Kimmy Schmidt (character)

Kimmy Schmidt
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt character
First appearance	"Kimmy Goes Outside!" (1:01, 2015)
Created by	Tina Fey
Portrayed by	Ellie Kemper
Information
Aliases	Kimmy Smith
Species	Human
Gender	Female
Occupation	Assistant & nanny to socialite Jacqueline Voorhees Christmas Store elf Uber driver
Family	Lori-Ann Schmidt (mother) Kymmi (half-sister) Randy (step-father)
Significant other(s)	Charles (ex-fling) Grant (two dates) Logan Beekman (ex-boyfriend) Dong Nguyen (ex-boyfriend) Keith (ex-boyfriend)
Nationality	American

Kimberly Couger "Kimmy" Schmidt is the titular character on the Netflix original series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Background

Kimmy Schmidt was born in Durnsville, Indiana around 1985. According to the episode "Kimmy Goes to Her Happy Place!", Kimmy is unsure who her father is (but is aware that his name starts with a "S" or a "5"), as he had sex with her mother in the bathroom of a Ruby Tuesday. Also, revealed in the same episode, she was born on a rollercoaster during a tornado warning. At the age of 14, Kimmy was kidnapped by Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (portrayed by Jon Hamm) along with three other women - Donna Maria Nuñez (Sol Miranda), Cyndee Pokorney (Sara Chase), and Gretchen Chalker (Lauren Adams). They were placed in a bunker near Durnsville and were told that the apocalypse had come and that everyone else was dead. At some point, Kimmy found a rat from one of the vents, and realized the reverend was lying to them, but when she confronted him, he told her she could send out Cyndee all alone if she's so sure, and Kimmy, who was very attached to Cyndee, ended up deciding against it at the last moment.

Season 1

After fifteen years in the bunker, the women were found and released, and made famous in the media as the "Indiana Mole Women", but Kimmy moved to New York City and went by the name "Kimmy Smith" to avoid the attention. She eventually arrived at an apartment building, and shared an apartment with Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) under landlady Lillian Kaushtupper (Carol Kane), and proceeds to get a job working for Jacqueline Voorhees (Jane Krakowski).

Here she meets the Voorhees family's tutor Charles, with whom she has an awkward almost relationship, but it is very brief. Jacqueline sets her up on a date with Grant, a wealthy (and elderly) man who was a veteran of World War II and is now losing his mind from war trauma. That relationship however, doesn't work out either.

She joins a GED class in hopes of finishing her education, but it doesn't work out very well; so, she begins tutoring with one of the other adults in the class, immigrant Dong Nguyen (Ki Hong Lee), who falls in love with her. She teaches him better English, and he teaches her to be better at math.

However, at a dinner party at Jacqueline's, she meets Logan Beekman (Adam Campbell), who she ends up dating; he and Dong get in a fight about it all at Kimmy's 30th birthday party; however, they break up when Kimmy discovers he called the police on Dong (because of his being an illegal immigrant). She and Dong begin dating.

Thanks to Jacqueline, Kimmy is temporarily obsessed with a spinning class, until she realizes it's a cult, confronts the teacher, and does what she originally was avoiding doing.

Kimmy goes out of town to testify against the reverend, who seems to be winning until Kimmy goes back into the bunker and finds a piece of evidence against him. She gets a call from Dong, and discovers he was forced to get married to an old woman named Sonya from their GED class in order to stay in the country.

Season 2

Kimmy helps Titus to apologize to his wife Vonda, who was suing him for spousal support while at the same time, attempts to get over Dong. Later, she receives a job at an all-year Christmas store, but she was fired after she missed work several times on the account of her former boss Jacqueline White (formerly Voorhees). Later, she attempted a relationship with an Army veteran, but ended it after she accidentally assaulted him (as well as his psychological trauma).

Eventually, Kimmy and Dong attempted to reconcile their relationship by staying at an abandoned hotel in the Poconos. The two intended to have sex, though this was prevented when Kimmy unconsciously assaulted Dong multiple times as well as Dong's allergy to the latex on the condoms. The police found them, and later called Homeland Security in order to report Dong. It is heavily implied that Kimmy had sex with him at the back of a squad car. Soon after, Dong is deported back to Vietnam.

Soon after, Kimmy became an Uber driver, where she meets Andrea Bayden (Tina Fey), a perpetually drunk therapist who attempted to help her after ending her relationship with Dong. Eventually, Andrea stated that Kimmy's relationship issues were because of her long-gone mother. As a result, Kimmy went to Universal Studios Florida, where she found her rollercoaster-junkie mother Lori-Ann (Lisa Kudrow). The two quickly reconciled, but their issues were far from the surface.

On a rollercoaster, Kimmy and Lori-Ann argued on why Lori-Ann had left Indiana after Kimmy disappeared, and also why Lori-Ann didn't go looking for her after she was rescued. We learn that Lori-Ann felt overwhelmed by motherhood (she had given birth to her daughter when she was 17), as well the wave of sympathy she received after Kimmy was kidnapped, and revealed that she attempted to find Kimmy after several years (which included using t-shirts). Eventually, the two reconciled after several rides on a rollercoaster, with Lori-Ann promising to visit Kimmy in New York for Christmas.

At the end of the season, Kimmy had a Thanksgiving dinner with Jacqueline, Lillian, and Titus (who is on a prerecorded message from an audition), and received a call from the Reverend in prison, who revealed that he was engaged and has to annul his previous marriage–to Kimmy.

Friends and family

Kimmy, after her abduction, became close to the other women: Cyndee Pokorney, Donna Maria Nuñez, and Gretchen Chalker. However, Kimmy had a special attachment to Cyndee, whom she helped cure of her "Hulkamania" (an afflictiom which caused her to act like professional wrestler Hulk Hogan). Their relationship nearly was destroyed when the trial occurred, when it was revealed that Kimmy had the opportunity to escape alongside the others when Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne allowed them to leave. However, after Kimmy proved that Wayne did in fact kidnap the women through video evidence, Cyndee and Kimmy's relationship was restored.

Upon arriving in New York, Kimmy met Titus Andromedon, a flamboyant, gay actor originally from Mississippi. The two became best friends after Kimmy moved into Titus' apartment in the pilot episode. Kimmy was also friends with their landlady Lillian Kaushtapper, who often spoke of her odd past with her and Titus.

Initially, Kimmy was on ambivalent terms with her boss Jacqueline Voorhees, but the two soon became allies when Kimmy expressed support for Jacqueline standing up for herself during her divorce from her husband. Jacqueline sometimes insulted Kimmy for her look and clothing, though she was never outright mean to her.

After Kimmy was released, she learned that she had a stepfather named Randy (Tim Blake Nelson), a state trooper who failed to find Kimmy during her missing years but ended up marrying her mother (who had left the family by the time the series began), and a younger half-sister Kymmi (Kiernan Shipka), a teenager who frequently claimed to have hated Kimmy ("I hate you, Kimmy!" being a frequent rant). We later learn that Kymmi was bitter towards her sister because her childhood was restricted due to Kimmy's disappearance, but she later started to become friends with her sister, while reconciling with her father, whom she had expressed hostility towards.

At the end of the second season, Kimmy found her mother Lori-Ann, a rollercoaster junkie, at Universal Studios Florida. While Lori-Ann quickly embraced her daughter (having not seen her since 1998), Kimmy was suspicious of her mother and had some difficulty reconnecting with her. It is also revealed that Kimmy's fear of Velcro is because Lori-Ann never taught her to tie her shoes, which resulted in her being left alone at the time of her kidnapping. Eventually, after several rides on a rollercoaster, Lori-Ann revealed that she was overwhelmed by the sympathy she received after Kimmy's disappearance and wanted to get away from it all. They eventually reconciled, with Lori-Ann promising to visit Kimmy at Christmas.

Reception

Kemper has received overall positive reviews for the part; critic Kate Erbland saying "The ever-peppy Ellie Kemper's ...optimism is perfectly suited to this material." Arthur Chu of Slate said "In general, The show is everything I loved about 30 Rock, with an added dose of something totally unexpected with Ellie Kemper's performance as the titular 13-going-on-30 '90s refugee." Ken Tucker stated "The show is super-clever, features a winning performance by The Offices Ellie Kemper, and moves like a well-oiled joke machine." Critic Tim Goodman also praised her, saying "What infuses the entire series with sweetness and positivity is Kemper's never-flagging, completely endearing portrayal of Kimmy, who doesn't want to be a victim and doesn't want to waste another day of her life." David Weigand of the San Francisco Chronicle said "Kemper is hilarious, advancing perkiness to a comically psychotic level without having Kimmy ever lose her fundamental appeal." TV Guide's Joyce Emper said "Kemper sells Kimmy's wide-eyed naiveté and cluelessness at iPhones, selfies, slang and the like with irrepressible cheerfulness, curiosity and joy." Critic Robert Ham also praised her, saying "What is evident is how perfect a star vehicle this is for Ellie Kemper." Matt Roush said "Kimmy is a beaming bundle of perversely adorable gumption, winningly played by The Office gamine Ellie Kemper." Vicki Hyman commended Kemper's performance, commenting "Kemper is delightfully daffy in this modern Mary Tyler Moore role, oozing wonder as she discovers the marvels of the new millennium -- matching tattoos?" Verne Gay of Newsday said "There never was any doubt that Ellie Kemper could anchor her own comedy series. She's all lightness, charm, vitality and teeth -- big bright ones that have a character all their own." Maraget Lyons said "Kemper's just about perfect, and the show's pretty damn good, too." Several critics expressed disappointment when Kemper wasn't nominated for Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series during the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2015, calling it "a snub".

Awards and Nominations

Ellie Kemper has received several awards and nominations for the role.