Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a Gatling gun of comedy, firing off gags of different types and styles with astonishing rapidity and hitting the target with amazing accuracy, and the Netflix sitcom from 30 Rock's Tina Fey and Robert Carlock continues along its merry, madcap way in its second season, premiering on the streaming video service 15 April. (The whole 13-episode season drops at once, so cancel any weekend plans you may have had and indulge in a Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt binge.)
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt may have the hard work of establishing its world and its characters out of the way, thanks to its terrific first season, but the series isn't reinventing the wheel too much the second time around — there was no need, really, as the wheel works pretty damn well.
Kimmy, played by sunshine-in-human-form Ellie Kemper, who's as fearless and uninhibited as she is charming, may have started a new life in New York City after 15 years in the underground bunker of a self-styled doomsday prophet, but as season two gets underway she remains as winningly naive and unjaded as ever, her mindset stuck in early adolescence and her pop culture references stuck in the early '90s.
Luckily (or not), she has friends and frenemies like self-obsessed roommate Titus (Tituss Burgess, slaying with every one-liner), even-more-self-obsessed employer Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski, a black belt in blithe selfishness) and unhinged landlord Lillian (Carol Kane, letting her freak flag fly) to show her how to live in the 21st century.
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Based on the first few episodes of the new season, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is slowly putting together an overarching storyline for the season, one that'll see the main characters ever-so-gradually grow (Jacqueline learns to live without a man, while Tituss will try to commit to one). But for the time being, it's content to take potshots at gentrification and outrage culture, all the while throwing in jokes both topical and timeless. And the joke density of this series is incredible — they just don't stop coming.
