What I’m Watching: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Season 4, Episode 4 “Kimmy Disrupts the Paradigm!” (B+)

After that questionable mockumentary installment, it’s nice to see an episode like this that highlights what this show does best. Kimmy’s outlook on the world has always been impossibly naïve, and therefore it’s great to watch her figure out how to live within it. Heading to a conference where she was operating a booth that she couldn’t hope to understand was a fun setup, and naturally she gravitated towards the one guy who also thought that all this technology nonsense was bogus. I was pretty sure I recognized actor Drew Gehling, who played Danford, and after looking up his page on IMDB and finding nothing, I realized my initial hunch was correct: he was in the Broadway version of “Waitress” in a far more noble and likeable role. Kimmy exposing him by having him fail to define “disrupting the paradigm” was fantastic, and Lillian did her best to make her own realizations after trying to find a replacement for Artie in elder holograms and other absurd inventions through all the technobabble from Fred, playing by Jason Jones from “The Detour.” The back and forth between Jacqueline and Titus are great, with Titus’ reaction of “Gross!” to Jacqueline telling him she was going to give it to him straight as a particular highlight. Titus speaking up for the nerds and hitting the principal with the football was a nice win, and I’m sure his antics as a schoolteacher working on building up his acting resumé are going to be well worth watching.