I like my TV shows the way I like my friends: comical and morally ambiguous. If you are like me, then "Broad City" is the show for you. The show was created by its two stars Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson as a web series that has been picked up by Comedy Central. Plus, its executive producer is Amy Poehler. That should be enough information to entice you already, but I'll continue.
Jacobson and Glazer play characters of their same names in a fairly familiar story: two girls struggling in the big city. However, this is not "Sex and the City.” Our heroines are broke, they have crappy jobs and are not above cleaning a stranger’s home in their skivvies for Lil Wayne tickets.
If "Broad City" was “Laverne & Shirley," Abbi would be Shirley, a 2014 version that has sex and does drugs. She is either being dragged into sketchy situations by Ilana or trying to work toward an actual career that doesn't involve cleaning toilets. The pilot episode opens with Abbi holding up a vibrator that has a sticky note on it that reads "Tuesday at 7 p.m.?" So that sums her up pretty well.
Ilana is a tiny hurricane whose charisma seems to come from the fact that she never realizes how the incredibly offensive things she does are in any way offensive. She floats through life in a cloud of weed smoke, unaware of the people she frustrates.
It would be like if the little brother from the "The Wild Thornberrys" grew up to be a Jewish girl who lives in New York. Shows similar to this one are becoming more and more popular - shows in which the main characters are women and the main focus of said show isn't just about the men those women are dating. Of course they have sexual partners and romantic interests but the men involved are side characters.
One such side character is Ilana's ever supportive casual sex partner/dentist, Lincoln, played by Hanibal Buress. Lincoln's main goal is to have an exclusive relationship with Ilana, but of course Ilana has no interest in this. Lincoln delivers all of his lines in a hilarious deadpan style that fits well with the show’s overall low key style.
The show isn't as dark as "Girls" or as fantastical as "Sex and the City." It’s realistic, funny and weird. Although the show isn't built around a lot of long running plot lines, Abbi and Ilana's friendship is all the plot you need. It often compares the girls’ personality differences in their everyday lives, together and apart, without being overly campy and without forcing the characters to fit into overwrought female TV character archetypes.
While Abbi and Ilana live lives of debauchery that might even make the boys of "Workaholics" blush, the characters seem to genuinely care about the well being of one another. Both characters are endearing and relatable and their "us against the world" friendship makes them even more likable.
They are there for each other, even when that just means Skyping through breakfast because they live a few too many subway stops away from each other. Abbi and Ilana live happily together in the grey area that is their 20s and defy gender roles without making it a show focused on that.
You can watch the hilarious "Broad City" on Comedy Central Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m.
