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Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015) follows Kimmy (Ellie Kemper), a girl who was kidnapped in the eighth grade by a cult leader and forced to live in a bunker for 15 years thinking the world above her had ended. When she’s found, her and her fellow abductees enter into a world vastly different from the one they left, armed with eighth grade educations and 15 years of traumatic experiences forming most of their life experience.

The show draws reference from real-life abduction cases like Michelle Knight & Ariel Castro, dark and horrible publicized abductions that establish a platform for viewer comprehension of what may have happened to Kimmy in the bunker. The show mentions in passing the types of experiences that happened in the bunker, but juxtaposes them with the obnoxiously colorful cast and humor. It does a good job of providing a platform of trauma everyone has heard about, but focuses on the resolve instead of the trauma itself.

“You can stand anything for 10 seconds, then you just start on a new 10 seconds.” That’s one of Kimmy’s mantras for dealing with tough situations.

As Anna North for The New York Times puts it, “it’s a sign of something serious: the show’s quietly revolutionary approach to its main character’s painful past.”

The kidnapping and imprisonment did not release Kimmy as a sheltered, battered woman broken by the experience. She emerges resilient and full of life, an affirmation of strength from a female lead determined to maintain her sanity and bring out the best in others. She has a toolbelt full of adorable coping mechanisms that keep her giggling, and which she imparts on others to manage their troubles. She wears obnoxiously bright colors and acts equally obnoxious, so much that if we didn’t know where she came from, she would seem insane. But given her experience it makes her endearing, and showcases a beautiful resolve to not be burdened by her past.

Lenika Cruz of The Atlantic writes:

“Initially, the cult backstory seems like a comic device to show Kimmy experiencing the messiness of modern life for the first time… But it quickly becomes clear that Kimmy’s past has a bleaker and more specific narrative purpose: Her memories are the PTSD-inducing kind that fuel flashbacks, nightmares, random fits of anger, and distrust. While much of the show finds glee in Kimmy’s propensity for gaffes and ineptitude for slang, it’s equally interested in how her cheeriness is a necessary façade for her inner pain. In other words, her past is much more than an excuse to have Kemper play the cute, out-of-touch oddball in the mean city, which sets Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt up as an unusually earnest and upbeat member of the dark comedy genre… Kimmy’s not the only character trying to come to terms with her past. Her roommate, Titus, is a gay, black, former Times Square robot performer/aspiring star from Mississippi. Her new boss, Jacqueline Voorhees, also has a history that undercuts her current life as a rich, neglected Manhattanite housewife… Each is arguably a victim in ways that become more clear a few episodes into the show. And Kimmy Schmidt seems very interested in confronting this notion of victimhood - how does enduring something bad change who you are? And how does it affect how the rest of the world sees and treats you?”