Broad City: "Two Chainz"

It’s a month and a half into 2016, and “Broad City” Season 3 already has the best opening scene of the whole year. Wednesday’s episode opens on the aftermath of the Season 2 finale: a split screen of Abbi and Ilana in their respective bathrooms (and still wearing their “Challah Back” and “Female Body Inspector” shirts). The show then establishes the time gap between seasons so entertainingly it’s easy to forget the narrative goal: Abbi flushes a dead goldfish after Pride while Ilana makes out with an unidentified woman in her own bathroom; Abbi flirts absurdly with a repairman while Ilana shaves her bikini line; various sex acts happen in the vicinity of both toilets; and, of course, both repeatedly make use of the bathroom ventilation to get high sans stench. The last shot, of both of them smoking from bongs on their toilets, leads straight into the rest of the episode—a pitch-perfect continuation of the absurd, pointed humor that Glazer and Jacobson executed so well though the show’s first two seasons.

There’s nothing in this episode that isn't funny—unless, perhaps, Ilana’s bloody struggle to remove her bike chain or her defacing of a painting moved too far into the realm of cringeworthy. They certainly didn't for me. But it is clearer than ever in this episode that the most hilarious and clever moves that Broad City makes are frequently its most subtle. One of the highlights of this episode was Lincoln’s inexplicable decision to go to circus school and the horrible puns that accompany that choice (“Swingers,” says Lincoln, laughing to himself). The scene is entirely self-contained, but its absolute absurdity elevates the entire episode.

Nor have Glazer and Jacobson dulled their social critique: If anything, they have provocatively widened their net. This first episode repeatedly parodies stereotypical white feminism in the person of Ilana, who is so upset by an article about women in Saudi Arabia that she has to masturbate to blow off steam before meeting Abbi for brunch. Later, she reacts with disproportionate indignation to a “Men at Work” sign. Even in the midst of this parody, Glazer and Jacobson hardly give the patriarchy a pass—another of the best moments of the episode comes when a porn-watching truck driver yells, “Nice ass” at Abbi, and she screams back, “I know!”

Queerness, too, seems more present on the show than it has been in the past. Ilana’s crush on Abbi certainly hasn’t abated—after Abbi rescues her from being carried away on the back of a truck, Ilana proposes and then immediately denies what she said. And the moment in the first scene in which Ilana makes out with a girl after Pride is more significant than its short duration would imply. This episode makes absolutely clear that Ilana Wexler is the most visible bisexual character on TV right now. And it’s difficult to imagine a comedian better suited to that role than Glazer.

—Staff writer Grace E. Huckins can be reached at grace.huckins@thecrimson.com.