A dying grandmother, a sentimental gift, bickering siblings, and a mother running for mayor. What possibly could go wrong?
Big Mistakes Season One
I was hooked on the first episode of Big Mistakes, the crime comedy created by Dan Levy and Rachel Sennott for Netflix. This show is so good that I binge-watched it twice. Dan Levy plays Nicky, an openly gay pastor. He has two sisters, Morgan (Taylor Ortega), a teacher who is crazy impulsive, and Natalie (Abby Quinn), the younger sister who is overly OCD about helping their mother, Linda (Laurie Metcalf), run for mayor.
While Nicky tries to hide his relationship with Tareq (Jacob Gutierrez) from his parishioners, Morgan is talked into getting engaged to Max (Jack Innanen), whose mother, Annette (Elizabeth Perkins), can financially help Linda win the election…except for one little problem…Morgan steals a necklace from a shop, and now she and Nicky are kidnapped by Yusuf (Boran Kuzum), the owner of the shop that is a front for the mob.
Nicky, who is a good, religious man, is constantly bickering with Morgan, whose impulsive antics have us wondering how the heck she has a job as a teacher. That necklace now has the siblings running errands for the big mob boss, which Nicky and Morgan try to keep secret while Linda does her best to win the election. Every episode has Nicky and Morgan dragged further down the rabbit hole…until the very end of season one when we, the viewers, have the rug pulled from under us with a surprise cliffhanger. Holy Hell!
Conclusion
The writing and acting on Big Mistakes are excellent, with Laurie Metcalf holding the center stage as a strong woman who not only runs a hardware store but also raised three children on her own. What I wasn’t expecting is how quickly each character slowly grew on me with every episode. The cemetery scene had me laughing out loud. There is something comfortable about this outstanding series, and it all has to do with Dan Levy.
Big Mistakes is Levy’s first major television project since Schitt’s Creek, and although Big Mistakes touches on all the funny aspects of a dysfunctional family that I love about Schitt’s Creek, this show offers us a darker side of comedy. Dan Levy had considered doing something more with Schitt’s Creek, but that never came to be…and then…we lost the beautiful Catherine O’Hara. There could never be a sequel without our Moira.
The good news is that Big Mistakes has its own memorable characters, and Laurie Metcalf, Taylor Ortega, and Abby Quinn each bring their own versions of Moira to this new series. It feels so good to laugh out loud right now and forget that we are on the verge of a political apocalypse. I think I need to binge-watch this series for a third time.
