If the first season of Schmigadoon was about finding your “happily ever after,” then the second season explores how that ending is just the beginning — and that finding happiness is much more complicated than the classic musicals would lead you to believe.
For Melissa and Josh (Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key), this proves to be a hard truth, as they embark on their return to the magical world of musicals. Their plan is to escape from the grinding reality of the real world for the brightly cheerful, technicolor world of Schmigadoon once more. But instead of the Schmigadoon they know, they happen upon the darker underbelly world of Schmicago. Here, the answers aren’t so easy and the rules — now inspired by a later era of musicals — have all changed.
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“In the first season, I think this true love idea is sort of all wrapped up and another person,” Cecily Strong tells PRIDE. “It’s like, your happiness is then connected to your love of this other person. I think this season goes into more [about] your love for yourself and who you are.”
In keeping with the show’s new tone, looking inwards also means facing darker truths. “That means your limitations as well and your own dark corners like Schmicago. I think that [Melissa and Josh] both wanted to escape the actual realities of their life. I think for Melissa personally, it was like she’s not feeling as confident. And so it’s like, ‘let’s go just live in the fantasy then.’ Because I know I’m confident there. And I know I’m great there,” Strong explains. “You have to learn to love and find happiness in what’s real, what’s really in you. And then saying ‘That’s okay and I’m happy and things cannot be perfect. And I’m okay with that.’”
“For Josh, some of it is about Melissa,” Key tells PRIDE. “He doesn’t know how to console or support [her]. He doesn’t know what to do. And he doesn’t know the answer to the question. He doesn’t know what happiness is. He thinks it’s an accomplishment. That is, of course, the world they’ve already come from. They accomplished the marriage. They accomplished getting the house in the suburbs, they accomplished being where they wanted to be in their careers. And yet they were still left with this empty feeling.”
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Throughout the season, the characters go on a journey to answer the question of what happiness is, how you achieve it, and, frankly, if it’s an achievable goal at all. “I agree so much with what Cecily says that there’s something internal, there has to be an internal satisfaction with imperfection. That you’re okay, that everything’s fine, and we find the gifts where they are now, as opposed to it being a striving towards something all the time,” Key adds.
While the subject matter and the setting may be dark, there’s an undeniable spirit of joy that runs throughout the series. It’s the costuming, the songs, and the dance numbers, and it comes bubbling up from the chemistry between its two leads who confess they were constantly trying to make the other laugh while filming.
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Key recalls one scene in particular where he’s getting up from a table and suddenly in a deep voice says he’s going to powder his nose. It’s a funny moment borne not so much out of the line as it’s written, but by Key’s delivery. “During that scene, there was no motivation for Josh. That’s just Keegan trying to make Cecily laugh. And also another moment was when we’re walking through the turnstile of the doors when I say you’ve got the only ‘T I want to A’. That might have been when we had a couple of improvised [lines make it in], I think,” says Key.
“I think our moments didn’t make it,” Strong corrects with a laugh.
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“The end of the scene would come and then we would put two to three more endings on the scene. We’ve been doing that since season one. That’s a technique! That’s the Cecily-Keegan technique,” jokes Key.
“And there truly were days where it was like, we’re kind of in that goofy, loopy [kind of] tired, so then it’s like, well, I just want to make you laugh,” Strong says, turning to Key.
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While not all the improved lines made it in, that kind of playful banter comes through regardless of whether or not it makes the final cut. “I’m telling you it came through even at three o’clock in the morning when you hear birds chirping,” recalls Key. “Between takes, too, we’ll have a lot of fun with each other. You’ll see at the top of takes — you’ll hear ‘action’ and the scene will start with us going ‘hee hee hee hee hee.’ We’re just giggling and we’re taping it!”
