THEY ALIVE, DAMMIT!!! IT’S A MIRACLE!!!
SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)
It’s been a few years since the end of the show and Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) is a successful author and getting married to her English fiance Frederick (D–Censored for Surprise–e). Her former roommate Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) is trying to get his film career started with the help of his manager, Jacqueline White (Jane Krakowski), and his former landlady Lillian Kaushtupper (Carol Kane). However, Kimmy finds a book in her backpack that forces her to once again deal with her nemesis and former captor the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon “Sexual Dynamite” Hamm).
END SUMMARY
I’ve enjoyed most of the Netflix Interactive specials so far, from Black Mirror’s film Bandersnatch to the Carmen Sandiego episode, although, honestly, the best thing they’ve put out in the format is probably Minecraft: Story Mode. However, in a lot of ways, this one is the most fun because it’s really just like an extra-long and meta-textual episode of Kimmy Schmidt.
Unlike Bandersnatch, which was largely based around playing through it a number of times to get all of the various endings (including some that were only accessible on a second or third playthrough), Kimmy Schmidt decided to make it fairly easy to get through on the first viewing. Since the episode’s framing device is a choose-your-own-adventure book, whenever you have a choice, you typically either get it right or you get to a dead end and the show resets back to the divergent point so you can go forward. If anything, it’s actually more fun to make the wrong decisions throughout the episode so that you can see all of the hilarious alternate endings. Theoretically, you can get to the end and get one of what I think are 3 wrong endings, but it’s actually harder to NOT get the happy ending in this particular instance.
As to the episode itself, I’m impressed with how well they managed to keep the timing of the humor despite how often the episode has to stop for 10 seconds to give the viewer a chance to select the next scene. A lot of that is just that all of the actors in the show are amazingly talented comedians who have a natural sense of timing and tone, but also the writing is appropriately snappy.
It also helps that this serves as the epilogue to the show that manages to, seemingly canonically, add an extra happy ending onto the tale of a woman who deserves it. Even though we have never met Kimmy’s fiance before now, D—– ——–e manages to be charming, hilarious, and just as weird as Kimmy, making it a match made in heaven. Titus and Jacqueline similarly get a nice final chapter to their story that feels earned. Lillian… well, she’s hilarious and doesn’t need another chapter.
Overall, I really recommend it to anyone who watched the show. I will give you two tips: 1) Try to skip the intro song. You will be pleasantly surprised. 2) When you get the option to spare or kill someone… kill them all the ways you can. You will be VERY pleasantly surprised.
If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.
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