Schitt's Creek ends with a declaration of love.
In the series finale, during a ceremony presided over by Moira, with Alexis, Johnny, and the rest of the town watching on, Patrick and David finally exchanged vows: a cappella Mariah Carey from Patrick and weepy sincerity (followed by a winking inside joke) from David.
The outpouring of love wasn't limited to the grooms. All over the series finale, characters kept finding ways to show how each other how much they cared — in hugs, "I'll miss you"s, last-minute scrambles, and even, in one instance, an enormous sign.
It was exactly the happy-cry-fest we've come to expect from the sweetest show on television, down to its signature oddball touches — like Moira's headwear, which is equal parts Daenerys Targaryen and Pope Benedict XVI.
It was also a far cry from the first days of Schitt's, when the series seemed positioned as a satire of both clueless one-percenters and uncouth small-towners, and its leads a family that barely seemed able to stand each other or the backwater they'd landed in. Like most great series finales, the Schitt's ending invited us not just to think ahead to the characters' futures, but look back at the road they've traveled.
Alexis, a daughter who could hardly bring herself to tell her mother how much she wanted her at her graduation in Season 3, gave Moira an off-the-cuff "I love you" in the finale. Moira, a mother who once went out of her way to avoid lunch with her daughter, hugged her back. David, who in the pilot episode tries to take the far bed for fear of intruders (prompting Alexis' hilarious "You get murdered first for once!"), told Alexis how much he respects her as she prepared to walk him down the aisle.
Schitt's Creek has never tried to hide just how difficult the journey has been.
"Precious Love," sung by the Jazzagals at the wedding, called back to the Season 2 finale, when the Roses danced together at Mutt's party, while "Simply the Best" evoked the precise moment that Patrick and David's relationship went from a sweet fling to a serious romance. (And that Mariah Carey number, of course, is a reference to David's well documented love of the singer.)
At the altar, David opened himself up to Patrick in front of their friends and family, which would have seemed unimaginable to the David that once had to freak out with Ted just to gather up the courage to tell Patrick he loved him back.
"It's not been an easy road for me," he says to Patrick here, and we know it's true because Schitt's Creek has never tried to hide just how difficult that journey has been. From that brittle first episode, the show took its time chipping away each member of the Rose family (plus Stevie), dismantling their defenses bit by bit, coaxing out the tenderness underneath.
It sought out tiny victories, like Alexis' private smile when David tells her in Season 3 that he'd always worried about her when she was gallivanting around the globe, and celebrated spectacular ones, like Stevie's emotional performance of Cabaret in the Season 5 finale.
It never lost sight of who the Roses were — they're snarky and fabulous and live to make fun of each other — but by the time David and Alexis were piling on Johnny for Moira's Rose's Garden in Season 3, their teasing had turned from cutting to affectionate.
Truth be told, "Happy Ending" isn't the best finale Schitt's Creek has ever given us. (Admittedly, that is a very high bar.) The plot treads water through a string of inconsequential mishaps, and characters whose plot lines have been resolved already, like Stevie, simply don't have much to do. There's a sense that we're just waiting for the big event we already know is coming.
But those feel like minor quibbles when the episode as a whole so gracefully encompasses everything we've come to love about this series: its enormous heart, its sly comedy, its quirky aesthetic, and above all, its deep fondness for its eccentric cast of characters.
"Happy Ending" actually finishes the morning after David and Patrick's wedding, as Moira and Johnny move out of the motel. On their way out of the town, Johnny notices that Roland has painted over the town sign with illustrations of the Rose family, as a going-away gift.
It's one last nod to the show's early days, when Johnny and Roland argued over whether the sign was accidentally obscene. At the time, Roland and the town council declined to revise the sign, bristling at the idea of this newcomer telling them what to do. After six seasons in Schitt's Creek, though, the Roses are no longer out-of-towners, but the heart of everything the town stands for.
Johnny and Moira may be headed to California, Alexis to New York, and David and Patrick to their new home across town. Even Stevie's moving on, from the motel reception desk to the road to set up new motels.
But Schitt's Creek will always be there, ready to welcome us back when we're ready for a revisit, or eager to invite latecomer fans into its warm embrace, happy to extend some humor and grace and empathy for anyone who needs it. When Johnny spots the sign, we see first that the art has changed, but then that the slogan hasn't: It's still "Where everyone fits in."
