Patrick.
- Technologically Blind Elders: Johnny doesn't understand that David is talking about the lack of a web address on the coasters and struggles to patch it when he finally gets the hint. The episode ends with David and Alexis mocking the coasters for telling customers to "follow us on tweeters".
- Unwanted Assistance: Johnny "helps" Alexis into getting accused of plagiarism without her knowledge and continues to try and help even as she wants to do the work on her own. Also, David at first rejects Patrick's assistance but later is wise enough to take it.
