Ever since it premiered, I have loved Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Its cast is incredible, its storylines are hilarious, and its characters are all flawed yet somehow lovable.
My favorite character, especially in the second season, is Lillian. She's always so very funny and I love her interactions with the other characters. So I loved that her involvement in the season is greatly increased. Her storyline was a high point for me, and I loved that she got an interesting love interest (sorry Fred Armisen, you're great, but Bobby Durst wasn't a good love interest). The story of Lillian becoming a city councilwoman and meeting Artie was really great and it was the best storyline Lillian's gotten to date. I enjoyed watching her coming to terms with and accepting change, and I loved her character development throughout the season.
Titus is a character that is just a delight to watch. He's just larger than life and hysterical to watch. This season, it was great to see Titus trying to come to terms with his breakup with Mikey. As we see in the finale, he obviously still has feelings for Mikey and he's not over him. I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens between these two next season, because I find it hard to believe that things are over between them. It was also interesting to watch Titus still trying to become a star in this season. Between his attempt to join the cast of Sesame Street, recording awful music for Gordy (or as I like to call him, Frank), and his adventures with Dionne Warwick, Titus provided lots of laughs this season. And his take on Lemonade was wonderful.
Jacqueline is the one character that I feel the writers never really know what to do with. Her storyline this season was just weak for the majority of it, and I have always hated the character of Russ. He's not worth any screen time, and I found myself really enjoying any episodes without him in them. The parts of the season featuring Jacqueline and Duke were probably her strongest, and I enjoyed seeing Josh Charles in that role again. I also liked the episode that saw Jacqueline convince NFL team owners to change the names of their teams to things they hate, and the guest appearances of Paula Pell and Chris Parnell were great here. Overall though, Jacqueline do much that I found very interesting this season, even though I love Krakowski and think Jacqueline really has so much more potential. But at least she dumped Russ this season. Progress!
One thing that really was disappointing to me was Kimmy's storyline. I just didn't find it very interesting beyond the first few episodes with here interacting with the Reverend (the always wonderful and always welcome Jon Hamm). I didn't really care about Kimmy being in college and I was expecting more from that storyline. Kimmy really didn't provide me with many laughs this season and that was surprising to me, as I've loved her before this. There was one exception, and that is
Kimmy Pulls Off a Heist!, when Kimmy
struggles with helping Titus, well, pull off a heist. It was an episode where Kimmy was front and center, and I loved it. If I had to pick a favorite Kimmy moment of the season, it's her devouring Pixy Stix and developing an addiction to them. It was hilarious.
This show really has great guest appearances, and that continued this season. Ray Liotta, Paula Pell, and Chris Parnell all had great appearances in the fantastic
Kimmy Pulls Off a Heist!, perhaps my favorite episode of the series. Judah Friedlander also made an interesting appearance as Gordy, the producer of Boobs in California (the catchiest musical moment of this season), a high point of the season for me. Maya Rudolph's appearance as Dionne Warwick was also hilarious, and it helped resolved questions provided by the opening moments of the season. Also, I'm so happy Titus didn't eat her. Rachel Dratch also made a memorable performance, or rather,
performances, as Kimmy's professor and her
wife. My beloved Andrea Martin made a brief appearance as one of the many Lindas from HR, and it was a really funny scene and I just loved seeing her again because I already miss Great News and can't wait for it to return.
One character sorely missed in this season was Andrea, who made an all-too-brief appearance in the season. Her presence was missed, as she was one of my favorite parts of the second season.
All in all, while I didn't love every aspect of this season, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt continues to be one of TV's best comedies, and I'm excited to see what's next for this gang of misfits.
Season Score: 8.5/10
Season Grade: B+
MVP: Carol Kane
Episode of the Season: Kimmy Pulls Off a Heist!
