I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say that I particularly enjoyed this week’s episode of Broad City “The Matrix” but you’ve got to admire a show that is fearless in its dedication to pure lunacy. The show takes a few easy plot choices and then blows them up because the show’s motto has always been “the bigger the better”.
We should have known that the episode was going to veer off into insanity the moment it opened with Illana and Abbi taking part in a dream sequence where they’re playing drums with outfits that grow more and more outrageous. Of course they’re not actually playing in front of a crowd, but instead in front of a deeply agitated music store employee. It does, however, allow for a nicely paced count in to the show’s opening credits.
The show doesn’t lessen in its absurdity from there on out. Illana and Abbi are chilling out together, excited about their friend’s dog’s wedding the next day and get sucked into the vortex that is the internet. Using Wikipedia to fuel their need for useless knowledge, which is essential a dark hole of distractions, Buzzfeed to aid boredom and finding silly videos to share. Time passes as blinding effects allow us to see just how sucked into the internet they’ve become until suddenly they realize they’ve begun video chatting with each other while sitting on the same couch.
It’s a low moment, sure.
This leads to their slightly obvious decision that they need to experience life without a screen in front of their faces for more than five minutes. They conquer their screen addiction by deciding to roller blade to the canine wedding (which I know I haven’t mentioned yet but man, that was weird). Along the way they try to overcome being lost by using any natural navigational skills they possess-which are slim. They try to flirt without the help of a dating app which results in my favorite scene of the night where Abbi tries to kick a soccer ball back to a group of guys and ends up falling flat on her back.
I love a good visual sight gag.
Their travels are cut short though when they’re skating down a hill and going too fast. Illana yells for them to bail but because she’s Abbi she’s unable to and falls in a ditch, spraining her ankle. Illana’s first suggestion is to jump on in with her and shout for help but Abbi quickly shuts that idea down but you’ve got to admire Illana’s dedication. Illana makes it her mission to save Abbi by finding her friends while Abbi gets astonishingly high in a very short period of time. She also goes through Illana’a bag and finds a book with a hiding place for more weed, a vibrator and pictures of Abbi. She ignores the implications and instead smokes some more until she’s conversing with a fig.
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Abbi never gets to have a great day.
Illana ends up finding her friends and Lincoln at a wedding for dogs that has a surprising amount of drama and as a group they go and track her down and find her in an unfortunate position. They get her out, Lincoln gets to be smug about being a dentist, and the dogs are poised to live happily ever after.
It was a weird episode and one where not too much happened. After last week’s great installment, it’s a bit of a disappointing slip but again, no other show is going what Broad City does with its take on humor and visually flashy episodes so it’s easy to forgive an episode that misses it’s mark a bit.
It was okay. What did everyone else think of this week’s episode? Did the dog plot aside from Hannibal Burres’s one liners annoy anyone else? Let us know!
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6/10
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