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Schmigadoon! recently concluded its six episode run on Apple TV+. A love letter to classic American musicals that blends playful parody with realistic relationship drama, the show begins when struggling couple Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) stumble upon the titular town while lost on a backpacking retreat. In Schmigadoon, life is a musical — a 1950s Golden Age musical, to be precise — and Josh and Melissa quickly find that they are unable to return to the real world until they find “true love.” As one might expect, the meaning of this dictate is not as simple as it may first appear.
Josh and Melissa are in love, but after several years together, their relationship has begun to stagnate. Melissa anxiously longs for the perfect romance, while Josh is a more laid-back, cynical type who tends to distance himself through sarcastic humor. When they’re unable to leave Schmigadoon together, these cracks widen into a relationship-ending chasm, with a heartbroken Melissa accusing Josh of not believing their love is true.
In the finale, this central conflict between the leads comes to a beautiful and cathartic climax when Josh finally sings, expressing his love for Melissa and regret for the ways he’s made her feel lonely with his cynical attitude. It’s an incredibly powerful, well-earned moment of release and nuanced storytelling, and it employs musical theater conventions in a way that shows deep understanding of the medium’s unique strengths.
From minute one, Josh is thoroughly peeved by the situation they’re in, and he categorically refuses to participate in the schmaltz and singing that rule the day in Schmigadoon. Meanwhile, Melissa is actually quite thrilled to be living in a Rodgers and Hammerstein world, and it’s not long before she’s naturally expressing her true feelings and thoughts through song. But Josh is steadfast in his distaste for all the warbling, with Key’s pitch-perfect sardonic exasperation constantly keeping the character at a distance from everything, even as he’s drawn deeper into the Schmigadoon world through his relationships with locals.
It’s easy to write off the couple’s problems as all being on Josh — after all, he’s often shown pushing Melissa away, both in the present-day action in Schmigadoon and in the flashbacks to their real-world history that open each episode. His feelings for her are sincere, but he tends to shy away from overt sentimentality, especially if the situation takes him out of his comfort zone. But Schmigadoon! isn’t content to leave things on such a simplistic note, and it’s clearly established that Melissa has her share of culpability in the decline of their relationship. Just as Josh has kept her at arm’s length with his cool-guy cynicism, she’s put unrealistic and unfair expectations of perfection onto him and their future together. The end result is an unhealthy cycle where neither person ever feels like they’re enough.
These nuanced character arcs perfectly set up the finale’s big duet, which begins when Melissa tearfully apologizes for her part in how things have devolved. In a huge gesture of growth and reconciliation, she admits that her insistence on an impossible ideal of perfection is as much to blame for their issues as Josh’s aloofness. The only way Josh can respond in kind is to meet her at the same level of vulnerability — and meet her he does, opening his mouth to sing for the first and only time in the show.
Key and Strong absolutely knock it out of the park in this pivotal moment, delivering unforgettable performances full of emotion and authenticity. Showrunner Cinco Paul’s decision to record live singing on set pays off in a big way here, as the wobbles and nervousness in Key’s voice strike directly at the heart. In fact, as noted by Paul in this interview, the rawness of Key’s performance was something they deliberately pursued; he told Key not to work on the song with a vocal coach so that the character’s singing would be as unpolished as possible. The choice works spectacularly well, resulting in a star turn from Key that feels guaranteed to leave even the most hard-hearted viewers choked up.
The song itself is a simple tune, with poignant, plainspoken lyrics that feel entirely natural in Josh’s voice. Its title and refrain of “You Make Me Wanna Sing” is a neat turn of phrase that operates on multiple levels. Most obviously, it’s a literal statement. It’s also a sweet declaration of love and of the joy that Melissa makes him feel. Most meaningfully, it’s a statement of willingness to change his detached attitude and lay it all on the table, the thing he’s always struggled to do. Josh sings for the entirety of the first part of the song, giving his big moment of character development the space and importance it deserves.
The melody of “You Make Me Wanna Sing” is a clear standout even among the many other earworms Schmigadoon! has to offer. It’s mellow and tuneful, a worthy addition to the canon of classic love songs like “You Were Meant For Me” from Singin’ in the Rain. If there are any doubts as to how integral this number is to the show’s overall arc, a second watch-through should lay those to rest — keen-eared repeat viewers will notice that the song’s melody is actually foreshadowed in instrumental form throughout the show, especially in scenes that affirm the genuine love and care between Josh and Melissa.
Naturally, as the song reaches its climax, the lovers, overcome with emotion, begin to dance together in a simple and lovely pas de deux. After all — as the show reminds viewers in an earlier episode through a very meta comment from Melissa — in musical theater, when you’re too emotional to talk, you sing, and when you’re too emotional to sing, you dance. The lighting dims and the world fades away as Josh and Melissa step lightly through uncomplicated choreography, effortlessly bringing the audience into this deeply intimate moment. Finally, as the dance break winds down, Melissa joins Josh in a simple and sweet harmony, representing the full synchronization of their feelings and desires. There’s a pure rightness to this structure that works very well and shows a true understanding of what makes musical theater storytelling so powerful and compelling in the right hands.
It’s impressive how surprising and effective this number is when it finally happens, even though it’s objectively an inevitable moment that the whole show was building towards. That’s the mark of a well told story, and fittingly, it’s a particular strength of many musicals — their endings can often be predictable, but the best shows make the audience feel the journey as though it’s all happening for the first time. “You Make Me Wanna Sing” is lightning in a bottle, a flawless melding of form and function that reaffirms the unique emotional heft that high-quality musical theater can bring. The song’s touching and realistic message of “true love is something you choose to build together” perfectly caps off everything the show’s been trying to do, cementing Schmigadoon! as a masterpiece.
Schmigadoon! is available to stream on Apple TV+.
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