Headed to Holy Heart: Here's what to expect in Season 4 of Son of a Critch

Season four of Son of a Critch means a new decade, a new school and new adventures for young Mark Critch.

It's the dawn of the 1990s. Mark is starting high school at Holy Heart of Mary in St. John's, and — once again — finds himself on the bottom rung, as he begins Grade 10. The show, created by Mark Critch and Tim McAuliffe, and based on Critch's life and award-winning memoir, airs Tuesday nights on CBC Television.

Ahead of the season four premiere, Critch sat down with the CBC's Todd O'Brien to talk about what's coming for Mark this year. Their discussion has been edited for length and clarity.

Todd O'Brien: For those who don't know about the series...Where have you come from and where are you now?

Mark Critch: Well, we started off the first day of junior high for young Mark. Going to a new school, St. Bridget's School. And he was kind of an outsider living on the edge of town with some older folks in the home. Not many friends and kind of a kid who was 11 going on 70, you know? And then through the first three years, we see him getting a bit of a grip on who he is, getting more comfortable being the person he is, not trying to change to fit in as much. Finding two great friends. Fox, a young redheaded girl who was his bully, and then becomes his love interest, and his friend Ritche Perez, who is the only person of colour in the school. And by the time that season three ends, he's in a pretty good place. 

He's got friends and he's happy, and of course he graduates and then goes to Holy Heart of Mary High School. [A] giant school, and is right back at the bottom again. So in many ways, this season is a bit of a reboot for the series. Much more adult themes. He's trying to find his way, you'll see him do everything from buying beer to buying a condom. And he finds the theatre arts nerds at Holy Heart, realizing he's finally found his squad.

And Pop's moved out of the room.

That's right. He used to share room with his grandfather, but this year he gets his own room. But they still talk through the wall, knocking on the door. 'You there, are you there?' That kind of thing. Like prisoners.

So what are you hoping to dig into and capture? I mean, like you said, this so mirrors kids growing up.

A big moment for me, a big turning point, was many of your listeners may know a fellow passed away last year, Kevin Lewis, who was a theatre arts teacher, but also a well known in the amateur theatre scene and in the acting scene in film and TV as well. And he was one of the first people to say to me when I said, 'you know, I'd like to be an actor', he said, 'Yeah, you could be an actor. Sure, go ahead. That's great. Nope, that's not hard to do it all' I was like, 'What, you can?'  And moms kind of like, 'No, my God, you can't do that...

It was that wonderful thing when you're a young person, somebody saying yes to you. You can do what you want to do. And he's played by Shawn Doyle from Labrador, an incredible actor who a lot of people know from things like Big Love and House of Cards and all these things. And that's a big turning point for me...

You'll see young Mark then kind of get into performing downtown and doing CBC Radio sketches and stuff, which is when my acting career really, really quite took off. So you see him trying to fit in, of course, with the older kids, and do all those things we did. That drinking in the woods at a big field party and that kind of stuff. So it's a little bit of a reboot ... older themes, more mature themes, but still a lot of that great comedy and that kind of family warmth that people like you feel at the end of the episodes.

You started Cat Fud way back when, and that's gonna be part of your show as well?

Yeah. So there was a sketch comedy troupe I started with three other guys in St. John's when I was 15. And we rented out the LSPU Hall and we did a show, and we did that sketch comedy for seven years. But that was like [when] my whole world kind of came alive. Writing and performing and doing sketches... 

Rick [Mercer] came to our first Cat Fud show. And he was, you know, a couple years older. So he was the big kid, like the adult who was so super cool came to our show. We're all chuffed. And Rick joins our cast this year as the new station owner. So I met Rick in 1990, and this year we're reliving 1990. So it all kind of came full circle.

What are you most excited about for this upcoming coming season?

I'm very excited for people to see, you know, what Benjamin [Evan Ainsworth] does with his playing me, young me, this year. He really is such an incredibly talented actor, and it's interesting to let him kind of have his wings spread a little more. And everybody kind of grows a lot this year. 

His brother, Mike Jr., kind of goes to Magic 97, the big FM station that started back in the day, and pop he goes through some health troubles. And Mary gets out of the home and takes a course at the career college, a thinly veiled school from the '90s ... So we see a lot, a lot of change. But really I'm really excited for people to see, especially people in Newfoundland and Labrador who knew and loved Kevin Lewis, to see our homage to him in episode one and feel some of that love we have for him.

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