If you’ve reached the ninth episode – and arguably one of the best – of the second season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, then you might have caught some shade thrown at one mega pop star, Taylor Swift. Kimmy discovers that life won’t be as fulfilling if she doesn’t give in to her full range of emotions, from anger to happiness.
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Kimmy comes home to have Thanksgiving dinner with Lillian and Jacqueline when she gets a call from an unknown number.
“You’ll find yourself wandering along a highway or eating at a Boston Market”. There wasn’t a lot of focus on Jacqueline as a mother like there was in the last season, except for an interesting episode where she bonds with her son.
If you binged season 2 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, chances are you’ve already fallen hard for Mikey, the construction worker who sweeps Titus off his feet. She is still rich, but not enough to survive in her former social circles, but she does her best to attempt to fit in, constantly feuding with wealthy socialite Desiree (Anna Camp) and getting help from Mimi (Amy Sedaris, a good comedienne who seems wasted here). But, the material is so amusing that there isn’t really even much time to think about that. The joke density is a wonder to behold.
Kimmy doesn’t take the time to understand Titus’ point of view (Mississippi is his bunker, he explains) and proceeds to act somewhat selfishly in trying to keep Titus from leaving her. And landlord Lillian (Carol Kane) continues her fight against the gentrification of her colorful neighborhood.
Titus Andromedon doesn’t do three things: “Apologies, drag, and Calculus”. The series is zany and cutting and freakish, and great. Kimmy also becomes a nanny for the child of the wealthy Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski).
Episode 10 shows how Kimmy deals with her anger, or rather how she never has anger because she goes into this Disney-like land where she’s singing the very princess-like song, “Ding Dong Diddly Do”.
This project lands him on an online list of “Top Five Hitlers”, a list that leaves off actual Hitler to make room for modern-day offenders. “I think it is a ideal rivalry for both of us”, Krakowski says.
Showrunner Robert Carlock and Burgess discussed the thinking behind the episode with The Hollywood Reporter. Kimmy tells him to get rid of the clothes he doesn’t wear. But the current political season has enhanced the show’s gleam thanks to its heroic contrast with an electoral process many people see as broken: However goofy, this show is a testament to hope and inclusion. Jacqueline’s Robin Hood mission doesn’t, by any means, absolve the show’s writers of the choice to cast a white woman in a non-white role (and part of me is convinced they thought it would), but I’m all for Jacqueline becoming a more complex character.
Lori Ann, who had Kimmy when she was a teen, doesn’t take much responsibility for her daughter’s kidnapping and isn’t ready to offer her much empathy either.
Season 2 of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” is now streaming on Netflix. This just so happens to be a ideal cultural moment for that particular evisceration, struggling as we are as a nation with an ever-growing disparity between the one percent and the rest of us, staring down the gullet of a possible Donald Trump presidency. Titus plans on running away to get away from her, again.
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Nothing is going to change the fact she was kidnapped and her mom can’t have the life she wanted. For instance, Yuko the robot from last year’s “Kimmy Goes to a Party!” makes several amusing background cameos throughout the season – usually performing mundane tasks without acknowledgment. Trapped in MS and engaged to be married to Vonda, he walks out on her at their wedding reception and dons himself with his new name. I think, in her humorous way, she succeeds in a few ways, but also fails with a little heartbreak. “And all that wasted mental energy has to go somewhere!” Their hearts are inevitably melted with a moving performance by Titus: as if to say, “It’s alright I can do this”. This is good advice when you’re feeling frustrated.
