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After the first season premiered on Netflix in March of 2015, it took me months to get The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s ridiculously catchy theme song (courtesy of the Internet’s Gregory Brothers) out of my head. Drawn from a guest actor’s lines in the pilot, auto-tuned, and arranged with backing vocals, the 30-second clip presented a microcosm of what made the show work: a shiny, exuberant melody over slyly subversive lyrics (it is a narrative about women surviving extended physical imprisonment, after all) with an ever-so-slightly profane punch at the end (dammit!). Now that the second season has been out for a few weeks, I can attest that it’s once again taken up semi-permanent residence in my brain. Much like the show itself, it could almost get annoying if it weren’t just so good.
After confronting the cult leader who kept her and three other women in an underground bunker for 15 years, Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) has returned to get on with her new life in New York, where the members of her freshly assembled family each have their own dramas to play out. Flamboyant gay roommate Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) has to patch things up with his ex-wife before taking a shot at a real relationship with a newly out construction worker. Meanwhile, their landlady, Lillian (Carol Kane), tries to singlehandedly preserve their crummy apartment building from the forces of gentrification, and Kimmy’s socialite former boss, Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski), is adjusting to life as a divorcee. Underneath the hijinks, there’s a steadily growing sense that not all is right with Kimmy, and that getting past her long imprisonment may not be as easy as she’d hoped.
Each of the characters gets a moment to shine, whether it’s Titus’s slow realization that a happy relationship doesn’t require nonstop drama or Jacqueline finding the perfect nemesis in an equally power-hungry socialite (a wonderful turn from guest actress Anna Camp), and it’s to the series’ credit that it gives each of them time to breathe and develop. In fact, they’re the highlight of the first half of the season, as Kimmy spends most of her time reacting in her own hilariously upbeat fashion. Only Kemper could sell the repressed anger and joy in a line like “Fudge that sugar! Fudge it to heck where a demon with a thousand wee-wees fudges it forever!”
And that’s where this season begins to stake out some truly brilliant new territory. An encounter with a former soldier midway through the season lays out the subtext in that kind of gag—that Kimmy’s determined optimism hides some truly dark emotions, stemming from her time as one of the Indiana Mole Women. It also gives co-creator Tina Fey a chance to jump in as an alcoholic therapist who decides to treat Kimmy’s PTSD in return for having a go-to chaperone for her nightly benders. The actresses have great chemistry together, and their interactions range from effortlessly goofy to genuinely emotional.
Don’t get the wrong idea; The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is still very much a traditional network comedy, but it’s one that’s found a clear sense of what it is and where it’s going. That it can be as funny as it is while still threading in more complex material makes it imminently bingeable—just be prepared to hear that song in your head for the next few months. Don’t worry—it’ll be worth it.
