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Broad City Season 1 Review

Broad City is a comedy TV show starring Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson. It is such a good recent discovery for me and I really loved the first season.

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“Nose, vagina, butthole.

If God didn’t want us to put our fingers in them,

then why did she make them perfectly finger sized?“

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As is the case with every season one, I am first going to talk about the overall show and its characters and then I am going to review each and every of its ten episodes. So Ilana and Abbi are just amazing female characters and I love both of them. Abbi is my favorite as she is more realistic and relatable and I just love her personality. But Ilana is a lot of fun and her many ridiculous lines frequently made me laugh here. She is out there, but mostly in a good way.

The relationship between the two is absolutely phenomenal. I loved it because it is different than usual. They are true friends, inseparable really, but Ilana has sort of a crush for Abbi and that led to many hilarious moments. Their dynamic is infectious owing to absolutely fantastic performances from Glazer and Jacobson who kill it here. They truly are the new female comedic stars who really should be appreciated more. They are so great that they manage to compensate for the lack of strong supporting characters of whom Bevers is too disgusting and only Lincoln is solid.

What a Wonderful World is solid for the first episode, but not the greatest as it doesn’t have all that many jokes and the ending with that pervert was a bit too ridiculous. Pu$$y Weed is more of the same. The show is pretty confident from the beginning which is great, but the humor wasn’t up to par in these first couple of episodes.

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Working Girls is the first truly great episode of Broad City thanks to both of its storylines working wonderfully. Ilana’s part with dogs is just hilarious in each and every scene and Abbi’s darkly adventurous turn was quite interesting and her potential relationship with her hot neighbor Jeremy is off to a good start here. The Lockout is a solid episode that benefits from the two being on the street and thus the stakes are raised more.

Fattest Asses explores Abbi’s character really well. She is not as confident and as feisty as Ilana is and she definitely puts up with a lot of crap at her work so seeing her get loose was a lot of fun. And the seeds for Ilana’s crush are so well planted here. Stolen Phone relies too much on NYC but thankfully it is also fun and funny with a good energetic approach.

Hurricane Wanda was a bit too influenced by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia both in style and in execution and it truly is a gross episode, but Jeremy and Abbi’s relationship continues to be interesting and some of the humor here really hit home, but some did not. Destination: Wedding has a rushed, problematic start, but the second half is so great that it saves the episode. Lincoln is so good here, but that bus sequence is hilarious, I loved Abbi and Ilana’s fight and that line – “Go fuck your brother” – was one of the funniest thus far.

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Apartment Hunters has a somewhat too annoying and over-the-top guest turn from Amy Sedaris, but it is a solid episode overall, just not particularly great. But The Last Supper is a great finale for season one and truly a terrific episode. From Ilana’s clam allergy to the waiters’ consistent annoyed facial expressions to the heartwarming final scene, this episode has it all and it is both sweet and hilarious.

So Broad City is a great show and the first season is so good, but it started in a not that great manner so I am sure that the next seasons will be even better. Ilana and Abbi are great characters and the actresses play them stupendously, the humor is strong, their playfulness is a lot of fun and this season is so funny and filled with quite a couple of great episodes that it compensates for those weaker ones easily.

Worst Episodes: What a Wonderful World, Pu$$y Weed and Apartment Hunters.

Best Episodes: Working Girls, Fattest Asses and The Last Supper.

My Rating – 4

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