Ring a ding ding ! Call Me Fitz is back for a third season and this time there are some more-than-obvious hints the show is set in Canada.

Call Me Fitz is filmed primarily in New Minas, Nova Scotia but for the first two seasons the setting of the show was ambiguous with a sometimes not so subtle skew to being somewhere in the US. From vehicles having license plates that weren’t really for anywhere but which were styled after Nova Scotia’s to the various Americanism in the dialogue of the various characters to Fitz always having  US currency. And of course the reference to “this side of Detroit” which would come up now and then.

It isn’t anything new to have a Canadian made show set in the US. It usually allows for better opportunities for international sales of the show. For a long time Canadian television has had a regretably well deserved stigma for being of a lower class. Setting a show in Boston or Baltimore would be a way to mask the true Canadian origin of the show.

Having mentioned the skew toward a US setting for Call Me Fitz last year Sheri Elwood, the creator of the show, responded with, “The show is absolutely not set in the US. It is 100% Canadian.” In response i picked what was a then recent episode of the show and pointed out all of the things which had me thinking it is set in the US.  Then i realised she had written that episode.  That was about 11 months ago, right about the time filming of season 3 had completed.

With season 3 now on television it is more clear why Sheri Elwood would be so bold. For those from New Minas there would be clues in plenty regarding where scene s were filmed. But there was never anything recognisable to those from elsewhere which would say “this is somewhere in Canada”. That changed with the season 3 premiere, “Fuck City Hall”. Fitz has turned the Beaver Moon into his deam Summer Winds.  The night of the grand opening there is a Zellers store visible in the dark distant background.  What could be more Canadian than the budget department store of the Hudson Bay Company? Yes, most of the locations are becoming Target stores but that is another story. Later in the episode when Fitz is to announce his candidacy for city council and his nemesis and opponent Chester Vince and his lawyer / lover / step-daughter Ali, who is now the wife of Chester, arrive outside the Summer Winds there is a Tim Horton’s sign clearly visible in the background. The only way to scream ‘Canadian’ louder would be to have the old Hockey Night In Canada theme playing as the score.

If Fitz is really Canadian then perhaps next time he takes out a role of money it won’t be US ‘greenbacks’.  Except that the second episode of the season opens with Fitz selling a car for cash. And what is he holding? Green $100 bills that are styled a bit like US currency but if you look closely they are total fakes that have a border and are green but otherwise look nothing like US currency. And certainly nothing like the brown polymer of the Canadian $100 notes. But at a quick glance they could pass as American to one not paying really close attention to what Fitz is holding. So much for no more subtle skews to a US setting.

The episode Sheri Elwood wrote shows a Canadian setting. The episode Dennis Heaton wrote involves the FBI, Ken looking for the Miami of Magic City‘s era, and Fitz holding US-styled currency. In one episode it is Canadian and the next it looks very American. The map showing the strange road trip home from Miami indicates they are stopped by the FBI near Decature, Alabama. And from there Fitz is able to get home to file the papers for his city council campaign within mere hours. That would strongly suggest the show is set somewhere in the US. The setting of the show keeps coming up Fitzy.

If you are in Canada you can find Call Me Fitz on HBO on Sunday nights. If you are in the US and are a DirecTV customer then you can find Fitz on Audience on Tuesday nights.