Broad City keeps nailing the New York 20-something experience, in its own hilarious way, like nothing else on television. When I watch an episode like “Stolen Phone,” I can’t help but think that straight comedy, not the mix of laughs and drama that Lena Dunham does so well on Girls, is the most realistic way to portray life for such a specific segment of the population in such a bizarre place as this one.
This time around we find Ilana and Abbi hanging out on their laptops, asking out as many guys as they can (and one girl) online, and finding only rejection. So there’s nothing left to do but go to a bar because Ilana is really in the mood for “pink dick,” which is somewhat awkward to type, but hilarious to hear her talk about. She gets what she wants, in the form of the sex idiot of the century: he’s good in the sack, but, as we soon find out, really incredibly horrible at improv comedy. I mean, he’s a buzzkill of epic proportions. Since both of the ladies of Broad City came from Upright Citizens Brigade, I’m willing to bet they’ve seen more than their share of incompetent improv, which is what makes the whole thing so much funnier.
Ilana gets lucky then unlucky, and Abbi meets a guy who tells her she’s the hottest girl at the bar — and actually sounds like he means it. He seems nice, not bad looking, and really wants to hang out with her — as long as she’s not one of those girls who doesn’t even text after she says she will. She isn’t, but she almost becomes one when she loses her phone just minutes after talking with the guy, and already the burgeoning relationship seems to be in peril. Her whole future life with this really nice guy is screwed unless she can find her phone, and she goes through hell trying to find it. In this case, hell is the Upper East Side, and the lair of the devil is Times Square.
There’s all that, and then there’s everything in the middle. There’s the drunk girl with the incredibly annoying voice who accidentally takes Abbi’s phone, there’s the sex idiot guy’s hilariously bad Austin Powers imitations, and there’s Hannibal Buress hanging out with dogs he’ll never adopt and baking cakes that he’ll smash in his face.
And that’s another week in Broad City. The show hilariously nails what it’s like to be young in New York, without attempting to shed some bright philosophical light on it. And it’s so good (just six episodes in) because Ilana and Abbi take everyday big-city experiences like getting locked out of your apartment and working crappy jobs in “cool” offices, and turn them into some of TV’s funniest moments.