Stars: 3/5
The first episode of the final season of Broad City premiered January 24th. Just like the trailer promised, the show is going out with a bang.
Broad City first premiered back in 2014 on Comedy Central. It was created by and stars comedians Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer. Broad City is based off of Jacobson and Glazer’s web show of the same name.
The show follows Jacobson and Glazer playing fictionalized versions of themselves. It’s basically them running around New York City getting into various hijinks and schemes, all the while smoking a little weed along the way. This simple concept has led to four seasons of great television that is both funny and well done.
The first episode for the new season was done pretty differently than past episodes. The episode follows Jacobson and Glazer’s day in the form of an Instagram story until Glazer drops her phone into the river. The Instagram story format allows for some interesting usage of animated gifs and text, which adds to the humor of the episode.
This isn’t the first time Broad City has done something experimental in their episodes. In a previous season Jacobson and Glazer do mushrooms and it makes the whole episode animated. These concepts work well with the show because it doesn’t sacrifice the humor or the story structure of the episodes. This goes back to just how simple the concept of the series is and that it allows for experimental techniques.
This episode follows Jacobson and Glazer as they attempt to walk the whole length of New York City. Of course they can’t get through the day without some strange things happening to them. For example, Glazer falls down a manhole and the pair are accused of kidnapping a small child at the mall. Those are things that seem outlandish, but are relatable at the same time.
The child they are accused of kidnapping at the mall turns out to be the daughter of one of Jacobson’s friends from college named Cheese. Cheese hasn’t appeared on the show since season one, so it’s refreshing to see her make an appearance in the final season of the show. Hopefully there will be appearances of other seemingly “forgotten” characters before the end of the series.
Overall, this episode was a good start to a final season that will hopefully leave fans of the show feeling satisfied. It’s exciting to think about how this show will end and how it can live up to the excitement of the trailer. It’s bittersweet that Broad City is ending, but at least it is ending on a good note.
