Kimmy Schmidt’s Revolutionary Approach to Pain

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Credit Eric Liebowitz/Netflix

“You can stand anything for 10 seconds,” says Kimmy Schmidt. “Then you just start on a new 10 seconds.”

Kimmy’s maxim, delivered in episode two of Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” sounds chirpy and childlike (especially since it’s delivered partly in Mary-Poppins-style song). But it’s a sign of something serious: the show’s quietly revolutionary approach to its main character’s painful past.

Kimmy has survived 15 years of imprisonment by a cult leader in an underground bunker.