Should You Wait For Parents To Leave And Then Sneak Your Boyfriend Over For Idiotsitter?

What Is This Thing?

Perpetual grad student Billie, beset by student loans, applies for a job as a nanny to the seven-year-old daughter of an actually insanely wealthy man. When she arrives for the interview, she discovers that his ad was just a bit misleading: Gene is not a small child, but a barely functional adult in her twenties who's on house arrest instead of prison thanks to her father's wealth. Billie is expected to keep Gene out of trouble, tutor her to take a GED exam, and generally give her the attention that her father and stepmother have evidently never felt like offering themselves.

When Is It On?

Thursdays at 10:30 PM ET on Comedy Central.

Why Was It Made Now?

The success and accolades showered upon Inside Amy Schumer and Broad City seem to have convinced Comedy Central that there is an audience for shows by and about women, FINALLY.

What's Its Pedigree?

Gene and Billie are played, respectively, by Jillian Bell (Workaholics; 22 Jump Street) and Charlotte Newhouse (a lot of small roles in well-regarded comedy projects; a connection to the Condé Nast publishing empire -- assuming the Charlotte mentioned there is this one, which I do given that the two told Seth Meyers during a recent Late Night appearance that when they heard the show had been picked up, they were in a house in Southampton): both are Groundlings alumnae and credited as creators on the show. Gene's father Russell is played by Stephen Root (NewsRadio, everything else good); her stepmother Tanzy is played by Jennifer Elise Cox (also a Groundlings alumna; Web Therapy; Jan in the Brady Bunch movies).

...And?

I sat stone-faced through the first probably two-thirds of "The Interview," the series premiere, convinced that my fears about similarities between this and the Anna Faris feature Smiley Face would make Idiotsitter Not For Me. If you haven't seen Smiley Face -- a movie lots of people I know really like! -- it follows the misadventures of Faris's irresponsible, confused stoner and really stressed me out. I tend to have a hard time with comedies that require the viewer to accept the foibles of their very stupid protagonists, and Idiotsitter makes sure you know from the moment you learn its title that it falls into that category.

"But what about Broad City?" Ilana isn't dumb; she's just self-centered. Abbi's innate good-citizen qualities balance out Ilana's chaotic neutral attitude, and knowing that someone like Abbi not just accepts but admires and loves Ilana raises Ilana's worth. Here, Billie doesn't accept Gene: in fact, she's explicitly hired to give Gene a life makeover and turn her into a productive member of society. She certainly doesn't admire her, and love is a real long shot. So if, like me, you are a Billie with Martha Stewart rising, a show that revolves around pony-stealing, cop-propositioning Gene is going to have to do some fancy footwork to win you over.

And then..."The Interview" actually did win me over! I reiterate the warning up top if you are very sensitive about knowing the plot (although it's already on the Comedy Central app so you could watch it now and come back). Here's what happens: Tanzy and Russell go out of town and Gene throws a party, where she convinces Billie to loosen up with some white wine. Billie later learns that the reason she was wilding out so hard on such an innocuous beverage is that Gene, in order to make sure Billie unbunched her panties, dosed it with roofies. A justifiably horrified Billie forfeits the obscenely large salary Russell has offered and flees the house in her pyjamas. But Gene has actually come to like Billie, and gives chase on her bike, causing her ankle monitor to alert the police that she's out of her prescribed range. Billie hears the sirens and returns Gene to the house, where they see the cops are already there. Gene begs Billie not to give up on her, and adds that since the only acceptable excuse for departing her house is an emergency, Billie is going to have to take a large rock from the front of the house and break Gene's hand with it. Billie, moved, takes the rock, rears back, and is about to smash it onto Gene's hand when we black out.

NOW. This is a primal scene that I think occurs in real-life friendships more than gets shown in pop culture. A story that was told by one of the older girls when I was in marching band BECAUSE I WAS SUPER-COOL involved a girl whose bannister got broken during a party she threw that got out of hand when her parents went out of town. The story she and her friends concocted to explain it had her losing her balance, falling against it wrong, and breaking it herself -- also breaking her arm in the process -- but for this explanation to work, she had to break her arm for real. So she held her arm out and her friends all purposely tried to break it by throwing encyclopedias at it. Did this actually happen? Looking at it now, close to thirty years later, even I have to concede that it has more than a whiff of urban legend to it. I believed it then because it felt true. Girls turning vulnerabilities into a perverse kind of strength is also the (crazy) logic that underlies cutting. Here, Gene's crazy logic makes sense under the circumstances -- and Billie's willingness to go along with it instantly bonds them. If this is the turning point that changes them from adversaries to odd-couple pals, it's a story that's immediately more interesting to me.

...But?

But then I watched the second episode, "Book Report." And other than the soft cast on Gene's hand, there's zero indication that their budding friendship ever happened -- like, to the point where I had to double check that it WAS the next episode and not, like, Episode 7 after a bunch of other shit happened to make Gene hate Billie again. "The Interview" had Gene paying off Billie's student loans because she had the money and knew that the loans were a source of anxiety for Billie and also because Billie was in a roofie coma and the student loan people wouldn't stop calling her phone. In "Book Report," when Billie...tries to get Gene to read a book and write a report on it, Gene trashes the guest house where Billie's living with graffiti and sex toys and then calls Russell in so that he'll see and fire Billie. "No one has ever talked to me the way you just did, like you want me to be a better person," says Gene in "The Interview," before going on to quote one of Baby's speeches from Dirty Dancing so they can briefly bond over that. ("I am not Patrick Swayze, Gene!" Billie tells her. "I am the older, disapproving sister who never did another movie!" "Yes, she did, she played Kevin's mom in Dishdogz," Gene shoots back. "Sounds made up," mumbles Billie. "Google it!" says Gene. Who, of course, is right.) In "Book Report," Gene screams at Billie, "You're the worst! Just die!," among many other temper tantrums.

This is not idiocy. It's inconsistency. (There's also a date rape runner, which...like, no.)

...So?

My turnaround toward the end of "The Interview" was surprising enough to me to want to watch at least one more and see whether it's more like that than like "Book Report." But if it's just more crazy rich angry moron set pieces, I'm out.