The end of “Broad City” is near.
The web-series turned hilarious millennial fever dream from Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson kicks off its fifth and final season Thursday night.
“Broad City’s Abbi and Ilana may appear to be aimless and full of hair-brained schemes, but Abbi and Ilana IRL have proved to be stellar creator/writer/performer/director/producers,” Comedy central president Kent Alterman said in a statement. “Their supreme focus on telling new stories, in new worlds, with new talent is nearly scary.”
To celebrate five years of pot smoke, pulled wisdom teeth and unabashedly positive female friendship, here are five of the boldest “Broad City” memories that will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact.
An ode to friendship
If HBO’s “Girls” broke new ground for stories about millennial women in New York, “Broad City” set the bar for what would happen if those women actually remained friends through it all.
“We really wanted to make sure that everybody knew that at the end of the day, this show was a love story between Abbi and Ilana,” producer Amy Poehler told The Huffington Post in 2014. It’s a miraculous move for modern storytelling that this mindset never changed.
A political block
For season four’s “Witches,” the series made the choice to bleep any mention of Donald Trump throughout the episode. To go along with the move, Glazer and Jacobson announced a browser extension that would transform any online mention of POTUS’ name from “Trump” to Tr**p.”
It was a bold move by the comedy duo made at a time when the country was left on edge wondering how — and if — the political climate would translate into their favorite fictional worlds.
Reading our New York minds
As New Yorkers themselves, Glazer and Jacobson never shied away from letting their views of the city’s highs and lows infiltrate the script.
The first season’s “Subway Encounters” scene left us with memes that’ll feel forever relevant, from the struggle to make it to the back of the subway car to buskers, manspreading and “packages” left under the seats. Then there’s the Penn Station episode, St. Marks Place portrayal and unforgettable Gowanus adventure. The list goes on.
Sex-positive
Between bouts of sex therapy, near-miss foursomes, and introducing the world to the phrase “pegging,” “Broad City” remained one of the most bluntly forward comedies dealing with sex on TV.
There’s a reason the show got its own line of toys from Lovehoney. How many of your other comedies can you say that about?
Getting animated
Season four’s “Mushrooms” is a must-see bit of brilliance, a drug-trip gone wrong that slowly turns into a fully animated episode featuring more than 14,000 drawings from artist Mike Perry. The artist told Vulture the episode “pushed the boundaries.”
With Meghan Giannotta
