Schitt’s speak: How Catherine O’Hara turned the dictionary into a diva

February 18, 2026 — 11:30am

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Schitt’s Creek felt too folksy at first. The pilot episode of the Canadian sitcom followed a bankrupt family of New York snobs into the boonies. Cool city cats meet simple country mice. I wasn’t sold.

The saving grace was pettifogging, a fancy term for quibbling over the small stuff. The word was blurted by Moira Rose to her “frippet” of an adult daughter, Alexis. Nor was Moira done. Name any episode and you’ll meet the winsome litany of mercurial Moira-isms, winsome and mercurial included.

Catherine O’Hara, of course, played the Rose matriarch. Sadly, Catherine left us in late January, dying suddenly at 71. Tributes bloomed across the comedy world, as co-stars recalled her work in Home Alone, Beetlejuice, the mockumentaries of........

© The Sydney Morning Herald