Photo illustration by Slate. Photos courtesy of Netflix © 2020.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt wrapped up last year with happy endings for all involved. Kimmy was a millionaire thanks to her bestselling young adult books, Titus was a happily married movie star, Jacqueline was a hotshot agent, and Lillian got to take a stand against gentrification without blowing herself up. But the series largely kept the Rev. Richard Wayne Gary Wayne, the man who imprisoned Kimmy in an underground bunker for years, out of its endgame. In Kimmy vs. the Reverend, Netflix’s latest “Bandersnatch”-style interactive, she gets a chance at closure—and, depending on what choices you make for her, revenge. The story kicks off on the eve of Kimmy’s wedding to Frederick (Daniel Radcliffe), an Englishman who’s 12th in line for the throne. A Choose Your Own Adventure–style book discovered among her old effects leads her to the suspicion that her group of “Indiana Mole Women” was not the only one, and with the reverend still in prison, the others might still be trapped underground somewhere. The quest to find them takes you on a winding path that feels like a definitive ending for the series—at least, if you take the right steps along the way. There are more than a dozen places for the story to end up. Here are all the ones we’ve found, a not-quite-comprehensive list that we’ll update if and when the internet uncovers more.
Sociable DistancingAs you’ll discover along the way, Kimmy vs. the Reverend gives our girl a chance to right some wrongs and even get revenge on the man who imprisoned her in an underground bunker—which means playing nice with him is the quickest way to get to a dead end. Choose for Kimmy to “be sociable” during her prison visit, and Dick Wayne takes it as an excuse to show off, first doing Conan O’Brien’s string dance—“That’s one for Team Coco!”—and then demonstrating his Michael Jackson moves. The latter has disastrous consequences: He tries a spin, slips, and fatally bangs his head on the visiting-room table. As he lies there in a pool of blood, Kimmy’s only hope of discovering the origins of her mysterious book slips away, and then Titus appears in front of a black screen to yell at you for screwing things up. “Who are you, me at Chipotle? Because you made some bad choices that are going to affect everyone!” Try again.
Reading Is FundamentalApart from taking it easy on the reverend, the biggest mistake Kimmy can make is not investigating what her fiancé calls her Whence Thither book. If you miss your first opportunity, when she’s given a choice between reading, planning her wedding, or making out with Frederick (and assuming you don’t screw up your encounter with the reverend), she’ll get another chance at a West Virginia gas station run by Johnny Knoxville. When he runs out, leaving his baby behind in an Exersaucer, you have a choice between Kimmy reading the book to the baby or Titus reading the baby. Pick the latter and you’ll have the pleasure of seeing Titus deliver some devastating baby burns—“Ring ring! It’s a diaper genie calling to say you’re gonna need more than three wishes to fix this”—but at the crucial fork in the road, Kimmy won’t know to turn to the book for guidance and the reverend will beat her to the bunker, rekidnapping his prisoners and taking them “to Florida, where everything’s legal.”
Watch That BabyChoose to abandon baby Knoxville, and even if you’ve already read the book, you won’t arrive in time to stop the reverend, who drives off with the women again. But worse, you’ve betrayed Kimmy’s good-natured character, which Titus’ construction-worker husband, Mikey, scolds you for. “Kimmy is a good person, and you’re not making good choices for her,” he says, going on to tweak Kimmy vs. the Reverend’s interactive predecessor: “That just got dark, like that show Spooky Mirror.”
Well, That Was EasyWhen Kimmy can’t decide what to do about the book, she turns to an old friend for help—but which? Call Gretchen, and you reach her in the middle of staging a bank heist for the Fimbriae Liberation Army, whose members wear Hillary Clinton masks, Point Break–style, and inform bank tellers that they’re experiencing a trauma and may want to seek counseling. Call Cyndee, and the story proceeds. But call Donna Maria, and you’ll get some sensible advice—too sensible, really. Donna Maria, still a food-manufacturing magnate whose products now include “Mole Women Molé Sauce,” counsels Kimmy to set aside her worries and marry the man who loves her. She does. Hooray! Cut to one month later, when Kimmy and Frederick are sitting next to each other, reflecting on the wedding we didn’t even get to see. “I thought more stuff would happen,” says Cyndee, who’s sitting next to them. “Why did I even turn on my TV, computer, or gaming console for this?” “I did think everything happened a little easy,” Kimmy agrees. “Do-over!” (You reach a similarly too-happy ending if you decide to simply have Kimmy and Frederick make out.)
Three’s a CrowdKimmy can’t travel to West Virginia alone, so she decides to take a friend. Her longtime roommate Titus is the obvious choice, but you can make her take Jacqueline instead. That, predictably, doesn’t end well. Rather than taking Kimmy’s private jet (don’t forget, she’s still rolling in Legends of Greemulax money), they take a plane piloted by Jacqueline’s son, Buckley, whose Varsity Blues–inflated college applications said he had his pilot’s license. Unfortunately, it’s not true: The jet crashes with Kimmy and Jacqueline aboard, and as they’re plummeting, Titus dies in a tragic treadmill accident. Lillian’s old boyfriend Robert Durst (Fred Armisen) appears to congratulate you for killing them all, of course.
Waiting …If they take Kimmy’s jet, Plane-o the Sky Car, Kimmy and Titus are delivered safely to West Virginia, but they land in a place so remote there’s nothing but forest and a dirt road. Should they wait for an Uber, estimated at 4,000 minutes away? Try it, and when their driver, Mamadou, arrives, he’ll find nothing but skeletons.
… and WaitingIf you leave Kimmy and Titus to rot, the episode automatically rewinds to the last choice. If you choose to have them wait again, they’re still reduced to bones, but instead of a pissed-off ride-share driver, they’re discovered by an army of C.H.E.R.Y./L.-like robots who crush their skeletons underfoot. “The last good humans are dead,” one of them says. “We can proceed.”
This Bird You Cannot ChangeOnce they reach West Virginia, Titus and Kimmy find themselves in a small-town bar looking for an answer, and they decide the best way to gain the suspicious locals’ trust is for Titus to jump onstage with the house band and sing “Free Bird.” (In a Southern dive bar, when someone calls out that request, you take it.) Mississippi boy Titus insists he knows the words—“All four years of high school English was the Poetry of Lynyrd Skynyrd”—but it’s up to you whether or not he’s bluffing. Choose that he’s telling the truth, and you’ll get to see Tituss Burgess wail a pretty great version of the song (your second time through, you can even choose to sit through all the guitar solos). But if he’s making it up, it ends in disaster, with a televised transcript of a 911 call where someone calls in a code 649: disrespecting Lynyrd Skynyrd. The sound of gunshots indicates our story is at an end, but Cyndee Pokorny comes on screen and gives us a chance to do better—and apologize for the decisions she made as a staff writer on the final season of Game of Thrones. (“They did all my ideas!”)
The (Wrong) Happy Couple, No. 1While Kimmy and Titus are down south, Jacqueline heads to the set of Titus’ new movie, and Lillian stays at home, where her suspicions that Frederick is just after Kimmy’s money have plenty of room to breathe. She decides to test his fidelity at a Korean karaoke bar, with a seductive rendition of the only song it has in English: “Yes! We Have No Bananas.” Make some bad choices during Kimmy’s final confrontation with the reverend—namely, choose to shoot him—and that initial spark turns into a raging fire. Cut to “Five Years Later,” when Frederick is sitting on a couch reflecting on his happy marriage to … Lillian? That can’t be right.
The (Wrong) Happy Couple, No. 2Choose to stomp the reverend to death rather than shoot him, and Kimmy wanders off into the wilderness after failing to find his underground bunker. This time, however, it only takes two years for Frederick to find a new bride—and it’s Xan, Jacqueline’s surly ex-stepdaughter. He can do better.
The (Wrong) Happy Couple, No. 3If you don’t shoot the reverend or stomp him to death, you can choose to “ ’Splode” him, using a bazooka Kimmy … just finds in the woods somewhere? Unfortunately she’s only standing a few feet away from her target, so they both go kablooey. The good news is Frederick was able to clone her, and he and the woman made from one of her hairs are … happy? Sort of? Sure, he’s a maître d’ in Harrisburg and she seems to have developed a taste for horseflesh, but they’re together.
Death, Three WaysKill the reverend all three different ways, and you’ll get to see him in the afterlife, chilling on a couch next to the molesting muppet Mr. Frumpus. The flames raging in the background are a pretty strong suggestion they’ve ended up in hell, but the reverend disagrees. After all, he reasons, would hell play Sugar Ray’s “Fly” on endless loop?
Here Comes the BrideAs satisfying as it is to see Kimmy shoot, stomp, or ’splode her abuser, sparing him is the only way to find the women he’s still got trapped (although the story still contrives to have Kimmy discover them herself). While Kimmy vs. the Reverend feels more like playing a game than watching a story, there’s a sense of satisfaction and even closure when the hatch opens and the women come crawling out into the sunshine, recreating the series’ opening credits with Kimmy in the role of rescuer. We’ve earned a happy ending, so we fast forward to Kimmy’s wedding day (and find out via a news report that Dick Wayne got kicked to death in prison anyway). She’ll be wearing the dress you picked out for her in the first scene (personally, I prefer the “fun” outfit with light-up sneakers and a candy necklace), but apart from a few details, the ceremony is largely the same—and largely unsatisfying. Either Lillian appears to suggest things could have gone better for Jacqueline and Titus, or a smiling Kimmy mumbles something about wearing the wrong dress.
You’ll have to choose precisely the right combination of choices (and possibly go through the story more than once) to reach the final ending, identified by the sudden appearance of special guest Kim Jong-Un (Bowen Yang) and, less subtly, by the giant “You Win!” letters stamped on the screen. The cast freeze-frames as the guests file out and the credits roll. And that’s all, folks.
Well, Not QuiteA few odds and ends that don’t qualify as alternate endings:
• If you miss Donna Maria on the phone, you end up with a series of voicemail prompts, one of which offers a recipe for nachos, one an emergency diarrhea hotline, and the third a rewritten version of “The 12 Days of Christmas,” sung by her company’s mascot, Taco Snake. Listen all the way through just to savor Ellie Kemper’s increasingly crazed facial expressions, but also because if you circle back and listen closely, you’ll hear the third option change to “press 3 for an Easter egg.” It’s mostly a collection of bloopers and cut lines, but watch the news crawl on the bottom of the screen, which reads “Great Work, Nerd! Dedicated Viewer Unlocks Easter Egg” and “Editor Has Nightmares About Branching Narratives Now, Hope You’re Happy.”
• Although she makes a valiant effort to cover for her client, Jacqueline is eventually forced to tell the crew of Titus’ movie that she’s been lying and he hasn’t been in his trailer all along. In a burst of dark humor, the movie’s male writer uses that one falsehood by a woman as an excuse to declare the end of #MeToo. Even darker, if you tell Jacqueline to play “mind games” on the movie’s female head of wardrobe, she’s coerced into writing a letter of apology that, once freeze-framed, looks an awful lot like the ones once demanded by Harvey Weinstein. Sample text: “If my lack of sleep has caused me to be short with anyone on set, please know that is not my typical personality. I value my professional reputation greatly and I just hope that I can somehow make it up to you, if you’ll allow me.”
• If you choose to have Cyndee sing karaoke instead of Lillian, she tries her hand at a singularly unappealing version of “Teach Me How to Dougie,” the visuals behind which appear to be a remake of The Seventh Seal starring one Titus Andromedon.
• Frederick describes his schooling at the prestigious “L’École Porc-Verrues.” You don’t need to speak the language to guess that’s French for Hogwarts.
• The days of Christmas from Taco Snake’s song, in ascending order: nachos for the table, margaritas, chips and salsas, mariachis, mole sauce, reasonably priced entrees, choices of toppings, more margaritas, flan, items from the gift shop, soda refills, lifelong dining memories.
from Slate Magazine https://ift.tt/35YHzU8
via IFTTT
沒有留言:
張貼留言