Broad City Closes Its First Season With One Last Proof Of Abbi And Ilana's Pure, Transcendent Love

Broad City has wrapped its first season -- a season so perfect that anyone pitching a sitcom from now until the end of time should have to watch all ten episodes and write a report proving that they really got it before they're allowed to try to make a show of their own. And while past episodes have found our protagonists, Abbi and Ilana, running all over the city on one adventure or another, the season closes as is most satisfying and right: with a bottle episode that foregrounds the broads' best-friendship.

It's Abbi's birthday, and her dad has put his credit card on file at the fanciest restaurant either girl has apparently ever set foot in so that the two can celebrate the occasion with a very special meal. Abbi's put on the one nice dress she seems to have decided not to return within the thirty-day window; Ilana's in a studded crop top and matching skirt; they're getting seated at the same table Beyoncé and Jay-Z enjoyed when they recently dined at this hot spot; and Ilana is ready to sink her teeth into the seafood prix fixe dinner. It's almost a perfect night, except: Ilana is allergic to shellfish, and has been eating crab and clams all night anyway because she likes to live on the edge, and why not?

Oh right, that's why.

As Ilana's condition worsens, Abbi doesn't turn on her: she tries to remediate the situation by giving Ilana an adrenaline shot, and when Ilana refuses and Abbi ends up stabbing herself in the leg by mistake, it gives her exactly the power she needs to carry Ilana out of the restaurant to the ambulance that Ilana clearly needs, and the two end up just where Ilana would want them to on her own birthday: in bed together.

On most other sitcoms, Ilana's reckless shellfish consumption would lead to a huge fight between the leads, because one would be slotted into the role of "good girl," and one would be "fuck-up," and the good girl would just yell at the fuck-up for wrecking her birthday. Granted, Abbi is generally more good and Ilana is generally more fucked up, but both contain multitudes. In this very episode, in fact, Abbi has had to excuse herself between courses to use the restroom, whereupon she pees out a condom. And then she and Ilana both leave the table to go outside and get high with a busboy, because they have less in common with most sitcom characters than they do with actual people who live in the world.

A hallmark of lesser sitcoms -- and I mean even shows that I treasure -- is that the characters spend time together because the "sit" of the sitcom requires them to, but they mostly don't act like spending time together is something they particularly enjoy. The jokes are mean digs at each other; the conflict arises from demands that they unreasonably and/or unrealistically make on each other. But what makes Abbi and Ilana's adventures so compelling is that they get into them as a team. If Abbi's phone gets stolen, Ilana's going to track it all over town and take off her shirt to try to draw out the thief when he or she takes a shot of her topless. If Ilana wants to dodge a creepy locksmith by pretending she lives at her neighbours' place, Abbi will play along. If Abbi can't flush her turd, Ilana will mummify her hand with duct tape and a shower cap and take it out to the garbage chute. If Ilana wants to cap off a terrible travel day with a visit to a gentleman's club, Abbi will join her.

Abbi and Ilana's love for one another is what made their one actual fight so dramatically effective. Ilana's locked herself out of her apartment the same weekend Abbi's place is getting bug-bombed, and since they're in their mid-twenties and it's New York, getting a hotel room until either Abbi's place is habitable again OR Ilana's roommate comes back to town is such a ridiculous idea that it's not even mentioned. Unfortunately, Abbi's first art opening is happening at the end of a day the two of them have been sweating through their clothes, tear-gassed by Ilana's neighbours (after they find both women in their apartment without their invitation or knowledge), covered in vomit (Abbi only; tear-gas-related), and on top of everything else, their dress clothes have been ruined when the plastic bags Ilana filled with Soulstice's free lotion leak all over her knapsack. Abbi gets upset at Ilana for being so careless, but Ilana is just as furious when they get to the opening and she sees that it's not at a gallery at all: it's at a sandwich shop. But after a few minutes apart, both women apologize, and Ilana buys Abbi's art (and...tries to incorporate it into her lovemaking with Lincoln. Classic Ilana).

Broad City deserves all the credit it gets for letting its female characters buck expectations a hundred times an episode at least. But even more radical than showing them being gross is showing them being affectionate. We should all be so lucky as to find a love as unconditional as the love Abbi and Ilana share, and not necessarily assume it's going to be with our legally recognized spouse.