Season four of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is here, and as always, the cultural commentary is spot freaking on. Since the Netflix original is created by Tina Fey and the rest of the same team who did 30 Rock (one of my favorite shows of all time), is it any wonder that Kimmy Schmidt’s pop culture parodies are whip-smart and hilarious?
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In episode 3, the series takes a break from its original format and becomes “Party Monster: Scratching the Surface,” a true-crime documentary that Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) and Titus (Tituss Burgess) watch on Netflix clone “House Flix.”.
DJ Fingablast (Derek Klena), who looks and acts like he could easily be one of the Chainsmokers, begins the documentary by looking for someone to DJ his own wedding to Gigi and Bella’s sister Hello Hadid. He finds out that the man who inspired his love of spinning records, DJ Slizzard, was the persona of Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon Hamm), the reverend who kept Kimmy and three other women in a bunker for 15 years.
The reverend uses his power of manipulation to convince DJ Fingablast to start his campaign to get out of prison. He even name-drops some other true crime docs: “Adnan from Serial. The Staircase guy. They all had their cases reopened because of a supersmart documentary that didn’t leave anything out.”
The episode gets nuances and phenomena from docs like this spot-on. We see DJ Fingablast re-watching footage of the news discovering the girls in the bunker. There’s frequent re-enactments of events that take place (starring Titus!). There’s even a scene where DJ Fingablast catfishes one of the reverend’s supporters (Bobby Moynihan playing what is essentially a men’s rights activist).
We even see a clip of Jon Hamm on an actual 1990s dating show. This episode pulls out all the stops and, as always, you have to listen and look intently to catch every single joke.
Check out Kimmy Schmidt’s mockumentary, and the rest of the new season, on Netflix now.
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