Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: A Cult Classic

If you were a fan of Tina Fey's last TV creation, 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is exactly what you need to fill the Liz Lemon-sized hole in your heat. All thirteen episodes were dumped on Netflix last week and I binged through them in a single day. It was an absurd, weird, fantastic six hours.

Ellie Kemper stars as the eponymous Kimmy Schmidt, a 29-year old Indiana woman who has just been rescued from the underground bunker she was living in for the past 15 years as part of a post-apocalyptic cult. She lived there with three other women who had been brainwashed by the cult leader, the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne. It's a pretty dark premise, but told with the characteristic Tina Fey-Robert Carlock flair for the absurd so that you just start laughing immediately. One of Kimmy's first stops after the bunker is the Today show (because of course you become a minor celebrity after an event like that and have to do a press tour) and she decides to remain in New York City so that she can experience everything she has missed out on in life. She ends up in an apartment with Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess), a spectacular gay man who dresses up as Iron Man in Times Square to pay the bills but is forever aspiring to be on Broadway. Their landlady is the incredible Lillian Kaushtupper (Carol Kane) who is the obligatory crazy old New Yorker with a heart of gold. And Kimmy lands a job as a nanny in the household of Jacqueline Voorhees (Jane Krakowski), a typical rich Upper East Side clueless woman who eventually becomes something akin to Kimmy's friend.

It is impossible to describe everything that happens in the show but each episode is brimming with comedy gold. It's a non-stop deluge of jokes, sight gags, and pop culture deep dives. I'm sure I missed 50% of the references but I loved everything I did catch and was endlessly entertained from the first to the thirteenth episode. There are some amazing cameos (wait until you find out who the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne is) and the writing is sharp, witty, and fantastic. Every episode is a candy-colored hyper-vivid vision of New York and its insane inhabitants and the bouncy, auto-tuned opening credits will worm their way into your head for days afterwards.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a delightful confection of a show, a perfectly packaged comedy that is firing on all cylinders. The acting is stellar, the production design and music are memorable, and the writing is crazy brilliant. I'm ready for season 2.