Ellie Kemper as Kimmy Schmidt in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs The Reverend. (Photo: Netflix)

OPINIONPop CultureMay 12, 2020

Review: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt ends on a high, but who’s still watching?

Contributing writer

Ellie Kemper as Kimmy Schmidt in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs The Reverend. (Photo: Netflix)

Four seasons and… an interactive special? Sam Brooks reviews Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs The Reverend, an interactive special and epilogue to the one-time critical darling.

If you talk about Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt now, chances are that the response will be, “Oh I used to love that show!” What was once part of Netflix’s then-exclusive stable of critically acclaimed programmes has become a footnote; one of many shows to start out strong and buzzy, and then fall into the gaping vortex of content, takes and memes. There was nary a peep when the fourth and final season, split into two halves, dropped on the service over a year ago. After 18 Emmy nominations, scores of gifs and countless quotable lines, another show bit the dust.

That’s why it was a bit of a surprise when, almost exactly a year ago, Netflix announced the series would be returning for a one-off special, Kimmy vs. The Reverend. Even more surprising was that the special would be interactive; Netflix’s second major foray into the choose-your-own-adventure format since the release of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch at the end of 2018. The special, which centres around Kimmy’s wedding to an English-adjacent prince (played by a very game Daniel Radcliffe), was something that nobody asked for, or wanted. The show ended well enough, beautiful and bittersweet in the way that it could be when it was at its best – it truly didn’t need an epilogue.

As a genre, the interactive special is one of Netflix’s riskier experiments. It’s not that the form is new; gaming has been doing this sort of thing for decades, firstly with visual novels and then much more successfully with the Telltale series, turning beloved properties like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones into fully interactive narratives for gamers to be led through. It’s more that nobody’s quite perfected it for live action, as many 90s experiments in the form will show you.

Upon release, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch seemed to garner more curiosity than actual acclaim. By the time that news cycle was over, people stopped talking about it. Black Mirror is an understandable first foray for the form; the blunt-force trauma of that show’s themes work for the binary choices of a choose-your-own-adventure book.

Jane Krakowski, Titus Burgess, Daniel Radcliffe and Carol Kane in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs The Reverend (Photo: Netflix)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which could be alienating with both its scattershot tone and darkness at the best of times, seems like less of an understandable choice. Comedy is a lot harder to pull off in this form; you double the amount of plot while tripling the amount of jokes. It might’ve been a concession by Netflix to the makers – you can finish your show, but only if you make it as a special. Or maybe Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, the show’s creators, really hated Bandersnatch and wanted to send it up? Who can say. Regardless, what we’ve got now is an 80-minute, interactive epilogue to their show.

Surprisingly, it works.

This special is a success on two fronts. Firstly, it’s more than just an epilogue, it’s a proper round-off to one of the funniest shows of the past five years; Fey wields punchlines like she’s throwing daggers. More of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is always going to be a welcome thing for me. Everybody is on their A-game here, tossing out Fey and Carlock’s one-liners as reliably as they ever have. They’re not doing anything new, but I’ll happily watch Ellie Kemper, Jane Krakowski, Titus Burgess and Carol Kane take another go at their respective characters.

Kane, in particular, gets a chance to play a second character that stretches her, and shows another, no-less-hilarious side to the actress. The show was a star-maker for Kemper and Burgess, another slam-dunk for Krakowski, but Kane was the one making her great, decades-long comeback after 1980’s Taxi, and I hope more roles as great as Lillian come for her in the wake of this show.

The only two choices when presented with Daniel Radcliffe, apparently (Photo: Netflix)

What’s more surprising is that Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt manages to be a successful platform for an interactive special to leap from. From the first choice, simply whether Kimmy’s wedding dress will be “fun” or “fancy”, the viewer is set down a narrative where they get to make scant, largely aesthetic choices as they march Kimmy down the path to her wedding, which has been derailed by an unexpected intrusion by yes, the Reverend (Jon Hamm, still best when playing a charming monster).

After four seasons, we know exactly who the characters are, and what they’d do in any situation, so the viewer is given a pretty strong implied direction to go down; Kimmy’s a generally good person, so if we want to get to the “right” ending, we know what to pick. There’s also a limit to how much agency the viewer can have – the ending you get is still, after all, the ending they actually filmed – but the ability to get to choose certain pathways feels like you’re choosing what jokes you want to see more. Do you want to see Jacqueline play mind games or engage in physical violence with a production assistant? This special, for better or worse, has you covered.

Even more pleasing than this, though, is how the special turns the idea of an interactive television show on its head. Some of the more obvious out-of-character choices that the viewer can make – like making Kimmy leave a child alone in a store, or engaging in some very out-of-character violence – are rewarded with false endings, and direct-to-camera disapprovals from the cast, followed with a quick rewind to the previous choice.

It even makes fun of the subtler aspects of the interactive special, like having actors vamp in the very obvious and momentum-killing time that is left between lines and actions for the viewer to make their choices. It’s the kind of spiky deconstruction that would make more sense if Netflix had made more of an established genre of the interactive special, rather than cautious stabs at it here and there. Most of Netflix’s work in the genre has been under the radar, with the exception of Bandersnatch, largely nature documentaries and kid shows, and none of it has been a show of this stature (or genre) taking a harsh right turn into it.

For a show that started off as one of Netflix’s biggest coups – one of the caustic voices of an embittered generation making the follow-up to her critical darling – it’s a shame to see it end its run on what feels like a cultural downbeat. The special is great, with some all-timer jokes, but who’s keeping their finger on this specific pulse? While Kimmy Schmidt has never had a significant decline in quality – and I actually think it’s been better than any of its peers at skewering pop and internet culture in uncomfortable, bracing ways – it’s definitely dipped out of favour in a way that 30 Rock never did, and frankly never has.

What I also appreciated about the show was how it waded into conversations that were genuinely uncomfortable. Even four years later, I’ve not seen a mainstream show delve into the complexities of Native American identity like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt did. Sure, it did it by casting Jane Krakowski, a tremendous actress but still white as a blank page, but I’ll take an imperfect stumble over nothing at all. When was the last time, after all, you saw a show with Native Americans that actually dealt with identity? No, that one episode of Westworld doesn’t count.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was doing this constantly, skewering the hypocrisy within certain social movements – be it hot-take culture or cancel culture – in ways that legitimately pushed the boundaries, and tested the structural integrity of certain woke bubbles. Crucially, it never felt like it was doing it to be edgy, but doing it to test the relative comfort of its audience, in the way that the best comedy does. The best comedy also gives us Maya Rudolph playing Dionne Warwick, complaining about global warming and mispronouncing “receipts”. I don’t make the rules, I just appreciate them.

So it’s a shame to see the series end with a footnote, even one as assured and funny as this special. While I think Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is a darker and altogether smarter creature than 30 Rock, I can see why it didn’t hold root in many viewers’ hearts; it’s a lot more fun to watch the antics of a sketch television show than it is to watch a dark comedy with an abused woman at its centre. The special is a fitting end for the show, and perhaps quite telling for its legacy: risky and experimental in its own right, but maybe not the easiest, or even the most necessary, thing to love.

The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. The Reverend is available on Netflix right now.

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Photo: Encircle Photos

Covid-19May 12, 2020

Gigs are off, but Auckland’s music crew is back at Spark Arena

Josie Adams

Contributing writer

Photo: Encircle Photos

Over lockdown, a small team of music industry professionals have become emergency response workers. Josie Adams visited Spark Arena to meet them.

Behind Spark Arena is a line of shipping containers filled with food and hygiene products. “Only a few months ago this was filled with Tool’s stuff,” said Tom Anderson, a coordinator of Auckland Council’s emergency response food parcel service. He slapped the sturdy metal doors. “Now, it’s full of nappies.” He grinned and opened up another container, full of baby formula and shampoo.

The arena has been transformed from a 12,000-seat music venue into an emergency food delivery response hub. Five weeks ago, a team of music industry workers returned to their old haunt to box supplies for families in need. Since then, they’ve sent out over 50,000 individual boxes of food and essential home items around the Auckland region.

Anderson is co-owner and manager of Whammy Bar, a dark and delightful home for Auckland live music. He’s also the production manager of Live Nation NZ, an engineer, a musician, and tour and stage manager. He’s spent plenty of time at Spark Arena in the past, but this is the first time he’s been there working office hours. “It’s definitely different,” he said. “I’m used to working here, but it’s usually at night, with heaps of people.” The early afternoon sunlight reflected off the white of his face mask, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled enough to show he was smiling. “It’s weird, yeah.”

“We went from zero to absolute 100,” said Anderson. “We started out with just these boxes,” he said, pointing to a massive wall of flat-pack boxes that lined one side of the arena floor. “Within days the supplies came in.” Countdown is the main supplier of these emergency goods, which include tinned foods as well as fresh vegetables and hygiene supplies.

Thankfully, he’s surrounded by friendly faces. Everyone working at the arena is from the music industry. Anderson wouldn’t have it any other way. The workers are sound techs, drivers, runners and managers; even the regular Spark event barista is still there.

Tom Anderson, one of the coordinators of the Spark Arena emergency response, in front of the loading zone

Lisa Fahrenberger, an audio technician, has spent the past month taping the boxes together. Next to her on the day The Spinoff visited was Heath Barlow, another audio tech – one Fahrenberger knows well. “Heath and I work together quite often, so we’re a good team,” she said. He looked over and raised a box in cheers.

The last gig she worked was WOMAD. “Everything got cancelled after that,” she said. “So I was at home from mid-March, and when this came around five weeks ago I’d been sitting at home for almost a month, so I was lucky to be asked.” Many in the music industry were hit hard by Covid-19, and might end up on the receiving end of one of these boxes. Fahrenberger knows the music industry is going to take a long time to heal, but she’d prefer to work here than sign on to something more permanent in another field.

“I’d rather do this, where I can work and be social, in a kind of familiar environment, and know it’s temporary, than have a career change,” she said. “I love my job.”

Lines are taped onto the ground at two-metre intervals, keeping workers like Fahrenberger and Barlow a safe distance apart. Each box has a list of what needs to go in it, and slowly moves around the circuit two metres at a time. “It’s basically a chain gang,” said Anderson.

The boxes are packed with essential goods. “We do a gluten-free box, we do a vegetarian box – people can pick what they need,” said Anderson. “They can select what kind of pet they have, or how old their kid is.” The childcare section separates nappies and baby formula by age, as does the cat and dog food.

Alongside Spark management, Anderson is coordinating the response with Daniel Turner from Rhythm and Vines and Shane Marsh from Homegrown. Keeping a music festival from descending into chaos is a skill few people possess. They’re putting those skills to good use here. “We’re used to adapting,” said Anderson. “It’s what we do.”

On a busy day, over a hundred people could swing by Spark Arena: workers, couriers, and supply truck drivers. Some are part-timers, and others are here every day. Staff levels have gone up and down in relation to demand; and demand has changed as quickly as the pandemic does. In its first week of operation, the team fielded 3,000 requests for food parcels. Last week, in just one day, it sent out the same number.

The network these music professionals share has helped build this emergency response. A trucking contractor donated three containers for storage that usually ship lights and sound equipment. Production company Tone Deaf donated its container, which usually has crowd barrier in it; now it’s home to shampoo. Viking, a staging company, donated concrete blocks to hold up a donated marquee in the carpark. “We’ve called it the Covid merch tent,” said Anderson. Underneath the marquee are crates of supplies that haven’t found a home in a box nor a shipping container.

A shipping container that once held musicians’ gear now holds nappies and shampoo.

All these spaces are filled with supplies, and people moving them. It’s a stark contrast with the venues these people normally fill; places like Whammy Bar, Wine Cellar, Galatos, Neck of the Woods, and a nocturnal Spark Arena. In every city in New Zealand, thousands of people are out of work in an industry that has become their way of life.

Anderson checked on Whammy Bar the other day, looking for signs of rats or leaks. The bar is underneath St Kevin’s Arcade, which is all but deserted right now. “All these empty spaces can be pretty traumatic, really.”

He isn’t sure how long this emergency response plan will keep him busy. “They said eight weeks, but it’s hard to say when demand keeps changing,” he said. He hopes everyone who needs it is accessing it.

Auckland Council itself isn’t sure when the need for emergency response food parcels will end. “At this stage it is hard to predict how long the service will continue to operate in its current format,” said Kate Crawford, group controller of Auckland Council’s emergency management. “However, Auckland emergency management will continue to work with the arena and our partners across levels three and two to ensure the needs of our communities are met.”

“We are also really grateful for the work the staff at Spark Arena have done, turning the site from an international event venue to a major food distribution centre in a matter of days. The commitment they have shown to their fellow Aucklanders is inspiring.”

The welfare food distribution centre at Spark Arena is a significant partnership between Auckland Council, Auckland emergency management and Countdown, Spark Arena and New Zealand Couriers. It was set up by Auckland Council at Spark Arena at the request of the government to help people needing assistance due to the Covid-19 crisis and lockdown. If you need to access this service, call 0800 22 22 9.