Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Kisses A Boy!
March 13, 2015 6:32 AM - Season 1, Episode 5 - Subscribe
One of the other mole-women comes to visit Kimmy and brings along her fiancee.
"Troll the respawn, Jeremy."
posted by drezdn at 6:43 AM on March 13, 2015 [21 favorites]
posted by drezdn at 6:43 AM on March 13, 2015 [21 favorites]
If by some circumstance I find myself single and you are interested in courting me, Meat and Flowers would probably work pretty well despite me not being from Indiana.
"I love your yellow hat" was my favorite part of the previews for this show, so the fact that moment where the cat-calling construction worker started to examine his life also led to him asking Titus out was magic to me.
And speaking of Titus's midlife crisis, Kimmy's line:
“Titus, age doesn’t matter. You can die at any time.”
also really resonated.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:05 AM on March 13, 2015 [14 favorites]
"I love your yellow hat" was my favorite part of the previews for this show, so the fact that moment where the cat-calling construction worker started to examine his life also led to him asking Titus out was magic to me.
And speaking of Titus's midlife crisis, Kimmy's line:
“Titus, age doesn’t matter. You can die at any time.”
also really resonated.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:05 AM on March 13, 2015 [14 favorites]
"I love your yellow hat" was my favorite part of the previews for this show, so the fact that moment where the cat-calling construction worker started to examine his life also led to him asking Titus out was magic to me.
I thought that was an amazing bit, especially the fact that it went from what seemed to be a stand-alone cold open gag to having the nice callback with Titus.
posted by nubs at 9:10 AM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
I thought that was an amazing bit, especially the fact that it went from what seemed to be a stand-alone cold open gag to having the nice callback with Titus.
posted by nubs at 9:10 AM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
"There were side-tubes?"
posted by sobarel at 9:23 AM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by sobarel at 9:23 AM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]
The moment when Titus looks out the window and sees an old man looking back at him, and then it turns out that this was the guy stuck in the bathtub, is perhaps the first double-callback I have ever seen, and it is masterful.
There's not really a foregrounded awful perverted white guy in this episode, but the whole of the episode is in the shadow of Richard Wayne Gary Wayne's bunker, so there doesn't really need to be. And since the show starts with a catcalling that gets completely upended, I think the show's ongoing theme of men taking advantage of whatever leverage they have to manipulate women remains intact, as does the fact that Kimmy has led a lifetime, sometimes accidental, battle against it.
posted by maxsparber at 9:58 AM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]
There's not really a foregrounded awful perverted white guy in this episode, but the whole of the episode is in the shadow of Richard Wayne Gary Wayne's bunker, so there doesn't really need to be. And since the show starts with a catcalling that gets completely upended, I think the show's ongoing theme of men taking advantage of whatever leverage they have to manipulate women remains intact, as does the fact that Kimmy has led a lifetime, sometimes accidental, battle against it.
posted by maxsparber at 9:58 AM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]
And was that a Cliff Huxtable sweater that Titus dons when he's given up on his youth?
posted by sobarel at 10:03 AM on March 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by sobarel at 10:03 AM on March 13, 2015 [5 favorites]
Yes, it was.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 AM on March 13, 2015
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:04 AM on March 13, 2015
Oh, good. There are a lot of US pop culture references in this show that I'm not quite getting, but I recognised the one that makes me old and uncool.
posted by sobarel at 10:12 AM on March 13, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by sobarel at 10:12 AM on March 13, 2015 [7 favorites]
The drama of the imaginary ball: another wonderful one-shot joke that gets deeply disturbing if you think about it for too long ( and setting up Cyndee's delusional willingness to belive anything if it makes her happy)
posted by The Whelk at 10:19 AM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 10:19 AM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
And was that a Cliff Huxtable sweater that Titus dons when he's given up on his youth?
And "Huxtable" was one of the "old" types Titus was worried about becoming.
posted by drezdn at 10:37 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
And "Huxtable" was one of the "old" types Titus was worried about becoming.
posted by drezdn at 10:37 AM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
I like that even when Titus was feeling old and washed up, he still knew he was a Baby Slut underneath it all.
posted by yellowbinder at 10:48 AM on March 13, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by yellowbinder at 10:48 AM on March 13, 2015 [8 favorites]
"You are an escritoire!"
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:29 AM on March 13, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Cash4Lead at 11:29 AM on March 13, 2015 [9 favorites]
"Titus, cherish this time. Someday you'll wake up and you'll say 'who's that old woman in the mirror'? And then she'll punch you and you'll say 'that's not a mirror. That's an open window'. What are we talking about again?"
posted by leotrotsky at 12:55 PM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by leotrotsky at 12:55 PM on March 13, 2015 [3 favorites]
That was an interesting take on how to handle post-mole life. Technically Cyndee is happy and getting what she wants...even if it's out of pity and her future husband is gay, it's still what she wanted! Well, okay then, hun, I wish you luck with that.... especially since Cyndee sounds like the nicest of the mole women.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:49 PM on March 13, 2015
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:49 PM on March 13, 2015
It is so strange to see something you're totally familiar with on a tv show. The proposal scene was filmed in Morningside Park. I walk up and down those steps everyday and I remember seeing a film crew setting up on my way to work, and tearing down on my way home, one day last summer.
posted by plastic_animals at 5:03 PM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by plastic_animals at 5:03 PM on March 13, 2015 [4 favorites]
Also, Kimmy's scream when Charles sneaks up behind her.
posted by plastic_animals at 5:14 PM on March 13, 2015
posted by plastic_animals at 5:14 PM on March 13, 2015
It was around this episode that I started getting all "really?" about the show's gay humor. Don't shows of this caliber aspire to be a little bit better than constantly riffing on flamboyant gay stereotypes? I'm pretty sure even middling fare like "Will & Grace" put more nuance and depth into that stuff. Or maybe I'm just hating.
posted by naju at 6:06 PM on March 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by naju at 6:06 PM on March 13, 2015 [2 favorites]
(Like, I'm not offended, more that it's a lazy sort of comedy that passed muster in the 90's at best and I thought we'd mostly moved on.)
posted by naju at 6:09 PM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by naju at 6:09 PM on March 13, 2015 [1 favorite]
I thought it was refreshing to have such a unapologeticly femme guy who is both a main character, not a eunuch, not a super helpful genie, and ...aging!
Considering how much gay guys hate and revile femme guys, I'm just happy he exists,
posted by The Whelk at 6:10 PM on March 13, 2015 [20 favorites]
Considering how much gay guys hate and revile femme guys, I'm just happy he exists,
posted by The Whelk at 6:10 PM on March 13, 2015 [20 favorites]
Yeah, and honestly, the show isn't laughing at Titus. It's reveling in what makes him stand out - just like all the characters on this show. The joke isn't that he's femme. It's often that he's as ill-equipped to deal with New York as Kimmy is, but he doesn't recognise that fact. Because, like Kimmy, he keeps rolling with the punches.
posted by crossoverman at 10:46 PM on March 13, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by crossoverman at 10:46 PM on March 13, 2015 [8 favorites]
I mean, it's there in the joke "black gay and old? I won't know what to put on the hate crime report." Titus is on the lower rungs of every social ladder but, like Kimmy, refuses to see themselves as a victim.
posted by The Whelk at 11:25 PM on March 13, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 11:25 PM on March 13, 2015 [9 favorites]
Tituss the actor is so amazing that it's hard for me to imagine any joke written for him that he can't pull off. Some of the jokes are stereotypes I guess but he just knocks them so far out of the park (and is such a real person throughout) that it never feels mean, at least to me.
Until this character I never realized how rough it must be for femme gay guys watching America fall in love with very passing gay bros with beards played by straight actors and only hearing about limp wrists and mincing and lisps as hack stereotypes when that's just being normal for a lot of dudes! Titus is this show's Jack Doneghy and I hope he gets even more B stories of his own throughout the next season.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:30 AM on March 14, 2015 [8 favorites]
Until this character I never realized how rough it must be for femme gay guys watching America fall in love with very passing gay bros with beards played by straight actors and only hearing about limp wrists and mincing and lisps as hack stereotypes when that's just being normal for a lot of dudes! Titus is this show's Jack Doneghy and I hope he gets even more B stories of his own throughout the next season.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:30 AM on March 14, 2015 [8 favorites]
My favorite lines:
"White people kiss their dogs!"
"Gay as a penguin."
"That was smoke and mirrors! Two things gay men love."
"Straight guys can be Vegetarian."
"Just sucking on a chill pill."
"Maybe I'm overthinking it, but... Garfield?"
"Interest level exceeded"
And they have a lacrosse team!" "No, those are all flyswatters."
posted by sweetmarie at 12:48 PM on March 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
"White people kiss their dogs!"
"Gay as a penguin."
"That was smoke and mirrors! Two things gay men love."
"Straight guys can be Vegetarian."
"Just sucking on a chill pill."
"Maybe I'm overthinking it, but... Garfield?"
"Interest level exceeded"
And they have a lacrosse team!" "No, those are all flyswatters."
posted by sweetmarie at 12:48 PM on March 17, 2015 [2 favorites]
"Until this character I never realized how rough it must be for femme gay guys watching America fall in love with very passing gay bros with beards played by straight actors and only hearing about limp wrists and mincing and lisps as hack stereotypes when that's just being normal for a lot of dudes! Titus is this show's Jack Doneghy and I hope he gets even more B stories of his own throughout the next season."
The representation argument would carry more weight for me if I were confident that it was an in-group expression of identity and not the out-group stereotype of gay men played for othering laughs that has such a long, long history. It's like the discussion of the portrayal of Jacquelyne's parents in an earlier thread -- there's a number of ways in which this show feels like edgy 90s humor that in 2015 feels regressive, but the show isn't self-aware of this fact. Maybe the scripts were locked in a bunker in Indiana since 1999?
Someone also contrasted this against P&E with regard to how P&E developed great empathy with its characters and filled them out in very organic and un-sitcom-y ways. This show does have a lot of heart, but about 85% of it is concentrated in Kimmy while everyone else is a "character" in that formulaic sitcom way. But, the thing is, P&E didn't find its footing until the very end of its first season; it didn't have that authentic heart that made it so special until a good ways into the show. This show's deep affection for Kimmy -- as opposed to just using her as a set-up for fish-out-of-water jokes -- demonstrates that it has the potential to do what P&E did.
I don't know. I'm on the fence with it because there's this weird 90s regressive vibe that really puts me off, and there's this strong network sitcom vibe that also really puts me off, but then there's some brilliant comedic writing scattered regularly through each episode and Ellie Kemper is genuinely a treasure (I'm already thinking she'll get an Emmy nomination).
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:05 AM on March 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
The representation argument would carry more weight for me if I were confident that it was an in-group expression of identity and not the out-group stereotype of gay men played for othering laughs that has such a long, long history. It's like the discussion of the portrayal of Jacquelyne's parents in an earlier thread -- there's a number of ways in which this show feels like edgy 90s humor that in 2015 feels regressive, but the show isn't self-aware of this fact. Maybe the scripts were locked in a bunker in Indiana since 1999?
Someone also contrasted this against P&E with regard to how P&E developed great empathy with its characters and filled them out in very organic and un-sitcom-y ways. This show does have a lot of heart, but about 85% of it is concentrated in Kimmy while everyone else is a "character" in that formulaic sitcom way. But, the thing is, P&E didn't find its footing until the very end of its first season; it didn't have that authentic heart that made it so special until a good ways into the show. This show's deep affection for Kimmy -- as opposed to just using her as a set-up for fish-out-of-water jokes -- demonstrates that it has the potential to do what P&E did.
I don't know. I'm on the fence with it because there's this weird 90s regressive vibe that really puts me off, and there's this strong network sitcom vibe that also really puts me off, but then there's some brilliant comedic writing scattered regularly through each episode and Ellie Kemper is genuinely a treasure (I'm already thinking she'll get an Emmy nomination).
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:05 AM on March 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I have to say I was genuinely blown away by the reveal that Charles butt-dialed her and we get to see the conversation as both a two-way and an accidental three-way. That takes some masterful planning!
posted by psoas at 9:43 AM on March 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by psoas at 9:43 AM on March 25, 2015 [3 favorites]
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"Unicorns aren't..."
"offended by strong language, their magic protects them."
posted by drezdn at 6:40 AM on March 13, 2015 [7 favorites]