FILM AND TV MANIA

By Amelia Solomon

Season two of Comedy Central’s Broad City show premiered last week and to borrow an alleged phrase from Ryan Seacrest, “They killed it.”  Broad City is the brain child of former improv actors Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson.  The two met, during their time doing skits, at the Uprights Citizen Brigade Theatre, and they created a web-series about life in New York City revolving around two women in their 20’s, who both lack direction and end up in insanely humorous situations.  The web-series received a large following and positive media endorsement, which resulted in them gaining the attention of fairy godmother Amy Poehler.  Poehler teamed up with Glazer and Jacobson, as the Executive Producer, of a television comedy show based on their web-series.

What makes Broad City so unique is that it’s unapologetically real.  The two comics are not afraid to go there, push the envelope and show everyone that girls are just as raunchy as men.  They are the antithesis to network sitcom shows like 2 Broke Girls.  Nothing is glossy, glazed over, or too taboo to discuss.  In fact, Broad City is touted as a new kind of feminism because it lets these girls be free to act like who they really are.  Female comedians like Sarah Silverman and Amy Schumer, who has her own successful sketch comedy show on Comedy Central, may have opened the door for the Broad City creators and stars, but they have taken the female buddy comedy to the next level and redefined what a millennial woman’s world looks like.

After the success of season one, season two was highly anticipated, and a trailer for season two hit the internet in November 2014.  From the two-minute trailer, it was obvious that the new season would not disappoint.  There’s a danger with some shows, especially those that are so fresh and brilliant during their debut season, to fail to deliver the second time around.  But with the season two opening episode, “In Heat”, Glazer and Jacobson outdid themselves.

“In Heat” has the finest two-minute opening sequence I have seen from a comedy show in years.  Abbi and Ilana race to make a subway and, once on the train, they realize they need to get to the back, so they will be close to the exit at the next stop.  This means they have to traverse through three subway cars of insane Manhattan residents.  For those that have never lived in New York City, it might seem unrealistic that the people they see as they walk from car to car could really exist.  But I guarantee you they do.  The girls encounter two hostel loving backpackers, a guy with bad body odor, a man clipping his toe-nails, a mother cutting her son’s hair, a family of tourists eating a six-foot sub, a perverted man, a couple making out, a pregnant woman, an impromptu calypso band doing circus-freak style acrobatics, a pile of dog poop, and then a subway car full of Orthodox Jews.  Trust me, if a baby shark can end up on the New York subway, the above list is just your normal commuter fare.

The plot-line of “In Heat” revolves around Abbi’s quest to get an air conditioner, because it’s summer in New York City and that means it’s end of the world hot, where your clothes stick to you, you can’t breathe and smells emanate off the New York City sidewalks that you could never even imagine.  Abbi is also trying to redeem herself after a bad date with Stacey, played by the cameo loving Seth Rogen.  Because she has no AC in her apartment, the two sweat to death and then uncomfortably try to pretend they aren’t shvitzing everywhere.  After he passes out, while they are having sex, Abbi’s determined to find a way to cool her apartment and try again another night.  When she tells Ilana about her date, she admits she may have continued to have sex with Stacey for a few seconds after he passed out.  Ilana points out that she just committed date rape and that her actions are like “reverse rape culture.”

The next scene finds Abbi and Ilana in a Bed, Bath, and Beyond to buy an air conditioner.  It becomes apparent that Abbi spends too much time there, as she has a secret handshake with every employee in each department.  Anyone that’s ever gone to college or moved can attest to the fact that Bed, Bath, and Beyond is like a black hole of amazing kitchen appliances and crazy As Seen On TV products that you become brainwashed into thinking you can’t live without.  It’s okay, you don’t have to hide your lettuce spinner and ShamWow from me.

After Abbi’s newly purchased air conditioner gets stolen, she posts an ad on Craigslist looking for a free air conditioner.  They meet a man who answers their ad and it turns out he’s trying to shoot an audition tape for The Amazing Race.  This scene is a great dig at the recent popularity of GoPro cameras, as the young man is filming his audition with one mounted to a bike helmet, while moving his belongings into a U-Haul truck.  It’s a random assault at the recent deluge of GoPro posted videos on various websites and YouTube, but it works.

Their last attempt to secure an air conditioner brings Abbi and Ilana back to New York University (NYU), where Ilana previously attended, and where she left her air conditioner in her old dorm room.  They pretend they are resident advisers and trick an unknowing group of freshmen college boys into giving them their air conditioner, because they find a bag of contraband weed in the wall.  Before they abscond with the air conditioner, the girls have a comatose inducing smoke session with the college students.  In a haze of sativa head, Abbi makes out with one of the boys.  He then remarks that this is awesome and he can’t wait to attend next year.  A stoned and stunned Abbi asks him how old he is and he replies 16.  That’s their cue to exit and once safely outside NYU, Abbi worries that now she’s a pedophile and combined with her earlier transgression, with Stacey, she questions if this means she’s a sex offender.

I have to admit that if a show that centered on two young men had two scenes in which one of them sort of committed date rape and then made out with a minor, there would be an outcry of indignation, even if it was a comedy.  Because these topics aren’t funny.  So it’s interesting that Glazer and Jacobson are able to touch on these subjects and not only get away with it, but create laughs while doing it.  This may be a double standard.  But isn’t that the point?  The fact that Glazer and Jacobson wrote an episode that shows “reverse rape culture” is what is so smart.  They are turning the idea of rape culture, which has been a popular topic this past year, thanks to various newsworthy events and the resulting #YesAllWomen campaign, upside down and reimagining it.  In effect, they are taking a serious subject and successfully making it humorous, which is a feat in itself.  It’s no wonder that Broad City was already renewed for a third season.