Schitt's Creek: The double wedding that wasn't and more love story secrets

Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Schitt's Creek series finale, "Happy Ending."

EW has been with Schitt’s Creek a lot over the course of the show's final season, creating pop-up recording studios on location for our weekly episodic companion podcast, EW On Set, and sitting down with the stars frequently since. Along the way, we’ve had the privilege of hearing them share a number of secrets.

At our digital cover shoot in January, we sat down with co-creator, showrunner, and star Dan Levy (David Rose) and his now-onscreen husband, Noah Reid (Patrick Brewer), to reveal what the cast had said about the show — and each other.

1. “The noise”

NOAH REID: The table reads got more and more emotional, and this one [for season 6, episode 13] was probably the most emotional. Dan was sitting next to me openly weeping, and this noise emerged from him that I then started calling “the noise.” It was like him trying to contain the tears so much that it just would sort of result in this sort of snorting noise, and him trying desperately not to cry. Then, at moments just you'd look around the table and everybody was just in pieces. It was probably a longer table read than usual. We had a lot of crying pauses, and a lot of reaching for tissues. Yeah, it was fun.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you cry?

REID: No. I'm the least emotional of the cast, I would say, probably. That's probably partially because I've lived in the house that is Schitt's Creek for less time, but also because I think I exist in a Patrick world, where you are just holding it all together. Being the glue of the situation. So, I felt like my job in that table read was just to put a hand on Dan's shoulder and try to get him through it.

DAN LEVY: I would say during the entire last season of our show, I cried sporadically and infrequently about anything and everything, big and small. And I think for me, I don't want to cry all the time, so I would try to swallow my tears. But in doing so, I guess I make a sound… You could try this at home if you really want, but it's essentially, instead of crying outwardly, imagine sucking it all up through your nasal throat passages. And that's what I sounded like.

REID: I once got a note in one of the first plays I ever did, which I still think about, which is if you feel emotion coming as an actor, fight it, and that will give you the most honest performance, and now I really know what that looks like —

LEVY: What that sounds like.

REID: And sounds like, because Dan was fighting it so hard. I think that's the noise that rings in my head when I think of Dan Levy. I think of this.

LEVY: Sexy. That's what you want.

REID: It's beautiful.

2. When you know, you know

REID: Dan, you once told EW that my role, Patrick, could have just been a couple of episodes long. So Dan, at what point did you decide to keep me around? When did you decide that it had to end here with getting engaged and married?

LEVY: That's a really fascinating question. Well, I think like anything, when you write a love interest into a show, you can't really go all in because there's a chance that it might not work out. There's a chance that we wouldn't have chemistry. There's a chance that it just would fizzle out and die. So you can't go into something… obviously the hope was this is someone that would stick around, but who knew? And also a little-known fact, we did not have any chemistry tests. You were hired off a tape. I wasn't even in the room while you auditioned.

REID: No. You refused to come to my audition.

LEVY: Yes, because I heard you were super-high-maintenance. And fortunately it worked out and we were like, "Yeah, we'll keep him, I guess we'll write him in a few more and then we'll write them in a few more."

REID: Do you know when you knew? Was there a definitive moment where you were like, "He's staying"?

LEVY: I knew, well we had that whole season done, so I would say by the last episode in the car, which was a tough… I mean, I ended up rewriting that whole scene and basically having you regurgitate it at the last minute. But I think once we shot that and saw that there was actually something quite emotional about their connection, that's when I was like, "Yeah, all right, let's write them back in. Let's give him another season, see what happens."

REID: That's nice. I'm glad I got to stay.

3. The wedding outfits

LEVY: You aptly described Moira's (Catherine O'Hara)wedding officiant outfit as a Viking pope. How would you describe my wedding look?

REID: Vampire highlander.

LEVY: Okay.

REID: What do you think?

LEVY: I don't think it's too far off base. I think in order to really make it vampire, there would've been some sort of lace cravat or something. It's almost like, yeah. It was like a… yeah, the highlander part. I mean, I was wearing a kilt.

REID: Highland goth? Highland schoolboy.

LEVY: Yes. Yeah, that I'll go with. That, I think, is the most accurate. We got there eventually. A schoolboy highlander.

4. Mariah Carey’s favorite

After Patrick used David’s own shorthand to say “I love you” — “You’re my Mariah Carey” — the singer tweeted out a GIF from the show.

REID: I don't think that Dan will ever forgive me for Mariah Carey tweeting my face instead of his. So I guess my question for you is, do you forgive me and does singing Mariah Carey to you at the wedding make up for that, or is there something else that I have to do?

LEVY: Well, I mean, I don't think you'll ever be forgiven for it, but I think that we're fine. We're friends still, and I think the fact that you are singing Mariah actually would get her attention more so I'm distanced even farther from her… You are going to become friends with her after this. I will be sort of in the background being like, "Can I come too?" Ultimately, why not? Why not celebrate Mariah?

5. The double wedding that wasn’t

David and Patrick weren’t the only multi-season romantic arc fans were rooting for: Alexis (Annie Murphy) and Ted (Dustin Milligan) were engaged, then broke it off, then got back together before breaking up mid-sixth season.

LEVY: The Alexis-Ted revelation was a four-season arc. I thought Alexis and Ted were going to be the wedding at the end of the series — and then I foolishly told Annie [there would be a double wedding]. I did mean it at the time, but so much changes.

ANNIE MURPHY: Dan was like, “There's going to be a double wedding. It's going to be Ted and Alexis and Patrick and David.” I was like, “Yay, I can't wait! Sign me up. That's going to be a perfect ending to the show.” [When it didn’t happen,] I was furious. I threatened to quit the show — and didn't follow through on it.

DUSTIN MILLIGAN: Here's what I'll say about Dan: He has a lot of great ideas. I think on his next job as a showrunner, he'll learn to not say all of those ideas to the cast. Because Annie and I were, to be honest, we were quite looking forward to that. It is a very rare thing where you have not only a supporting scene partner who's good at what they do, but also that you genuinely like. I've been doing this like 13 or 14 years, and it's rare that that happens. Usually, everyone's faking it, that's chemistry, but Annie and I, it was real.

REID: You at one point promised [Murphy] that there would be a double wedding, David and Patrick and Alexis and Ted. What happened and why would you say that?

LEVY: Alexis needed to come out of this show liberated in a way that wasn't necessarily attached to a guy. I felt like it would be more fulfilling to that character to have loved and lost and been set on a track that is leading her into her future rather than settle with someone at the end of the show. And that is why I did not do it.

REID: It wasn't because you didn't want her stealing your thunder on your wedding day?

LEVY: It was definitely because of that too, but this is the answer I'll use today.

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