Kimmy is stuck in Durnsville. Jacqueline gets back in touch with her roots when she and Lillian drive to Indiana to find Kimmy.
After a season-long journey of comedic drama, Kimmy and her fellow mole women are back in Durnsville, Indiana for Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne's trial. This three-episode arc of the trial at the end of this first season has been very important. This traumatic experience was one of the few defining things about Kimmy for years. After she escaped, she worked extra hard to not let it be the only thing that defines the rest of her life. She started over in New York City where she quickly made new friends and a new life for herself. But now, she has to address her past in order to fully move on from it. She can't just suppress it all and hope no one recognizes her. She needed to face her community again in order to become even stronger. The reverend is a very crafty man and it's up to her and her fellow mole women to make sure that he is punished for his crimes.That goal wasn't without its complications. The trial has been going horribly and all the other mole woman have basically turned on Kimmy. Gretchen is still a faithful follower while Donna Maria still insists there is a language barrier between them. Cyndee was devastated to learn that Kimmy was given the opportunity to leave years before they actually were. Kimmy and Cyndee's friendship has been the strongest dynamic amongst the mole women. And now, they travel back to the bunker divided in order to find evidence for the one thing that still connects them in the Reverend.
The evidence that Kimmy, Cyndee and Donna Maria stumbled upon at the conclusion of the last episode is just a VHS tape that showed the reverend practicing his karate moves (amongst other things) and taping his audition for the next season of NBC's The Apprentice. It's all completely random and hilarious. None of it on the surface is enough to prove that the reverend is a bad man. And yet, I spot the thing that ultimately does convict the reverend right away. The time stamp for his Apprentice audition tape is June 5, 2006 - aka the day before he thought the world was going to end. That proved that he never believed that the apocalypse was coming and kept these women in the bunker against their will for no good reason. The mole women don't see that until later in the episode though.
Their immediate concern is on figuring a way out of the bunker after Randy allows the door to close behind him while he goes to chase down a cat. Thats a move I expect Randy to make because of his incompetence. And yet, did we really need to see him completely fail in trying to get that cat down from a tree? It was largely wasted time that could from been given to some other more important character. But back in the bunker, the mole women have to come together in order to find a way out of the prison that held them for 15 years. They don't want to be confined to this place again. They want to live in the outside world and the prosperities they have built with their lives. Sure, Gretchen is happy to be turning the crank again. But everyone else has lives again on the outside. Kimmy is looking forward to her future with Dong. Cyndee wants to marry the man of her dreams - even though he is still gay. And then, Donna Maria has a growing business using the mole women brand. They couldn't have escaped before but now they have the incentives and the passion to find a way out.
The solution comes from the big event in the past that caused this rift in the first place. That rat that Kimmy found all those years ago had to have gotten into the bunker somehow. The women open up the air filtration system and realize it leads back up to the ground. All they need is to work together through their friendship and their trust in order to get rescued again. That's a proud moment that unifies the women again. Nothing major has been happening back at the courthouse. Chris was able to get the reverend to declare that he likes pizza and the judge has made a bird house. Once again, it's all up to Kimmy. She walks into the room unsure of how to incriminate the reverend. All she has is the video - and it's actually Gretchen (the last person to still believe the reverend's apocalypse story) who spots it first. The date proves that the reverend is a bad person and once the truth is revealed he's unable to hide his true colors any longer. Kimmy is successful at finding justice for herself and her fellow mole women. That is an empowering way to conclude this story.
That's not the end of the finale though as the rest of the season's percolating stories had to reach some amount of conclusion as well. So, Jacqueline gets back in touch with her heritage and decides that's where she needs to be to find herself again. Titus learns that achieving fame - his mission for the entirety of this season - comes at a cost as his wife from back home in Mississippi is able to find him. And Dong has married someone else because he couldn't reach Kimmy. It's a complicated and messy way for the show to end its season. None of the secondary characters and their emotional beats feel as important as Kimmy's story. They all have their funny moments. But Kimmy's story is the main focus of the season and the way the finale ended seemed like the show needing to address everything else that it was about this season.
Some more thoughts:
- "Kimmy Makes Waffles!" was written by Robert Carlock & Sam Means and directed by Tristram Shapeero.
- How was that one crank able to power the reverend's entire room of luxuries?
- Upon first seeing the reverend's video, everyone in the courtroom thinks he just looks even cooler. They are still very easy to be impressed and persuaded but the truth still comes out eventually.
- A person who looks like Jacqueline is able to be Native American because she has a white grandfather. That was an explanation that needed to be given much sooner in the season - perhaps when that storyline was first introduced way back in episode three.
- Titus' agent: "I'm with Tara Reid right now. We're on our way to her funeral."
- Jacqueline: "Today is a good day to die, band nerds."
- Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne: "If God wanted women to talk, he wouldn't have made their mouths look so much like their privates!"
- It's been an absolute pleasure to review this entire season. I was able to stick to the daily schedule and I'm really proud of that. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt made that easy because it was so much fun to watch. That theme song is going to be stuck in my head for awhile now. The show isn't completely there yet but I'm very eager to see what Tina Fey, Robert Carlock and Ellie Kemper can do in Season 2.
