‘Broad City’
Grade: A
I sat down to watch the most recent “Broad City” episode and wondered if recurring characters Jaime — Ilana’s archetypal foreign gay bestie — and Jeremy — Abbi’s man-next-door romantic interest — were going to make an appearance.
It turns out creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer were on the same page as me. Both characters are featured in “Wisdom Teeth,” in which things go horribly and hilariously awry when Abbi is left in the caring but not-so-competent hands of Ilana after dental surgery.
Hannibal Buress as Lincoln, dentist and boy toy to Ilana, sums things up perfectly when he berates himself for trusting Ilana with Abbi’s safety.
Buress is phenomenally cast as wry but affectionate, and probably the only human on earth patient enough for Ilana’s eccentrics — besides Abbi, of course.
Glazer and Buress also play off each other marvelously, which is great when the show could’ve taken the easy way out by framing Ilana and Lincoln’s open relationship as unhealthy.
This episode was especially rife with social commentary.
One example came from Buress, who delivered one of the many lines of the episode that was both comedic and insightful. Lincoln addresses how he lacks the privilege of white dentists because if he screws up with a patient, it is considered a poor reflection of all black dentists.
Another great part was Ilana’s dramatic moment of disdain for Western medicine — “Uncle Sam pills,” as she calls them — that was shrewd and frighteningly accurate.
Of course, Ilana’s judgment of medicine is undermined when she proves ineffective at looking after Abbi.
Which brings me to the British cringe humor portion of the review. I’ve addressed the cringe factor of “Broad City” before. They did not hold back in this installment.
It opens with Ilana modeling nude for Abbi’s figure-drawing class. Then we move into the really uncomfortable meat of the show. Ilana and Jaime, played by Arturo Castro, tag team Abbi’s post-op care. They also accidentally tag-teamed her Vicodin, unknowingly giving her a double dosage as the two go in and out of the room.
This is “Fawlty Towers” stuff here. The viewer is forced to be the powerless omniscient third party watching and squirming at what happens. Ricky Gervais is smiling somewhere and doesn’t know why, but it’s because this episode exists.
Abbi tells Ilana she’s feeling weird, which prompts her to make a marijuana-based home remedy. This leads to Abbi calling up neighbor crush Jeremy, leaving a 20-minute voicemail saying they should go on a date and an unsupervised odyssey to Whole Foods where she racks up an intense bill of eco-friendly foods.
The events that follow are wonderful and hilarious and, of course, Ilana and Abbi are reunited. The next day Jeremy, played by Stephen Schneider, runs into Abbi and holds her to her word about going on a date sometime, which triggers a gleeful and poorly hidden meltdown on Abbi’s part.
To be honest, the Abbi and Jeremy thing strains my suspension of disbelief, which is saying something because this is “Broad City” here. Abbi does truly ludicrous stuff around the most intentionally normal person in the entire show, and he doesn’t bat an eye. It just feels off to me. But if he’s what makes Abbi happy, then who am I to stand in the way?
