Broad City Returns To US Screens This Week; Here’s Everything You Need To Know

To me, Broad City isn’t an ode to being young and aimless in a city that’s more ambitious than we are. It’s more like a grateful shout-out to how — even in moments when we can’t save face — we can always stick together, and stick up for each other. As Abbi Abrams and Ilana Wexler do every single time, without question.

A comedy series masterminded by and starring its creators, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer see their on-screen counterparts as heightened versions of what they were like before they started making their own material. Born out of a self-produced web series, and with the second season premiering this week in the States, each episode follows a day-in-the-life of two twenty-somethings barely getting by in New York City.

First, there’s the unassuming and self-doubting Abbi, who works at a cult health club called Soulstice — where she’s more known for her toilet cleaning abilities than her untapped potential to become a personal trainer. (She also moonlights as a freelance illustrator).

Then there’s the super-confident, fearless Ilana, who steals stationary and sleeps with her eyes open at a coupon company, Deals NYC.

Together, they each somehow compensate for what the other lacks, in a hilarious show about what happens when we go to extremes for money, hook-ups, and other people’s respect, while often failing to maintain our own.

–

A Beginners’ Guide To Broad City

Jacobson and Glazer didn’t know each other in 2006, when they started taking classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade — an improv theatre in Chicago co-founded by their hero Amy Poehler. They didn’t make it into the official house teams, but neither of them gave up: instead, they paid for classes and joined an improv practice group, called Secret Promise Circle. As the only ladies on the team, the pair hit it off.

One night at a pizza shop, Jacobson and Glazer decided to start writing a show based on their own experiences. They filled in a spreadsheet of ideas to draw upon for material, and the first version of Broad City was born: a DIY Youtube series cast and crewed with friends, and filmed on spare weekends.

Deciding to level-up for the second web-series, they began paying their collaborators and even nabbed a cameo from Amy Poehler. After the series wrapped, Poehler agreed to help them produce and pitch the show to Comedy Central. They used their 35 previously produced webisodes as a template to create bigger storylines for a pilot, and expanded the backstories of supporting characters.

But after the first season picked up steam on TV, they didn’t totally disappear from the web. Abbi and Ilana have been releasing supplementary content on Comedy Central’s Youtube channel — Hack Into Broad City — that’s been filling in the blanks between the network finale of season one, and this week’s premiere of season two.

Normally I wouldn’t urge someone to start watching a television show backwards, but I think anyone who’s still new to Broad City may appreciate starting off with last year’s season finale, ‘The Last Supper’.

One of my favourite moments comes halfway through the episode. Eating at a fancy restaurant for Abbi’s 26th birthday (thanks to her dad’s credit card), Ilana demonstrates her typically always-game attitude by eating way too much shellfish for someone who’s allergic to it.

Ilana doesn’t want to ruin the night or draw too much attention to it. “I really know my body, dude… I go up to the edge, and then I scale it back. I’m good at it. It looks worse than it is. Honestly, I feel great.”

Five minutes later, this happens:

In next to no time, despite their best efforts to make a graceful exit from the restaurant, they end up in each other’s arms.

Reviewing the end of the night and what she learned, Ilana brings up the bucket lists the pair both made on her phone. “I don’t wanna wait ’til we’re actually dead to get to it”, she says, in all seriousness.

Although nothing on the list can pass for a grand ambition towards self-actualisation — “Go to a pug farm” (Abbi); “Be held in Abbi’s arms” (Ilana) — the entries are sincere and unassuming; because if we aim low enough, we just might be able to achieve what we ask for.

While none of the cautionary tales are meant to be taken too strongly to heart, Broad City shows us how important it can be to tell someone you love that, ‘We got this’ — even if you’re not really sure that you do.

–

Living Up To Potential

The critical reception of the show swerves between disappointed or elated, depending on who you’re listening to.

Critic Matt Zoller Seitz at Vulture questions the clarity of Broad City’s mission and tone, believing that the show (ironically) may not be living up to its full potential. This evaluation overlooks the distinct possibility that the show runners choose to be aimless, with purpose. “They just need time to find their audience, y’know?” says Lincoln (Hannibal Buress) knowingly in the Comedy Central pilot, in which the pair try their hand at street performance. “The first season of Seinfield, not that many people saw that show. But it got time to grow.”

Danielle Henderson, who recapped the first series for the same site, has more optimistic dreams for the show to be the “flapping butterfly wing that eventually results in wave after wave of smart, funny TV shows about women”. What if the point of the show is to actually inspire more stories like this? To give voice to different types of women, who haven’t been given screen-time before? In a recent panel discussion at the Paley Center, executive producer Amy Poehler drew attention to what might be resonating with fans: the show is made by women who really like women, for all their complexities and faults.

Even though the show is still relatively ‘new’ by television standards, Abbi and Ilana have been working on this for years, regardless of whether anyone cared. They might portray slackers on screen, but they’re Getting Shit Done behind the camera — and if ‘womaning up’ in the entertainment industry ever needed a definition, maybe this is it. Thanks to them, we have stories about women who we don’t need to put on a pedestal; women who are falling short and enjoying themselves by following through with their own lunacy; women who are protecting each other from ever needing to figure out the formula for Young and Successful City Living.

The on-screen Abbi and Ilana may not aspire to become better versions of themselves; they may not be motivated to work harder than they need to, or commit to healthy relationships, or even try to steer towards the right decisions. But for all its unapologetic, self-assured over-the-top-ness, Broad City never forgets to root its reality in “feelings as facts“. A show doesn’t need to know exactly where it’s going to convince us it knows how we feel.

–

What To Expect From Season Two

Abbi and Ilana still want to live life to the fullest, without necessarily learning anything or achieving significant personal growth. Expect life-affirming trips to Abbi’s holy grail, Bed Bath & Beyond, more poorly-thought-out hook-ups, and Abbi’s personal training debut. A heat wave will be hitting NYC, and someone will inevitably need surgery with Ilana’s preferred veterinarian, played by Janeane Garolfalo. We’ll pick up some pointers on how to conduct ourselves during a shiva for Ilana’s grandmother; Alia Shawkat of Arrested Development will be making an appearance (clue: Abbi first mistook Ilana for Alia when they first met); Susie Essman will be playing Ilana’s mom; and Bob Balaban (most recently the narrator of Moonrise Kingdom) may or may not be appearing as her father(ly figure). Seth Rogen is playing Abbi’s love interest, and look out for Aidy Bryant of Saturday Night Live and Kelly Ripa (possibly playing herself?) as potential accomplices.

It doesn’t matter if it ends well for Abbi and Ilana, because that’s not the point. Real life isn’t supposed to be anything like Broad City, but we can still have fun sidestepping our own existential defeat while we watch (and learn) (but only if we want to).

–

Broad City premieres on Wednesday January 14 in America; it comes to Australia’s Comedy Channel on January 21, at 8.30pm.

–

Nathania is a Melbourne-based video editor and writer. She mostly retweets @unicornology