‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ Goes All ‘Evil Genius’ with True Crime Episode

Here’s a note for all those planning on streaming the first half of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Season 4 now that its on Netflix: there’s nothing wrong with your autoplay feature. That really is episode 3 of Season 4, and it is by far the most ambitious, and possibly weirdest, thing that the Netflix comedy has ever done.

The episode is “Party Monster: Scratching the Surface” and, as its hyper serious title suggests, it’s intentionally unlike anything else in the super silly Kimmy Schmidt universe (while also still being mad silly). The entire 33-minute episode, written by Meredith Scardino and directed by Rhys Thomas, is presented not as an episode of Kimmy Schmidt, but as a chapter of a mock docuseries. I guess it’s a mockuseries? Consider that term coined!

The ruse runs deep, though, with the episode going so far as to ditch the opening “thu-thud” of the Netflix logo and even Kimmy Schmidt’s still-unskippable-after-all-these-years theme song. Replacing those two Netflix staples are

1. The logo for Columbia House’s House Flix, because the company that hooked all of us with promises of Sarah McLachlan’s Surfacing and Counting Crows’ Recovering the Satellites for a penny now churns out streaming content
2. The Party Monster opening credits, a perfect send-up of the Making a Murderer intro, all self serious strings and beats over over blown-out footage of trees, suburban homes, and mug shots

Like the Netflix docuseries, the mockuseries (look at that term in action!) focuses on one man’s search for the true crime truth. That man is DJ Fingablast (Derek Klena), a vapid bro who topped the electronic/dance charts with the single “I Have a Beat (feat. the Estate of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” After proposing to his girlfriend, the third Hadid sister, DJ Fingablast is faced with an epic problem: who can DJ at his wedding?

The answer: DJ Slizzard, the cheap creep that DJed one of his birthday parties years ago, thus inspiring young Douglas to take up turntables. DJ Slizzard will be familiar to Kimmy Schmidt fans, as he’s actually Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon Hamm).

Like Steven Avery or Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, the mockuseries (oh man, that’s such an apt term) reframes the series’ main villain as a tortured man and a prisoner of circumstance. Well, Fingablast tries to do that; DJ Slizzard is the exact same level of skeevy as he’s always been, but the dimwitted DJ is too wowed to notice.

Even without getting into spoilers, you can totally expect this episode to hit every single note from Netflix’s growing library of true crime series. The show pays attention to every detail, including the VHS grain of DJ Fingablast’s childhood birthday party through to the news reports surrounding the discovery and liberation of the Mole Women.

But what makes this episode really stand out from the rest is its commitment. Kimmy Schmidt has always been committed to absurdity; remember the delightfully bizarre runner last season when Titus thought he ate Dionne Warwick? But this time around, the show is committed to playing it straight–a decision that really highlights the show’s lunatic leanings. Every decision DJ Fingablast makes is off-kilter, as is everything said by Hamm’s Slizzard. And when the episode starts connecting back to the series at large (Kimmy and Titus do pop up, albeit in surprising ways), the jokes are instantly gratifying.

“Party Monster: Scratching the Surface” is a pitch perfect parody of Netflix’s true crime obsession, one so thoroughly executed you might think you’re suddenly watching a new show. With Kimmy Schmidt wrapping up after this season, maybe there’s room for a spinoff series that’ll let the show’s creators run amok. Just imagine an anthology series–Netflix’s Columbia House’s House Flix Presents has a weird ring to it, doesn’t it? Even if this is the only DJ Fingablast adventure we get, it’s truly a mockuseries to behold.

That phrase is really gonna catch on.

Where to stream Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt