Season 2 of Broad City started last night, which means the return of our favorite hedonistic don’t-give-a-fuck slackers Abbi and Ilana. “In Heat” cast our stoned heroines in the dregs of NYC summer, dealing with all those #summerproblems we know so well: the bummer of chronic swamp ass, the grossness of trying to get it on without an AC unit, the utter futility of trying to dry your sweat with a hair dryer (has anyone tried this before?).
Even though we are so, so cold right now, did it make us miss summer? Nah, but it did make us feel like maybe we wasted our youth, and that we should have taken more bong rips and spent more time just hangin’ at Bed Bath & Beyond.
Scene: summer in broad city. The episode opens with Abbi and Ilana racing to catch the train, then navigating through multiple train cars teeming with a Fellini-esque assortment of subway characters committing the worst of the worst offenses, like a dude clipping his toenails, a woman giving her son a hair cut, a family sharing a 3 foot long sub, a couple making out, a pregnant woman just being pregnant, oh yeah and an entire car of only Hasidic men, before exiting and realizing they’re at the wrong end of the platform. Typical NYC stuff, amirite?
Oh, then as they’re walking around, Ilana explains the phenomenon of fat guys’ dicks looking small: it’s because they get sucked back into their bodies! Finally, ANSWERS. Use this as a barometer: “For every ten pounds a guy loses, he gains a visual inch.”
Abbi is sleeping with a guy whom she calls “Male Stacey,” played by Seth Rogen. They’re at her house, both sweating inconsolably. Male Stacey has to interrupt the hook up to pull a never-ending wad of toilet paper out of his ass, which he’d stuffed up there to combat swamp ass, of course. (Working theory: sex with swamp ass in Broad City is the counterpoint to Marnie’s rim-job in the Season 4 opener of Girls) When they finally get around to having sex, Stacey passes out from the heat, but Abbi keeps going until she finishes. Chatting with Ilana later, she realizes she raped him (“reverse rapism,” coins Ilana) which leads Abbi to the natural conclusion that she really needs an AC unit to prevent this from every happening again!
Trust me, there is no political statement or 3rd wave feminist critique implied with this female “rape,” and if you try to analyze it, you’re probably watching the wrong show. It’s just the comedy of errors that is Abbi and Ilana’s life. Even when Ilana sounds off about Frozen with the sorta pop culture brilliance ish of a Tarantino character, “all Hollywood media is porn, and all porn is kiddie porn. We live in a rape culture, we just do” to a table of Lincoln’s easily impressed friends, it’s just, like, the way she talks. Oh and we learn how Lincoln and Ilana met! He found her at a Foot Locker in Times Square, where “she wasn’t buying anything, she was just chillin'” which sounds about right.
To solve the problem, Abbi and Ilana set out on a…(can I use “Fellini-esque” twice in one blog post?) quest for an AC unit, first heading for Bed Bath & Beyond which it turns out is Abbi’s favorite store.
But once they pick one up, they lose it on the street while trying to hail a cab. They encounter a few more obstacles before getting the idea to break into Ilana’s old NYU dorm and steal back the AC she left there, easily the funniest scene of the show. They pretend to be RA’s doing a room raid, but end up smoking out the college kids, one of whom Abbi makes out with before realizing he’s actually a 16-year-old prospie. (“I’m a repeat sex offender,” she tells Ilana, who replies, “Welcome to the club….It’s not hard to get into.”)
In the final scene, Male Stacey and Abbi are rocking out in her room to Ilana’s salvaged college AC unit, loving life, until one of her monster roommate’s kittens distracts them, causing MS to knock the AC unit out the window. The two berate the kitten, yelling “Who the fuck are you? How did you get into my apartment? You’re just sitting here watching us, you little perv?” which is great because, fuck cats, and especially roommates with cats!
View Comments (3)
Have some sensitivity, will you? Clearly you haven’t heard that what you call “swamp ass” has been declared an official medical condition. It will now be known as “MCD” – aka “Moist Crack Disorder.” Thankfully, Prescott Pharmaceuticals has come out with “Buttadust” which need be taken only once a week to control MCD. (Just don’t ask what the side effects are.)
Gene! You learn something new every day. Thank you for taking the time to alert me of this very serious medical condition. I will never make light of it again. Glad to hear that you have found a way to manage your MCD, and thank you for giving the rest of us wet bottoms the hope and strength to envision a day of dry cracks. Toodle-oo!
Thanks Kate. MCD is a treatable condition that we should not be ashamed of.
At least we don't have "ADHD", "ED", "Low T" or "RLS" (restless leg syndrome). I pity those suckers.