Schmigadoon! Season 1, Episode 5 recap: Mildred causes moral panic

Schmigadoon! Episode 5, “Tribulations,” opens more than two years before Josh and Melissa found themselves stuck in a magical musical town. The first scene shows Melissa comforting Josh after he got passed over for a fellowship. She inadvertently cheers him up by calling it a “doggy-dog” world instead of a “dog-eat-dog” world. Josh teases her about it, which she takes offense to. Later that night, he apologizes for it and they make up.

In Schmigadoon, Mildred has reached her threshold for tolerance regarding Josh and Melissa. She believes they’ve caused too much turmoil in town. She incites a moral panic among the townspeople (“Tribulations”) and gets everyone to rally behind her when she wants Mayor Menlove removed from office. Instead, the townsfolk want Mildred to be the new mayor.

Schmigadoon! Season 1, Episode 5 recap: Emma reveals a huge secret

Elsewhere, Josh and Melissa’s new romances hit massive speedbumps. On a cozy picnic in the woods, Josh inadvertently insults Emma when he comments that she is doing an excellent job raising Carson. He says it must be hard for her to pull double duty as a sister and mother. Emma immediately rushes off when he says it and Josh is shocked.

MORE: Schmigadoon! Season 1, Episode 4 recap: Suddenly

At the schoolhouse, she reveals that the reason she got upset is that she’s been lying to everyone. Emma isn’t Carson’s sister, she’s his mother. She lied because she didn’t want Mildred to turn everyone against her for having a child out of wedlock. Josh reassures her that it doesn’t change his feelings for her at all. Unfortunately, Carson overhears their conversation and is heartbroken that Emma has been lying to him all this time. He runs out of the schoolhouse.

Josh chases after him into the woods and runs straight into Danny, who roughs him up for “stealing his gal,” even though Melissa is with the doctor. As Josh hits the ground, he sees the stone heart with his name inscribed that Melissa gave him in the first episode.

Schmigadoon! Season 1, Episode 5 recap: Jorge’s fiancée returns to town

Across town, Jorge’s fiancée Countess Gabrielle von Blerkom (Jane Krakowski), or “Blerky” as Jorge calls her, returns to town unexpectedly just moments after Melissa and Jorge have confirmed their love for each other (“Suddenly (Melissa Reprise)”). Melissa believes that Blerky will step aside and let her and Jorge be together like in The Sound of Music, but Blerky has other plans.

She requests that Melissa goes on a drive with her the next day so they can get to know each other better. On the drive, she reveals that she is always pushed aside for the help, as all of her previous lovers fell in love with women they had hired and dumped her (“I Always, Always, Never Get My Man”). This time, she doesn’t intend to do that and drops Melissa off on the side of the ride with her backpack at gunpoint.

Abandoned in the middle of nowhere, Melissa waves off a dream ballet (“No one likes dream ballets!”) and then finds her stone heart in her backpack. Will the stone hearts bring Josh and Melissa back together?

The Schmigadoon! Season 1 finale premieres next Friday on Apple TV+.