'Kimmy Schmidt' sees 'Orange' in unexpected Netflix crossover
Out of the bunker and into another Netflix show.
That's the comical fate of Gretchen Chalker (Lauren Adams) in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's third season (now streaming), as the newly incarcerated ex-cult member lands in Litchfield prison from Netflix's Orange Is the New Black. The brief crossover occurs in the fifth episode's final scene, after the FBI calls in Gretchen's fellow "Mole Woman" Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) to talk Gretchen down when she starts her own cult of kidnapped preteen "husbands" to prove that women are just as capable of leadership as men.
"We left Gretchen last season with that goal, and wanted to continue to pay off her journey," says Robert Carlock, who co-created the outlandish comedy with his 30 Rock partner Tina Fey. "It just seemed like a fun lens, looking at her trying to do exactly what the guys do and have the same kind of big, flashy ending of some of the more extreme cases."
Fed up with the boys' constant TV-watching and sandwich demands, Gretchen decides she's going to blow up her remote forest cabin with a homemade bomb. But Kimmy convinces her otherwise, pointing to wild animals such as bonobos, orcas and elephants that rely on strong female leaders who don't take easy ways out. Later, Gretchen explains the significance of the "bon-orca-phant" to Orange fan favorite Black Cindy (Adrienne C. Moore) and other inmates as they get off the bus at Litchfield.
Fey came up with the idea, emailed Orange creator Jenji Kohan for her blessing and booked Moore, who had a cameo on 30 Rock as a lascivious marriage bureau employee. The conversation between Gretchen and Black Cindy was filmed on Kimmy's Brooklyn set.
The mash-up proved seamless, although one throwaway detail about Black Cindy's criminal past — stabbing her boss at Sea World — almost blew their cover.
"Jenji just asked us to not make that the reason that Black Cindy is at the prison, because that would start to pull on some threads. But the fact that she was willing to let us say that Black Cindy had at one point worked at a Sea World and stabbed her boss, I thought, was very generous, so we sent her a gift certificate for a massage. I hope that was enough for our stomping all over her reality."
Although Gretchen isn't seen again in Season 3, Carlock hopes to revisit a (slightly) better-adjusted version of the character, in or out of prison. "For the first time in a long time, she's not beholden to (doomsday cult leader Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne, played by Jon Hamm) or a bunch of teenage boys, and will have some time to figure some stuff out," he says.
He has plenty of ideas for future crossovers, too.
Kimmy "should probably just go on a fixed-gear bike ride with Aziz (Ansari in Master of None), right? Maybe have Lillian become president of the United States in the House of Cards world? We’ll take 'em all," Carlock says. "Kimmy would love to be in Stranger Things. It’s a throwback to her own kind of references, in terms of the '80s and '90s. She could get on a bike with those kids."
