WHEN | WHERE
Season 3 starts Wednesday at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
It’s in the bathroom where we are who we are most. So that’s where Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer start the new season of their much-adored creation “Broad City.” But its toilet humor isn’t cheap. The split-screen montage deftly plunges newcomers into the show’s delirious labyrinth of odd adventures with two BFF chicks who fit nowhere in New York City but together.
Still McJobbing it to buy their blunts (cannabis cigars), they blithely create chaos on company Twitter accounts, at gallery openings, and amid the local food co-op’s bulk containers. Weird thing is, the city seems completely capable of one-upping them. Check out tonight’s shopper skirmishes at a pop-up warehouse sale, or next week’s tyrannical co-op chief making organic produce seem sinister. You’ll have to hold till March 2 to see Ilana wear dog hoodie duds to her web gig, and pool exerciser Abbi go uber-competitive at a gym-lympics, before a sudden musical number high-kicks them into nun-habit heaven.
“Broad City” brims with free-form riffs and outlandish disasters through which our girls scramble unscathed — oblivious Ilana buoyantly fist-pumping to her own demented drummer, abashed Abbi clumsily testing behaviors in case one fits, together courting calamity like the warehouse sale shirt whose left-on security tag promises impending explosion.
Somehow, that detonation arrives yet more brilliantly bizarre than expected. And we’ve already seen the trapeze act. The traveling porta potty. The 12-pound bike chain fashion statement. Even the speaking subway grate.
MY SAY
Birthed as a webseries by the two veterans of Upright Comedy Brigade (fellow UCBer Amy Poehler is a producer), “Broad City” has blossomed into a certified tube hit. (Seasons 4 and 5 have already been ordered.) Like a packed piñata of absurdity, each episode rains unforeseen treats, from physical pranks to existential banter to all manner of sexual exuberance. It’s all smartly visualized around town and briskly stitched together. The mad mix continues to attract great guest playmates — Melissa Leo, Vanessa Williams, Whoopi Goldberg — with some chick named Hillary on the Season 3 horizon.
BOTTOM LINE
Broad fun.
