The 10 Best Broad City Episodes, Ranked
Screenshot via YouTube
On this day in 2014, Broad City premiered on Comedy Central, following fictionalized versions of creators Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson. The pair originally rose to prominence with their web series of the same name, which was then turned into the TV series—with Amy Poehler attached as a producer.
Broad City is very emblematic of its time, aside from its origins on the Internet. Ilana and Abbi’s weed-fuelled sitcom antics are the comedic successor to the gleefully gross-out humor of Bridesmaids, released just three years before. The show touts the pop feminism of the mid- to late-2010s; on the more benign end, you see it with Abbi’s Oprah wall decal, but then there’s the enthusiastic Hillary Clinton endorsement. And that’s not to mention that one of Abbi and Ilana’s favorite pastimes—getting stoned—is treated as illicit on the show, and now it’s been legal in New York City since 2021.
The pilot for Broad City ran just two years after the premiere of Girls, another show that can be succinctly summed up as “women in their 20s trying to make it in New York”—and while both comedies, the two series could not be more different. Broad City was not committed to the gritty, uncomfortable realism that Girls basked in, instead offering up a cartoonish version of the city in order to portray the reality of Ilana and Abbi’s all-encompassing friendship.
And Ilana and Abbi’s love for each other ultimately serves as the cornerstone of the show. They may be quite different—aspiring artist Abbi is a bit more reserved than polyamorous, rule-shirking Ilana—but that yin and yang quality to their relationship is what makes their bond so strong. Romances come and go—Ilana’s on-and-off hook-up Lincoln (Hannibal Buress), Abbi’s Soulstice boss Trey (Paul W. Downs), or her neighbor Jeremy (Stephen Schneider, recently seen in The Righteous Gemstones)—but Ilana and Abbi are there for each other through thick and thin.
Now, to mark the series’ 10th anniversary, here are our 10 favorite Broad City episodes in ascending order:
10. “Hashtag FOMO” (Episode 2.05)
Screenshot via YouTube
Ilana finds herself plagued with FOMO after Abbi gets a nose piercing on a night out, so to make up for it she insists they ditch Trey’s very boring party the next evening in search of a shindig that’s a perfect ten. D’Arcy Carden is perfect at portraying milquetoast trainer Gemma, who insists that Abbi and Ilana are hilarious because they’re both so weird and random. All the little touches about Trey’s party sucking (“Clif bars for the guys, Lunas for the girls”) and Ilana’s various standards for an ideal bash are great, but the end of the episode, revealing Abbi’s slick-talking alter ego Val, is simply the cherry on top. Ilana may be the more outwardly zany one, but when Abbi breaks the mold, there’s something extra satisfying about it.
9. “St. Marks” (Episode 2.10)
Screenshot via YouTube
To celebrate Ilana’s 23rd birthday, Abbi treats her out to a fancy dumpling dinner in St. Marks and a bottle of wine that costs more than $10. We get Conner O’Malley and Aidy Bryant as their annoying acquaintances, and it’s weird to see early O’Malley playing a… well, normal is hardly the right description for his character, but he’s nowhere near the comedian’s signature unhinged performances. This episode is definitely a love letter to this particular part of New York, featuring Treeman, cheap wigs, and a woman pissing on the sidewalk. And don’t forget the cameos from Patricia Clarkson and the guy who’s Bubbles’ friend in The Wire! Finally, I will always appreciate this episode for Abbi’s sage observation that eyebrows are “sisters, not twins, and they need to be treated as such.”
8. “Mushrooms” (Episode 4.04)
Screenshot via YouTube
Starting with Season 4, Broad City began introducing changes in format or conceit in some episodes to mix up the gals’ usual hijinks. Here, Ilana and Abbi decide to take some shrooms, and we’re invited on their trip thanks to the creative decision to animate nearly 10 minutes of the episode. The art is gorgeous, reflecting their strange, drug-induced trains of thought and colorful imaginations. We also get a Wanda Sykes cameo and an excellent line from Ilana, on the precipice of a three-way with two Adonises: “I hope you’re into a soft Russian peasant body.”
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