Hellooo fellow queens, and welcome to the third episode of season four of Broad City! This week, we are treated/subjected to some weird shit, literally! But that’s what we’re here for, so let’s just laugh about it because life is weird.
We open on Abbi and Ilana walking past one of those walled-in rich people parks that pepper Manhattan, musing about what they would do if they were part of the 1% that had a key. (Abbi would drink coffee with the paper, Ilana would grow weed. Standard.) As they pass, a man on the inside of the gate starts choking on his sandwich, so the girls urge him over to the fence, give him the Heimlich through the fence, and save his life. The man asks what he can ever do to repay them, and they respond that they’d love a tour of the park; after all, it’s so beautiful. The man instantly refuses, saying they have to have a key.
He thus serves as one more metaphor for the oppressive forces of money and power that literally couldn’t survive without the people they oppress. I like the way this specific metaphor plays out, though, because as the girls turn to walk away, the man chokes (on his own excess) again, but this time they walk away, lamenting that rich people can’t eat.
In other (related) news, Ilana is literally rolling in money all of a sudden after working seven double shifts at RuPaul’s restauranterie, and has big plans on her first day off. But first she needs to air out her blistered, mangled feet while having some QT with Jaime (yay!), who is having some bodily issues of his own. Jaime is not circumcised, and as much as he loves having full sensation, he also suffers from chronic yeast infections. So Jaime and Ilana take some time to rest and commiserate on her new GIANT BED, under a duvet stuffed with cash.
Meanwhile, Abbi is on a real high about her “relationship” with EMT Mike, to the point where she gossips with Bevers about it and announces it to her Boss, Wanda Sykes. Side note, Wanda Sykes owns what is probably the best scene in this episode, in which she giggles to her staff about how she came up with the Nike swish logo—it’s actually a clit, and people are walking around with clits on their shoes. Wanda, you truly fit in on this show. Also I love you.
Anyway, while Abbi rollicks in self-congratulatory fantasyland, Ilana pays $480 for a mani-pedi that looks like this:
She also ropes her brother (played by real-life brother Eliot Glazer) into helping her pick out a lingerie leotard, which she will wear later as an outfit to a party she saw an event posting for on Facebook. Does the fact that her brother is gay make it less incest-y? I feel weird even asking that question. Touché, Broad City.
I think we can all see how the “choking on excess” metaphor is going to play out with Ilana. Although in her case, it’s less choking and more… pooping. But we’ll get back to that.
Ilana meets Abbi and Jaime at the party, pulling up in a limo with bright orange hair and coke in her new nails. During the party, she throws money at waiters and drinks lots of champagne, and pulls the best party trick I’ve ever seen: stabbing the cheese plate with her nails and coming up with five fingers of cheese.
While Ilana overindulges in pretty much everything, she also manages to slip in a line about how cell service and train service has been terrible ever since we started living in a fascist state, so now we know what 1% Ilana is like: even though she’s a hypocrite, she’s also great? But also scary. So, of course, she suffers some ego-deflating moments.
The fall from power comes fast. First, Ilana spots Lincoln, her ex (played by Hannibal Buress) who broke up with her last season because he wanted to be monogamous, with his new girlfriend. Then the alcohol/coke/cheese combo hits Ilana’s system and she shits her leotard, which she can’t undo because other than as cheese-stabbers, her tips render her hands useless. She manages to lock herself in the bathroom and desperately calls Abbi to help her, but Abbi isn’t answering her phone because she’s made her way to the fire escape, where she is doling out relationship advice to a woman she spots crying over her marriage in the apartment next door.
Lincoln knows something is up with Ilana, so he heads to the bathroom and convinces her to let him in. I really like the character of Lincoln because he’s sensitive and caring and has always been there for Ilana. He’s even there for her now, after their breakup, to help her cut her leotard open and talk her down from despair. He’s even still standing there, pretty much unfazed, when she tells him to close his eyes and in order to “clean up” grabs a towel and rubs it back and forth between her legs, which, not a good idea. She realizes this pretty immediately after she does it, confessing that her embarrassing incident just became a medical issue and she owes Damien, the host of this party, a lot. That towel will never be usable again.
While Ilana sinks a few pegs from her capitalist high in the bathroom, Abbi realizes that six days of hookups doesn’t mean she’s a relationship expert; in fact it doesn’t even mean she knows Mike’s full name or where he’s from. Jaime also comes to the conclusion that his foreskin has to go. His pH balance just isn’t cut out for it.
At the end of the night, Abbi and Mike end their fling over the phone. The three musketeers end up at Ilana and Jaime’s the next morning, where Abbi and Ilana dutifully tear off those expensive tips from Ilana’s fingers and toes. Friends forever.
I give this episode 4/5 cheese squares. Until next week, queens!
