What Comes Next?

I don’t want to sound like a broken record here, but I have to say once again I am amazed at the fact that a spin-off of Letterkenny, a show I regularly dinged for keeping it’s characters stuck in amber, is able to actually create a sense of forward progress and constant evolution for its characters. And the fact that it could do that for a character that was about as one-note and basic as could be on the parent series, the character of Shoresy, is doubly impressive. There is no way, on paper, that this show should work and yet, here we are, with a series that, up until now, has been firing away on all cylinders.

In fairness to anyone that doesn’t like this series, the show doesn’t deviate that far from what made Letterkenny a hit: the fast dialogue, playing with language, crass humor, and running gags. If you liked Letterkenny then there’s no reason you couldn’t find some enjoyment with Shoresy as well. If you hated the parent series because of any or all of the reasons I listed above, then you’ll likely hate this series as well. But then, we’re four seasons deep now so if you didn’t like the show then you also likely already know that.

So what we’re here to do, then, is to assess if Shoresy is able to continue the good work it’s been doing, and if this fourth season builds and improves on the solid foundation from the previous three seasons as it works to continue the growth of its central character as well as everyone around him. And, for the most part, I want to say yes. This fourth season does keep pushing the character of Shoresy forward, testing him and making him work for the life he wants. The show puts him at a crossroads and forces him to make a decision, and the build up to that leads to solid character work. It’s great, and by and large this season is great as well.

When last we saw Shoresy, he had just led his team, the Sudbury Blueberry Bulldogs, to a championship in their league. Sure, it’s “senior-A whaleshit hockey”, but it was still enough to get the people of Sudbury up and cheering, and it did give them a massive trophy to carry around (which the various Bulldogs plays did, in fact, do, as they partied their way through the entire Summer). But it also left Shoresy at a crossroads: he’s had one too many injuries and, due to those plus his age (if we go by the age of his actor, Shoresy is 40, which is pretty dang high in professional sports), Shoresy had to retire.

So what was he to do? On the one hand, he has an offer from Bro Dude, the energy sports drink company, to become one of their commentators on a weekly web series. The guy has a certain magic to him, a sarcastic, no holds barred attitude, that makes him very watchable. The only issue is that he doesn’t care about the web series at all; what he really wants is to play hockey, which he can’t do. The Bulldogs manager, Nat, wants him to coach the team, but he feels like if he’s near the ice and can’t play it would kill him. So he’s stuck with a job he hates but that he can do and a job he wants but he can’t have. He has to figure out where he wants to go with his life.

Now I’m not going to spoil the decision that Shoresy ends up making at the end of the season (it’s only six episodes so you should be able to go quickly watch them and find out for yourself) but I will say that the series handles his decision, and the gravity behind it, quite well. Even if he ends up going back to the Bulldogs and continuing the series in familiar territory (and I won’t say if he does or not), the show treats the decision with respect, letting him weigh all his options so that it feels like the choice has real consequences. The series puts in the work, investing in the character the right way, and that helps give the series weight and meaning.

Of course that comes in a series that is, for the most part, crass jokes and running gags, but it works. While Shoresy is weighing what might be considered a life of death decision, his teammates are off partying for the Summer, giving the series plenty of time to make a running joke about how much fun it is to tube on the lake, or showing us all the places the team has partied at all over Sudbury. It’s silly and lighthearted, but it also feels right. Letterkenny and Shoresy enjoy their fun running gags, and this season carries on the tradition properly without beating the gags from previous seasons. It works.

And there are some other plotlines that matter, at least to a certain extent. Shoresy and his crew get assigned as Big Brothers (in effect) to four up-and-coming high school hockey players. They’re put into mentorship roles, which not only allows the series to bring in new characters and introduce guys that might be showing up on future seasons, but it also lets the older players act more adult and show sides of themselves we don’t normally see as they’re partying and sleeping around. It’s subtle development, but necessary all the same.

Plus, we get a fun plotline of them helping one of the kids get a girl he likes. This requires them teaching the kid to learn what the girl likes, find a way to involve himself in their interests, and also to make a bit of a fool of himself as a kind of romantic gesture. It all culminates in a dance number which actually sounds silly and shouldn’t work and yet, actually, it kind of does. It’s a big swing for the series but one the show is able to actually pull off.

And there’s the romance plotline for Shoresy. For three seasons Shoresy has been pursuing Laura Mohr, a journalist that he has the hots for (because she’s somewhat older than him and he likes older women), and he’s really wanted to find a way to push their relationship forward. She has a kid, though, and she wasn’t sure if Shoresy was really ready to take it to the next level, despite him saying he was. He’s a hockey player, and hockey players (as per the show) are “sluts”. So this season finds him working to prove himself to her so that they can move forward.

Again, this is the kind of stuff that Letterkenny rarely ever tried for and, even when they made moves like this, they quickly reverted them after. There’s no guarantee that Shoresy won’t eventually revert this as well down the road, but so far the series hasn’t shown any willingness towards keeping the characters stuck in amber, and I don’t think we have to worry about that happening here, either. The show knows what it’s doing, and it’s handling its business quite well.

This fourth season isn’t revolutionary, especially not by the metrics set by the previous three seasons of Shoresy. What it does is build on the foundation of those seasons and continues pushing forward. The show knows what it is and what it wants to be, and in this fourth season, it continues to hit all the notes it needs to. The season is great, another solid set of episodes for any fan of this show.