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| Left to right: Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer |
By this point, you know what to expect from Broad City. It's the quintessential gal pal raunchy comedy and possibly among the best ongoing Comedy Central series. In its third season, it returned with a montage of women in the bathroom. If that doesn't set the stage for how crass and deranged things would get, then clearly nothing would. It's a season that continued to push the boundaries of creative nudity and even managed to make an entire episode based around Abbi Jacobson's menstrual cycle. It's a show that works mostly because Jacobson's chemistry with Ilana Glazer works. It may not always be the funniest comedy, but it may end up being one of the best comedy duos since Key & Peele.
If there's one thing that didn't work about season 2 of the series, it was that the show possibly went too crass. Despite the dynamic chemistry, there was this sense that the show needed to make things grosser. However, season 3 returns to what makes the show generally the endearing force that it was when it first premiered. While there's plenty of crassness to its credit, Broad City is about two friends trying to make it together in New York. It's a season that manages to focus more on that than any other theme as Glazer loses her job and boyfriend while Jacobson tries to find love in all of the wrong places.
What is possibly the best aspect of the show is that while the jokes still land, there's more of a connectivity that they share. Characters manage to drop one-liners with abandon as they participate in niche New York behaviors, such as sleeping on roofs and working at organic grocery stores. The world feels familiar and even the direction is assured enough to let background gags pop up from time to time. Still, it is when the show decides to take a break from plot and focus on its characters does anything magical really happen. It is often that the best moments come as the characters talk freely over the closing credits.
There's not a lot really to cover about the series other than that it is funny and still remains as such. The writers are constantly pulling them into clever directions and pushing the boundaries of what women can do on TV. There's even a sports player who participates in a raucous sex scene. However, what's most baffling is that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton stopped by and for a second became a political thing. Beyond the fact that it reflects Broad City's choice to endorse a candidate, it also is baffling because in a show that features a lot of drug endorsements, multiple sexual partners, and women defecating in bathrooms; it seems strange to see someone who is supposed to be taken seriously in this context. While it is a mediocre cameo, it still makes no sense. Otherwise, the show was great with cameos and ongoing characters.
Broad City may not change all that much in the next season and however long that it lasts. However, the show still manages to pack plenty of laughter and punches as it finds what's so funny about being in your late-20's in New York. It still remains the anti-Girls for being at times even more inappropriate and absurd. In fact, that's what makes it a particularly engaging show. As long as these two get along, I'm fine with the show cranking out more episodes that are full of memorable gags both slapstick and one-liners. The fact that the whole season hinged on an episode about Abbi's menstrual cycle just shows how it can mine unpleasant territory for great laughs. Here's hoping that they can keep it going.
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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