Created by Jared Keeso and Jacob Tierney. Crave/Hulu
In my brief review of Season 1 I was feeling positive, but tentative. I wasn't quite sure where the show was going, or what its intentions were. In hindsight I think a few statements in that review are wildly inaccurate.
After writing that review (but before publishing it) I continued on watching Letterkenny with a rather fervent delight. Any spare moment I could find I would put on an episode (up early with the puppy? let's watch an ep. can't sleep? let's watch an ep. taking transit into work? let's watch an ep. the kids are outside playing? let's watch an ep.) By the end of season 2 the show had penetrated my brain, hard. And in the weeks that followed I would find I had to stop myself from saying "How're ya now?" when greeting friends. The word "ferda" just reverberates around my brain for no reason at all (I have not contextual use for this word, yet it's always there at the ready). Things are now "fuckin' embarassing" when they don't go right. I'm constantly telling the kids and pets to "take 'er down 20% there" when they get riled up. I have to stop myself form saying "I wish you weren't so fucking awkward, bud" to many, many people. Anyone acting real dumb in public is an "upcountry degen". The show has entered my lexicon.
Season 2's productions values become more standard television and less cinematic, which feels like a bit of a loss, but then Season 1 felt like it could have been a 6-part movie rather than an ongoing series. By switching formats, and ditching the specifics of Letterkenny's subcultures (it's opening caption now reads "There are 5000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems") it opened up its versatility and diversity. Rather than just being about skids, hicks, hockey palyers and Christians, it opens up its world to swingers, Natives, upcountry degens, city folk, Quebecois and more. Following The Simpsons model, Letterkenny keeps building up its peripheral cast, such that there's dozens of supporting players coming in and out, and who we get to see in any given episode is always a surprise (and delight). With only six episodes per season (seven if you count the holiday specials that tend to bridge seasons) nothing outstays its welcome, and if anything some of these peripheral characters come and go too quickly.
The main cast consists of the hicks, the skids and the hockey players. The hicks are Wayne (who can best be described as a millennial Hank Hill, as played by show creator Jared Keeso), his pansexual sister Katie (Michelle Mylett), his awkward best friend Dary (Nathan Dales), and woke hick Squirrely Dan (K. Trevor Wilson) who speaks with nearly every other word pluralized for some reason. The show's rapid-fire comedic content largely comes from the conversations the hicks have in front of Wayne and Katie's produce stand (we never do see a customer for the produce but we're assured Wayne is making good money). These conversations can often be 5 - 10 minutes of straight rapid fire word play, word association, deep innuendo or just a long story (often heavily Canadiana influenced and interrupted by a few wordplay tangents). More than a few of the show's catchier phrases or recurring gags come through these scenes, but what the show excels at is subtly building the characters in these moments. The way characters react to these conversations are telling, and sometimes defining moments in the show. This is a series with a long memory and something off handedly mentioned in an early season will continue to pay off as the seasons go on. These moments also build upon the character dynamics and comraderie in a charming way.
The skids are led by Stuart (Tyler Johnson) - a drug dealer, taker and (of course) DJ. For seasons 1 and 2 Devon (Alexander De Jordy) is as much his right hand man as his key antagonist. Devon exits for season three letting Roald (Evan Stern) step us as Stuart's yes man, the first (but not only) openly gay character on the show. The skids are wanna-be anarchists but under Stuart's leadership they tend to get sidelined playing video games, dancing, or deterred by Wayne who is kind of the town's de facto sheriff (in the absence of any noticeable police presence). The skids are perhaps the least appealing part of the show, but I think that's by design, likely Keeso's least appreciated fact of small town life is the drug abuse that afflicts it. They're more often than not the butt of the joke rather than in on it, and yet they still have their place, and even moments of genuine kinship with others in town, fleeting though they may be.
The dumbass hockey players - Reilly (Dylan Playfair) and Jonesy (Andrew Herr) - are introduced in a polyamorous relationship as Katie's boyfriends, much to Wayne's chagrin, but their relationship with each other is the more important one. The duo are practically inseparable (one episode highlights the existential ennui they experience when they are separated) but the joke is never that they're secretly gay. The two basically share one brain and spend a lot of time chirping at other hockey players, or at the "big city slams" they're trying to get with. There's a lot of cat calling, name calling, and oblique hockey references coming out of their mouth in rapid succession. They're dim, they're constantly told they're dim, and yet they remain oblivious to their dimness. Their place in the show teeters on unbearable for the first season but once they are separated from Katie, and then their always enraged coach (Mark Forward) is introduced in Season 2 things turn around. In Season 3 they graduate to playing with the senior league (with a quintet of locker room adversaries who have a very specific but always hilarious schtick) Reilly and Jonesey really take on a life of their own. They meet their homosexual dopplegangers at the gym in season 4 and take on coaching jobs in Season 5 with a whole different locker room vibe to establish. Their journey over six seasons sees almost no advancement in their characters, but does nicely elaborate their rather kind and simple nature.
Beyond the main cast, we have recurring characters like Gail (Lisa Codrington) - the always horny owner of the local bar, the McMurrays - the swinging couple who constantly befuddle the hicks, Pastor Glen (Jacob Tierney)- the barely-closeted head of the local Church and man-about-town; Tanis (Tiio Horn) - the tough-as-nails femme fatale, den mother to the ruffians on the reserve, and one of the greatest characters on TV, but there's so many more. What may seem like one off characters become part of the cadre. In the first season Wayne has to prove his toughest-man-in-town bona fides against Joint Boy and Tyson and they become part of Wayne's inner circle when things need to go down. An episode finds the hicks going ice fishing in Quebec only to encounter their French dopplegangers, which leads to a key introduction to both Wayne and Dary's lives in seasons 5 & 6. Everything has a place in this show, and next to nothing is forgotten.
That aspect is what I love so much about Letterkenny, the comedic build. As crude as the show can be - and it is heavily focused on sex, with a reverence for fist fights, and some celebration of drug consumption - the show's comedy is extremely smart, and asks the audience to follow along without explaining much along the way. Inference is key. The writers also like to play with conventions, and experiment with their comedy, two seasons in a row open with a hyperalliterative alphabetical walk through to catch you up on what happened between seasons.
I can only imagine how much fun this was just as a writing execise...
The show strives to be progressive, which is admirable considering it's representing small town Canadian life (southern Ontario specifically) which are not always the most progressive of communities. It celebrates hick culture but turns its nose down on "upcountry degens" who are basically the expected racist, sexist, homophobic, uncivilized types you would think this show would be actually about. It punches down on them but it's a necessary punching down. As much as they proclaim to dislike the hockey players or skids, the hicks have their backs and vice versa when needed. Letterkenny is about community, and growing. To see Wayne be offended by a topic but then pause and change his mind on it, even if he's not necessarily outright accepting, is valuable in today's entertainment, to show someone willing to listen to someone else's point of view is kind of incredible in today's climate. Even Squirrely Dan, who you would expect to be the hickest of the hicks is taking a women's studies class and often references the teachings of "Professor Karen" (a fantastic recurring joke, but also fantastic character building).
Where the show falls a little flat is in its ability to walk the walk. It talks the talk on being progressive, but it's utterly male gazey, with all-too frequent slow-mo leering shots of attractive women. It sends this up hilariously with a similar shot that turns out to be Pastor Glen, and one would think that this was the show responding to and acknowledging its own failing but it continued to ogle women on the regular. It also doesn't seem to be making a stance on drug consumption or drug abuse with the skids. Stuart goes to rehab in Season 5, but it's off screen and the fallout in Season 6 finds him still dealing. The frequent talk about doing drugs ("sneef" and all the variations thereof) doesn't find any stance on it, when the show is representing the types of communities that are getting decimated by opioid addiction. It's heavier than the show wants to go, sure but I'm sure they could find a way without going all "very special episode" on it (unless they leaned into it).
Letterkenny has become deeply beloved to me. I think it's short season structure is a definite boon, making it easy to enter even six seasons in. It's digestible in both small and large chunks (I've watched half an episode and been just as satisfied as watching 5 in a row), and I take something away from it with every watch. These are densely packed comedic gems that for sure require repeated viewing to fully unpack. I love the characters, and the show builds some genuinely engaging storylines and relationships while constantly defying expectations and cliches.
The series has been picked up for 40 more episodes, in co-production now with Hulu. It's a Canadian success story and it's celebratory of that fact (some references are so deep-cut Canadian even I don't get them).
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