The premiere of the second season of “Broad City” was surrounded by a lot of hype. The first season was a huge surprise success. So much so that Comedy Central ordered a third season of the show just hours before the second season had even begun. With all of this recognition there was the worry that perhaps season two would have gotten a little too big for its proverbial britches.
Part of the charm of “Broad City” is that it doesn’t feel like a big deal. The show feels as effortless as Abbi and Ilana’s enviable friendship. Luckily, “In Heat” showed us that everybody’s two favorite smokers have stayed grounded in reality, or at least in their own very entertaining version of reality.
The episode opens with the girls having to hop from subway car to subway car to avoid increasingly undesirable scenarios. A brilliant way to open the season, we get to immediately see Ilana and Abbi’s heightened and outlandish version of the city. Every subway horror story you’ve ever heard of is taken up a notch and jammed into a minute long scene.
We finally get to see Abbi in her beloved Bed, Bath and Beyond. Like the prodigal son coming home she is greeted by every employee with overwhelming welcomes. With a personalized dance sequence for each new encounter, this scene is hilarious in its commitment to the bit. “Broad City”continues to pair physical, over the top comedy with more subtle jokes perfectly as Ilana watches the whole thing from the sidelines wondering aloud how long this would go on for.
Having lost the air conditioner that they went to Bed, Bath and Beyond for in the first place, Abbi and Ilana do what they do best. They go gallivanting around the city like a grown up version of “Dora The Explorer” ( Abbi would be Dora and Ilana would be Boots, just for the record) in search of something that they don’t have the means to acquire.
Their search for AC leads them to lots of “Laverne and Shirley” on speed-esque hijinks. They help a man they met on Facebook (Kumail Nanjiani) pack his U-Haul, only to discover the free AC unit they were promised is broken. Abbi and Ilana scream at him while he smiles happily. This seems to be an ongoing problem for the girls whenever they try to get something from a person they met on the internet. In the season one premiere “What A Wonderful World” the girls scream and destroy a man’s apartment while he pretends to be a giant baby. Fingers crossed that they never learn their lesson because this is always funny.
They go back to Ilana’s old dorm where she left an AC unit and pretend to be RA’s in order to get it back. “Phil Of The Future” (Raviv Ullman) plays a bored looking college kid that Abbi and Ilana get stoned whilst getting stoned themselves, a regular part of most episodes that never feels like a cliché.
The show has gotten better at tackling multiple plotlines as well. We have a lot going on in “In Heat.” Ilana is tricked into going to Lincoln’s birthday and has to find a gift for him. Abbi is sleeping with the sweaty male Stacey (Seth Rogen) when he passes out due to the heat, leading Abbi to feel that she may be part of the rape culture, as Ilana keeps reminding her.
Both of these side plots manage to be hilarious while also showing that the girls have grown,a little. Abbi is having sex fairly regularly with a sweaty man, a far cry from putting a reminder note on her vibrator as she did in season one. Abbi started out being Ilana’s more reasonable counterpart. While no one can exactly match Ilana’s level of whimsical tom foolery, the girls have started to seem more similar than they did at the start of season one. Abbi’s character progressed slowly over season one, so the possible sex offender we see now doesn’t feel forced.
Ilana is noticeably freaked out when she realizes she is at Lincoln’s birthday party. Still, she steals him a NYU student ID that includes a meal plan, not a small gesture for her. These subtle changes will keep the characters from being too stagnant while not being so big that it feels like they are losing their Peter Pan quality.
The “Broad City” version of New York was severely missed. Thank goodness “In Heat” brought us right back without missing a beat. If season two is half as funny as Abbi and male Staci yelling unrelentingly at a tiny pervert kitten then we are in for a fun ride.
