By: Alex Tilton
After 81 episodes in 7 years (which is somehow 12 seasons) Letterkenny is over. In a recent interview series creator Jared Keso surprised me by saying more or less what I said in my review of season 11. They’d done everything there is to do with this idea and it’s time to move on. So how did they handle it? Pretty well. It was very on brand and self-aware. It didn’t suddenly try to be something different.
Every season of Letterkenny has one overarching plot supplemented by many, many unrelated tangents. This season had two plots. The first involves the character Daryl (Darry) becoming disaffected with the core characters and joining the ‘degens’, a group of unapologetically awful redneck types who live outside of town and enjoy ruining things for everyone else. The second plot, running parallel to the first, involves the rest of the four core characters feeling like they’re stuck in a rut and considering moving on from Letterkenny to other places where life might be different.
Wayne, the main protagonist, is the ‘toughest guy in Letterkenny’ and has no desire to move. But his long-term girlfriend is active in Pitbull rescue and wants to relocate, as she did once before, to pursue that calling. Squirrely Dan feels drawn to the Mennonite way of life after becoming disgusted with how the internet brings out the worst in himself and many others. Katie (Wayne’s sister) begins the season by returning from a trip to Mexico where the lifestyle and weather were more to her liking than rural Canada.
It’s not a very subtle theme for the final season, but it was sincere. There is zero cynicism, and I loved that. Spoilers ahead. This final character arc is set against the usual hijinks. The gang attends a night of standup comedy at the local watering hole, MoDean’s, which sets Darry’s arc into motion. They help the local auctioneer Jim Dickens pursue his dream of a country music career, and attend an after-hours club set up by the ‘Skids’ (social outcasts who sell drugs), all while confronting their feelings of stagnation and flirting with the idea of moving away. After tensions with the degens boil over resulting in Daryl’s return to the fold, the series rounds itself out by giving the Skids a much-needed win, in the form of hosting a successful party at the local agricultural hall.
Letterkenny always had a large cast of characters and getting them all into the last six episodes was going to be a problem, but I thought we could have had more than we got. Conspicuous by their total absence were Shoresy, Joint Boy, Annik, and Emma. Mrs. McMurray, Mary-Ann, and Betty-Ann got only the briefest of cameos. It might have been necessary to tell a coherent story that did right by the main characters, or some of those actors may have been unavailable. Whatever the reason, as good as this season was, I missed them. Most seasons have a ‘holiday special’ of some kind that releases a few months after the season proper, but that feels unlikely here.
In any case, I give Letterkenny credit for knowing when to bow out and doing a good job of it. Sticking the landing on a series finale is hard and I can think of more bad ones than good ones. So we bid a fond farewell to one of the few who did it right. Thanks for the laughs, Letterkenny. Image Sources: scpsassam.org & variety.com