Warning: This article contains spoilers.
The sixth season of “Schitt’s Creek” has finally hit Netflix and people from all over are scrambling to watch the mega-hit comedy that swept the 2020 Emmy’s in all major comedy categories. “Schitt’s Creek” became the first show in history to take home seven Emmys in the top comedy categories.
The show is now attaining recognition five years after its televised debut on Pop TV in 2015. Dan Levy co-created and starred in the series alongside his father, famed actor Eugene Levy. After some convincing from the Levys, Catherine O’Hara, another longtime famous actress, joined her friends in the series as Moira Rose, the very eccentric matriarch of the family with a prominently magnanimous vocabulary. With Dan creating, writing and playing the lead role of David and legendary actors Catherine and Eugene in lead roles with great on-screen chemistry, the fourth member of the Rose family would have a very large pair of snakeskin Gucci sandals to fill.
While most of the roles had been cast in the lead up to the show, the fourth lead role was still up for grabs. Annie Murphy, a relatively unknown actress, claimed the title and ended up making a name for herself in her own respect for her lovable portrayal of Alexis Rose. The Primetime Emmy Awards were held on September 20, 2020, and “Schitt’s Creek” was slated to finally garner the credit that it deserved. Dan, Eugene and Catherine all walked away with Emmys for their acting in a comedy series at the top of the show. In a very similar way to her casting, Annie’s category was the last to be announced. She snatched the last Emmy of the night for acting in a comedy series, proving to everyone that she can hold her own amongst a star-studded cast even if she, herself, had not been a household name yet.
The writing for Alexis from seasons one to six has been phenomenal in every way possible. She is a wacky, fun-loving, cute socialite with cunning savvy and a story for every occasion. Annie Murphy, however, was able to take this role and make it her own with her performance.
“When we first meet Alexis, she is, on paper, quite an unlikable character: A blonde, ditsy, selfish socialite who is incredibly dependent on money and incredibly dependent on men. It was really important to me to play Alexis as a real person, not a one-note ditsy blonde. Real people have many layers, and many versions of themselves.”
-Annie Murphy, The Lily
Despite her questionable start, Alexis actually has one of the best character arcs in the entire show. She finishes high school, gets her college degree in marketing and ‘pubic’ relations, negotiates a legal deal, starts her own business, throws a movie premiere, creates a viral publicity moment, gets a job offer as a publicist at a major company, and develops the strongest romantic, platonic and familial bonds she’s ever had in her life.
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Alexis’s development lies within the timeline of her love life. In the series premiere, we find Alexis relying on her egotistical, womanizing boyfriend Stavros to save her from bankruptcy and life in Schitt’s Creek. Rather than coming to her rescue, he shortly dumps her over text while she’s at the lowest point in her life. For the first few seasons, Alexis finds herself in a love triangle between Ted — a sweet, clean-cut fun loving veterinarian — and Mutt — an edgy, rugged, aloof environmentalist. Alexis goes back and forth between these two boys (despite whether or not they have girlfriends), but eventually she discovers that she is not compatible with Mutt and, although Ted is not the kind of guy she usually goes for, Ted is the kind of guy Alexis should be with.
Ted and Alexis have a very wholesome, pure and healthy love until distance pulls at the threads of their relationship. Ted’s career is pulling him toward The Galápagos Islands, while Alexis’s career is pulling her toward New York City. Though they love each other, they come to the very mature and adult decision that they can’t put their lives on hold for each other. A woman does not need to end up with a man to be happy, and so, in the series finale, contrasting the majority of the series, Alexis ends up single, which is possibly the greatest way she could have ended up. Alexis starts off as this very needy and dependent girl who chooses the wrong guys romantically and she emerges as an empowered and ambitious career woman who has grown as a person in every way possible.
Though she starts off as shallow and perhaps a bit “ditsy,” she actually proves to be a very wise, uplifting and insightful woman. She teaches a lot of life lessons and shows us how a person can turn their life around and become an incredible role model. And honestly … I love that journey for her.
She grew up in this superficial world depending on boys and money and inanimate objects. You take her out of that and put her into Schitt’s Creek, and she’s able to shed those superficial layers and start growing the parts that were there all along but she didn’t have access to. It turns out that she is kind and selfish but also selfless. She is smart, she is driven and she is independent. I’m so grateful to the writers for [creating] such an awesome arc for a female character.”
-Annie Murphy, NYLON