What I’m Watching: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Season 3, Episode 8 “Kimmy Does a Puzzle!” (B+)

This episode was decidedly more absurd than even this show usually is. I think we can all agree that no one aside from Titus thought that he had actually eaten Dionne Warwick, played to excess by Maya Rudolph, clearly having fun hamming it up and going way beyond any sort of impersonation is meant to. The real story turned out to be far more believable if still inspired by this show’s totally ridiculous nature, and made to seem all the more extravagant and dramatic thanks to the style of Titus’ telling. If there’s one thing that he’s easily susceptible to – and there are many – it’s the allure of fame, and therefore his first thought upon finding out that Dionne had recovered from exposure to hot tub water was to get some more and make sure that she got sick right away again. Poisoning literally everyone on the ship but him so that they all threw up on stage during the performance was quite a powerful accident, and I think it’s safe to say that Warwick turned out to be fine, unlike those who live between exits 1-82 in New Jersey. My favorite part of this episode was actually Peter Riegert’s Artie, who was more than willing to accept Titus’ argument that a shell could be pasta and has just generally done a superb job of acclimating to this show’s distinctive style, helping to make this episode about a funker truly entertaining despite its insanity and token detachment from anyone’s sense of reality.