Kimmy Schmidt (
Ellie Kemper) was in eighth grade when she was kidnapped by Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (
Jon Hamm). He held Kimmy and three other women captive for 15 years in an underground bunker and convinced them that a
nuclear apocalypse had left them the sole survivors of humanity. In the
first season, the women are rescued, and go on to appear on the
Today Show in New York City. After the show, Kimmy decides she doesn't want to return to Indiana or be seen as a victim, so she starts a new life in New York City. Roaming around the city, she comes across landlady
Lillian Kaushtupper (
Carol Kane), who offers Kimmy a chance to room with aspiring actor
Titus Andromedon (
Tituss Burgess) in her downstairs apartment. However, to get the apartment, Kimmy has to find a job. When she tries to get a job at a nearby candy store, she sees a boy stealing candy. She pursues him back to his home and encounters his mother,
Jacqueline Voorhees (
Jane Krakowski), a Manhattan trophy wife, who mistakes her for a nanny, and whom Kimmy mistakes as someone trapped in a cult. Jacqueline hires Kimmy as a nanny for her 10-year-old son. As Season 1 continues, Kimmy falls in love with Dong (
Ki Hong Lee), a Vietnamese man from her
G.E.D. class; encourages Jacqueline to leave her cheating husband; helps Titus rediscover his dreams of stardom; goes to court to testify against the Reverend, and discovers how the world has changed in the 15 years she was held captive. In the
second season, Kimmy is sick of working for Jacqueline and gets a job at a year-round Christmas store and then as an
Uber driver. She tries to get over Dong, who enters a
green card marriage with a much older G.E.D. student and is eventually deported. As Kimmy tries to move on, so do Titus and Jacqueline. Titus begins dating newly out construction worker Mikey Politano (Mike Carlsen) and Jacqueline attempts to adjust to life without a wealthy husband and returns to her
Native American heritage, devoting herself to force the
Washington Redskins to change their name. She begins dating socially awkward lawyer Russ Snyder (
David Cross) after she realizes that his family, who despise him, own the Redskins. Kimmy reunites with Gretchen and Cyndee to save them from joining another cult and getting married on television, respectively. When Season 2 ends, Titus leaves to be a performer on a cruise and Lillian protests the invasion of
hipsters in her neighborhood, while Kimmy makes amends with her mother (
Lisa Kudrow) after advice from her therapist (
Tina Fey) before receiving a phone call from the Reverend in prison, telling her that they need to get a divorce. In the
third season, Kimmy proceeds with the divorce from the Reverend but hits a snag when she learns that a devoted fan (guest star
Laura Dern) wants to marry him. After getting her G.E.D., Kimmy decides to go to college. She happens into a
rowing scholarship at
Columbia University, where she is popular but fails academically. She forms a friendship with Perry (
Daveed Diggs), a philosophy and religion transfer student who, like Kimmy, does not fit in with the rich, elitist
Ivy League students. Titus returns from his stint on the cruise harboring a secret and, determined to come home to Mikey with money and a job, he records a novelty song called "Boobs in California" and auditions for
Sesame Street. After being propositioned and sexually harassed by the puppet star of the series, Titus leaves and runs home to Mikey. Titus sees Mikey out with another man, and breaks up with him. Lillian is elected to the city council and attempts to block the construction of a supermarket chain for fear it will
gentrify the neighborhood. She later starts a relationship with the owner of the chain (
Peter Riegert). Meanwhile, Jacqueline and Russ marry and successfully execute their plan to force his family to change the name of the Redskins, but after Russ is run over by a car, he emerges from months in a body cast as a handsome heartthrob, earning his family's respect but turning his back on Jacqueline to gain their affection. After "Boobs in California" becomes a hit in Japan, Titus gets a mild burst of fame, which Jacqueline helps him negotiate. At the end of season three, Titus vows to win Mikey back from his new boyfriend, Jacqueline finds a new calling as Titus' agent, and Kimmy lands a job at a tech
start-up. In the
fourth and final season, Kimmy is working at Giztoob, the tech company started by a former classmate at Columbia, and Jacqueline is representing Titus as his agent. Kimmy is horrified to discover Jacqueline's former
boy toy Doug, a.k.a. DJ Fingablast, has become a
men's rights activist and made a
true crime documentary about the Reverend called
Party Monster: Scratching the Surface. Outraged that the documentary sympathizes with the Reverend and paints Kimmy and the other Mole Women negatively, Kimmy writes a children's book that encourages boys to be kind. After acting in an anti-bullying performance for a middle school, Titus gets a job as director of the school play, pretends to write and star in a superhero television show called
The Capist, starring
Greg Kinnear, in an attempt to impress Mikey, and briefly joins the cast of
Cats. Meanwhile, Lillian's boyfriend Artie dies and she is put in charge of his adult daughter's trust. An hour-long standalone episode separate from the main plot, "Sliding Van Doors", presents an
alternate universe in which Kimmy is never kidnapped. The butterfly effect of this leads to Kimmy becoming an ambitious news anchor, Titus missing his audition for
The Lion King and becoming a closeted movie star with his career managed by a cult run by Gretchen, Jacqueline marrying Mikey instead of Julian Voorhees, and Lillian running a Latin street gang. The series concludes with each of the main four characters finding success and purpose in new ventures, with Titus reuniting with Mikey and becoming a film star, Jacqueline finding both success and love with rival agent Eli (
Zachary Quinto), Lillian becoming the new voice of the
New York City Subway, and Kimmy's book becoming a huge success. The final scene of the series features Kimmy and her mother opening a roller coaster at the amusement park based on her book series, where a young boy tells Kimmy that her books make him feel safe. The series was followed by an interactive sequel film,
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend, in which Kimmy, about to be married to British Prince Frederick (
Daniel Radcliffe) realizes that Reverend Richard had a second bunker where he had trapped additional girls, and goes to West Virginia to rescue them and put her past behind her once and for all. ==Episodes==