Schmigadoon! Season 2 Premiere Explained — Schmicago Cast, Characters

Melissa and Josh have discovered real love… however are they completely happy? That’s the query hanging over their heads in Schmigadoon!‘s Season 2 premiere, which picks up after a substantial time bounce and reveals Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key‘s characters discovering it quite troublesome to readjust to life in the true world.

“They go through all these milestones in life — they’re married, they buy a house in Connecticut, they’re successful in their careers — but there are difficulties that you inevitably face,” Strong tells TVLine. “Those build up, and you lose confidence.”

Alas, Melissa and Josh are in one thing of a rut and determined to flee it. They even have a hankering for some corn pudding.

“They know they have Schmigadoon, which is this magic place,” Strong says. “It’s a quick fix,” if not a everlasting repair, they usually determine to return. But they rapidly uncover you “can never go back,” and as an alternative wind up in Schmicago, a grittier city impressed by Sixties and ’70s musicals, together with Cabaret, Chicago, Hair and Sweeney Todd, simply to call a number of. Schmicago is populated by acquainted faces — fellow returnees embrace Ariana DeBose, Dove Cameron, Jaime Camil, Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Ann Harada, Jane Krakowski and Aaron Tveit — however nobody is taking part in the identical character they inhabited in Season 1. And in one other twist that units Season 2 other than Season 1, it’s Josh, not Melissa, who’s fast to embrace their new environment. But his tune adjustments comparatively quick, when he’s all of a sudden the prime suspect in a muuuurder.

“It’s a rude awakening for Josh because he thinks he’s going to enjoy this place,” Key tells us. “He’s the one who has to convince Melissa, ‘Let’s just stay for a day, maybe we’ll have fun,’ and then he winds up in prison, on death row.”

So, what different adjustments are in retailer for Schmigadoon! Season 2? Keep scrolling to see what collection co-creator Cinco Paul has to say concerning the musical satire’s six-episode encore…

TIGHTER PACING

Image Credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+

When Apple first greenlit Schmigadoon! Season 1, the order was for eight episodes. It was finally pared down to 6, however not earlier than eight scripts had been written. Alas, viewers may need felt a rush to the end line the primary time round.

But with Season 2, Paul knew that he was working with a six-episode order from the get-go. As a outcome, “this has a plot that moves like a machine,” he tells TVLine. “Season 1 was a little looser, more romcom-y. This is a little more Sweeney Todd-esque, so you really have to plot it carefully. The first couple weeks in the writers’ room, that’s all we were doing — figuring out that this leads to this, and this leads to that.”
THE USE OF A NARRATOR

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Season 2 installs Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s Tituss Burgess as the narrator — a role inspired by The Leading Player from 1972’s Pippin. Early on, Melissa cracks that ’60s and ’70s musicals relied on a narrator in lieu of story, “which is maybe a little bit unfair,” Paul says, “although a lot of the shows in that era do have story problems.” But Burgess’ function, he says, is “invaluable,” and retains the story from veering off monitor.

“His commentary on the characters and the choices they make is always funny, and anytime he looks directly to the camera, I just love it,” the EP provides. “I guess you could say I came around to the value of a narrator to help you move through things. It’s a little bit of a crutch, but if you use it right, it’s very effective.”
SUPPORTING CAST TAKES CENTER STAGE

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Whereas Cecily Strong and/or Keegan-Michael Key have been in just about each scene in Season 1, Season 2 has whole storylines the place Melissa and Josh are barely current. That was one in all Paul’s targets with this sophomore effort — to flesh out secondary and tertiary characters and make them really feel like they may exist even when Melissa and Josh usually are not interacting with them.

“The [musicals] got more complex and the characters got more real in ’60s and ’70s, so it behooved us to do the same thing with our characters,” he says. “We actually needed the characters to be actual, and their trauma to be actual, and their struggles to be actual. We didn’t need them to be cutout characters, and definitely not one of the actors needed that both, so it was actually necessary that they may stand on their very own.

“A question I had early on was, ‘Will the audience go along for a scene that’s just between Dove Cameron’s character and Aaron Tveit’s character? Will they go along for that ride?’” In order to realize this, Paul set a rule for any such scene: “It was important that [any action] be something that Josh and Melissa made happen,” he explains. “If they were the force behind [something happening between two of our supporting characters], then it was fine to go away from them for a little while and see what they’ve unleashed on this world.”

What follows is a breakdown of who every returning solid member is taking part in in Season 2…
ARIANA DEBOSE

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SEASON 1 ROLE: Emma Tate (impressed by The Music Man‘s Marian Paroo)

SEASON 2 ROLE: Emcee (impressed by Cabaret‘s Emcee)
DOVE CAMERON

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SEASON 1 ROLE: Betsy McDonough (impressed by Oklahoma!‘s Ado Annie)

SEASON 2 ROLE: Jenny Banks (impressed by Cabaret‘s Sally Bowles)
JAIME CAMIL

Image Credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+

SEASON 1 ROLE: Jorge Lopez (impressed by The Sound of Music‘s Captain von Trapp)

SEASON 2 ROLE: Sergeant Rivera
KRISTIN CHENOWETH

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Image Credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+

SEASON 1 ROLE: Mildred Layton (impressed by The Music Man‘s Mrs. Shinn)

SEASON 2 ROLE: Miss Caldwell (impressed by Sweeney Todd‘s Mrs. Lovett and Annie‘s Miss Hannigan)
ALAN CUMMING

Image Credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+

SEASON 1 ROLE: Aloysius Menlove

SEASON 2 ROLE: Dooley Flint (impressed by Sweeney Todd‘s title character)
ANN HARADA

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SEASON 1 ROLE: Florence Menlove

SEASON 2 ROLE: Madam Frau (impressed by Cabaret‘s Fräulein Schneider)
JANE KRAKOWSKI

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SEASON 1 ROLE: Gabriele Von Blerkom aka “Blerky” (impressed by The Sound of Music‘s Baroness)

SEASON 2 ROLE: Bobby Flanagan (impressed by Chicago‘s Billy Flynn)
AARON TVEIT

Image Credit: Courtesy of Apple TV+

SEASON 1 ROLE: Danny Bailey (impressed by Carousel‘s Billy Bigelow)

SEASON 2 ROLE: Topher (impressed by the primary characters in Pippin, Godspell and Hair)

Schmigadoon! Season 2 premieres Wednesday, April 5 on Apple TV+.