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Victory is not the most important thing: the interactive special of "Kimi Schmidt" is the end we deserve

After a controversial ending season and a finale that may not have suited the spirit of this cute series, Netflix's original comedy returns in a special called "Kimi vs. the Priest." There is one "right" way to beat the special and reach the right end, but it is not necessarily the fun way

• Kimi Schmidt
• Netflix
• TV review

Living Room Fellow

It feels old-fashioned to talk about it in 2020, but when “Kimi Schmidt” aired in 2015 (a total of five years ago), she had a refreshing sense of revolution. It was the first great comedy of the streaming era, landing every time an entire season of watching a binge that changed the rules of the game. In many ways she was to the sitcom world what "House of Cards" was to drama series. And yes, even comparing series to "The House of Cards" in a positive section is something that hasn't aged well in the last five years.

And now for the interactive phase of the article: Anyone who has not watched Kimi Schmidt's 51 episodes on Netflix can leave the article now and continue browsing Walla (highly recommend Nadav Menuhin's wonderful magazine article on the Beehive band that went up on the site last week), or alternatively, go to Netflix and watch In the 51 episodes of Kimi Schmidt. Those who have already watched the rest of the seasons are welcome to stay with us for the rest of the article.

Take your time. Decide whether to stay or leave.

Did you stay?

Have you decided to stay?

Beauty.

Here we go.

now.

Come on.

It happens.

here.

True, this can be bypassed-but not unless you're a techie who knows what he's doing. It's the classic, intriguing "Choose Your Adventure" book that we read as children. This interface, which has already been successfully tried in the special episode of "Black Mirror". Compared to "Bendersnatch", who fell in love with the meta idea that characters have no free choice because all their decisions are made by viewers, at the expense of investing in the script - "Kimi vs. the Priest" is a particularly long and cute episode of the series.


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After a relatively weak final season, which ended in a touching episode that failed to exactly convey the spirit of creators Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, the interactive special is actually a kind of compensation and closing a beautiful circle. And most importantly, it is very funny and lets the great actors of the series express themselves and even improvise in a variety of comedic ways.

This is not supposed to work, because the banal-but-true cliché is that in comedy timing is everything, and the delay in punches that comes as a result of waiting time for the viewer to make decisions impairs the overall viewing experience, and yet - this is the peak time for all the characters in the series. In each of the scenarios in which the characters can be transferred.

You can refer to a special as an adventure game from the quest genre, which you have to "win" (and indeed there is a way to win it, about that later), but the viewing is entertaining and fun regardless of your choices. There are several paths you will choose to take that will lead to the "wrong" end, but then you can immediately go back a step and make the "right" decision.

And now for the spoilers phase, which is really recommended to avoid before going to watch / play - but you should return to them after finishing one of the trails, to understand where you chose "wrong". So here it is: our story begins a few days before the wedding of Kimi (the wonderful Eli Kemper) and Prince Frederick, number 12 on the list of heirs to the British crown (an excellent guest role by Daniel Radcliffe). The first choice the viewer is asked to make is to let Kimi get married in a noble dress, fittingly for a future noblewoman - or alternatively, get married in a "fun" dress, fitting for Schmidt's colorful personality. No matter which dress you choose, the plot will continue as usual - except that choosing the noble dress will prevent victory in the game. In case you reach the happy ending, where Kimmy and Frederick get married, Kimmy will turn to the camera and say, "I'm sorry I didn 't choose the fun dress." If you choose the fun dress, at the end there will be a huge caption on the screen: "YOU WON". And anyway, both endings are fun, so it does not really matter unless you are very competitive creatures that need confirmation of a "victory" over a TV show.

Just before the wedding, Kimi discovers that the priest who abducted her and her friends (John the mother in a ripping role) has another bunker with more "mole wives" imprisoned. The goal of the game is to find the bunker, free the girls, and make it back in time for the wedding with Frederick.

After playing the game for hours, I can recommend the safe method to "win" the game. The good and right end will come if you let Kimi do what is right for Kimi to do. It's pretty easy, it usually does the right thing morally and / or fun. But the "right" way to play the game is to experience all the sections in it, so you should choose the "wrong" choice. There are no real winners and losers, in the end you can always go back and choose the "right" option.

For example, Kimi has to decide whether to take Titus (Titus Burges, who won a justifiable nomination for Emmy for the role in the special) with her on the bunker quest, or Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski). The logical and fun choice would of course be to choose Titus, so it is the "right" choice that will lead the continuation of the plot. On the other hand, it is better to choose the illogical choice of Jacqueline, because it will lead to an amusing plane crash.

Even when Kimmy is faced with a moral dilemma whether to kill the pastor or not, the "right" choice would be to pity him and keep him alive, which is what Kimmy would do. At this point there are basically four choices: blow up the priest with a cannon, kick him to death, shoot him with a gun or spare his life. The only way to "win" is not to kill the priest, but if you make the three wrong choices in a row, you will find yourself in hell with John the Mother, who is sure to be in heaven at all - which is as funny as it sounds.

And most importantly, no matter how much you love Kimi Schmidt's opening song (and if you've read everything so far, you probably like Kimi Schmidt's opening song), do not forget to skip it against any human instinct. In case you give up something really wonderful will happen, responsibly.