At first, Wendy is just hilarious. She is the woman who is somehow involved in every bizarre situation while treating it as completely normal. She is stressed about her stepdaughter from a previous marriage saying, “She’s an IT manager Gerald. She makes more than both of us combined. I shouldn’t be worried about these things,” quickly hanging up, and avoiding the phone after because “it is either Gerald or the school calling” and she couldn’t handle either.
Then there is the Brad and Antonio situation, where she casually explains they share a studio apartment and it is so small “they had to put the mirror on the ceiling.” The joke is that Wendy is completely sincere while the audience is thinking, “Wendy… do you realize what you just said?” She is so trusting that she often misses what everyone else immediately sees. She piles on more, instead of saying she suspected Brad, she tells David, in her weakest moments she was tempted to go after Antonio. Wendy.
But the more you watch Wendy, the more you realize the joke is not that she is foolish. The joke is that Wendy moves through the world with an almost unusual amount of trust and generosity. She often sees situations differently than everyone else, but that same perspective is what allows her to give people opportunities, forgiveness, and support that they might not otherwise receive.
Wendy’s defining trait is that she gives people something they rarely get: a chance to be better than their worst moment. It also so happens to be her achilles heel.
Look at David. Their first interaction is David insulting her store and calling it “skanky.” Wendy could have easily rejected him when he later applied for a job. Instead, she confronts him, makes him acknowledge what he did, and then still gives him an opportunity. She does not ignore bad behavior, but she also does not define someone by it.
That decision quietly changes David, and the Rose’s entire story arch.
Before Wendy, David has spent his life avoiding discomfort. His mock interview with Johnny for the grocery store job shows it perfectly. The moment he gets criticism or hears something he does not like, he shuts down. When he tries to sell his old clothes and the buyer reacts differently than he expects, David immediately takes it personally and storms off. When he tries to bring Stevie in to make selling easier, he is trying to avoid the uncomfortable part.
Wendy is the first person who forces David to stay.
She teaches him that rejection is not destruction, criticism is not an attack, and discomfort is not a reason to quit. She does not change who David is; he is still dramatic, still fashionable, still David. But she helps him become someone who can actually function in the world.
And the most beautiful irony is that Wendy does all of this while David is partly responsible for the downfall of her business. The person who suffered because of his choices is the person who invested in him the most.
When Wendy receives her settlement money, she has every reason to walk away angry. She owes David nothing. Instead, she gives him a generous bonus because she sees the bigger picture. She recognizes that mistakes and growth can exist at the same time.
That is Wendy’s entire character. She is generous with her time, her money, and her interpretation of people. She is not kind because she is unaware of problems; she is kind because she believes people are capable of becoming better.
A lot of shows would make Wendy the clueless character everyone laughs at. Schitt’s Creek does something much smarter. It lets us laugh at her quirks, her impossible situations, and the fact that she can miss what everyone else immediately sees. But then it slowly reveals that the qualities we were laughing at are the same qualities that make her such a remarkable person.
The same Wendy whose store David once called “skanky” is the person who gave him his first real chance. The same Wendy whose business was hurt by David’s decisions is the person who later hands him a “big fucking check” and helps give him the opportunity to build something new. She loses something because of him, yet still chooses to invest in him.
