Portlandia is a show that works almost as a series of inside jokes. The sketches are all knowing winks to the audience about the culture they presumably know all about, in which your friend has begun pickling everything and people can “put a bird on anything and call it art.” But it also works because Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein are the kind of people who you’d like to share an inside joke with. Both are unquestionably cool in their own right, but it’s their friendship, both on and off television, that’s an equally compelling force behind their television success. In interviews and on the show, they seem like two BFFs having fun as much as professionals with a television show, riffing off each other and cracking wise. But not all twosomes translate as well off the HDTV screen, so it’s a relief that the Portlandia live show, which wrapped up its first leg in New York this weekend, shows the friends to be every bit as fun as they seem. After the jump, the best moments from the show at The Bowery Ballroom, plus what Armisen and Brownstein had to say about spirit animals, overanalyzing text messages, and a possible Portlandia movie.
