The 10 Best Broad City Episodes, Ranked

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:

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10. “Hashtag FOMO” (Episode 2.05)

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)

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)

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.”

7. “Stories” (Episode 5.01)

The opener for Season 5 follows the inventive, formula-breaking vein begun in Season 4, with most of the narrative taking place over Instagram stories as Abbi and Ilana document their cross-Manhattan trek to mark Abbi’s 30th birthday. Broad City deserves more credit for its many layers of lore and callbacks, which is done exceptionally well here with the inclusion of Cheese, Abbi’s former-druggie college friend who’s first referenced in Season 1. You can see Glazer and Jacobson getting self-reflective in this episode, as their fictionalized selves ponder the fact that sharing their stories on social media makes their antics feel less like their own—a notion that could possibly mirror their thoughts on how making their friendship available for public consumption changes its nature.

6. “Rat Pack” (Episode 3.04)

The broads are at their best when they need to cook up a scheme for some quick cash—in this case, it’s actually Ilana and her roommate Jaime (Arturo Castro) who must make some money so they can pay back the exterminator (Eugene Mirman!) for (unsuccessfully) getting rid of the “rat bastard.” They throw a party (the prep montage in which Ilana sources weed from stranger and stranger places in the apartment always makes me laugh) and charge cover so they can get the money back. In the meantime, Abbi has her first kiss with Trey after one too many kombuchas, so is compelled to download Tinder and speed date in order to get over the embarrassment. Ilana’s frantic efforts to distract the party guests from the rodent intruder are a delight, as well as Lincoln’s extraordinary culinary efforts, presented on rubber tits and a skateboard. Best line of the episode goes to Ilana for her response to Jaime’s request that she get off Grindr: “I just wanna see penises within a mile of me.”

5. “Coat Check” (Episode 2.09)

Rewatching Broad City, I forgot just how many celebrity cameos there are. “Coat Check” has a twofer: Alia Shawkat as Ilana’s doppelgänger and new hook-up, and Kelly Ripa as… Kelly Ripa. Jaime gets Ilana and Abbi a sweet coat check gig, which the former manages to mess up, leaving Abbi to pick up the pieces (my personal favorite moment is when she makes up a fake Chanel coat to let the waiting, jacket-less horde know she’s not fucking around). Kelly Ripa’s coat is taken home by the wrong person, and Abbi goes on a quest to get it back to its rightful owner. Ripa is clearly having a lot of fun here as a hard-drinking, basket-throwing, horny version of herself.

4. “Pu$$y Weed” (Episode 1.02)

This is classic Broad City; when I think of the show, this episode immediately springs to mind. Abbi decides she needs to grow up and buy her own weed, and Ilana is inspired to do her taxes on her own. Along the way, Ilana’s veneer falls out and Lincoln has to replace it, and Abbi’s stoned shenanigans in the dentist office waiting room (as well as her fury at being called a mom) never cease to entertain me. The physical comedy of Ilana trying to involve Abbi in her and Lincoln’s makeout session is top notch.

3. “Sliding Doors” (Episode 4.01)

Another concept episode! This one examines the day the girls met in two alternate timelines: one in which they spend the whole wonderful day together, and another where they bump into each other and part ways, only to have the worst time until a later chance encounter at a traffic median. There’s so much to love here, from the rewind sequence revealing a homeless man’s Nostradamus moment, to a quick appearance from Ilana’s later co-worker Nicole (Nicole Drespel), to the small touches that capture the 2011 setting (the end of episode needle drop being “Go Outside” by Cults bowled me over with nostalgia). Seeing both Ilana and Abbi pre-friendship reminds us just how much they needed each other to become their truest selves.

2. “Burning Bridges” (Episode 3.08)

A classic two-dinners-at-once farce with big emotional stakes? Yes, please! After sneakily hooking up for a while, Trey asks Abbi out for a proper date, which just so happens to be taking place at the same restaurant where Ilana and her family are celebrating her parents’ wedding anniversary. Ilana’s already in a precarious emotional state, having been dumped by Lincoln for a monogamous relationship earlier that day, so Abbi tries to hide her secret date—and gets very drunk in the process. Downs kills it as Trey comically and emotionally, especially at the end when he realizes Abbi doesn’t see him as anything more than a sex friend. We get some rare Ilana vulnerability here, too, and it’s a testament to Glazer and the show that this moment works while also remaining true to her goofy, larger-than-life character.

1. “Knockoffs” (Episode 2.04)

A lesser show would have stretched out Abbi’s crush on Jeremy for season upon season, but Broad City wouldn’t do that to us. The neighbors finally go out on a date (initiated by a drug-addled post-surgery Abbi in the honorable mention episode “Wisdom Teeth”) and get into bed, only for Jeremy to propose pegging, which Abbi wasn’t expecting. She calls up Ilana, who’s gone on an odyssey with her mother (Susie Essman, perfectly cast) to find premium knockoff bags (the patter between Glazer and Essman is supreme), and of course Ilana is pro-pegging. Abbi decides to venture into new sexual territory, inspired partly by Ilana’s recently deceased grandmother Esther (fun fact: they mention that Esther played for the Rockford Peaches, and Jacobson later went on to star in the short-lived A League of Their Own series). “Knockoffs” encapsulates one of the best aspects of Ilana and Abbi’s friendship: namely, how they encourage each other to embrace new experiences.

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