It's finally happening. If you hadn't noticed, this season of Broad City has been a little different. First of all, it's set in the winter, but second, it been peppered with tiny clues and subtle jokes that have all been pointing the same thing: the election. However, for the most part, the show has not addressed outright the results of the 2016 race that elected Donald Trump — until now. After last episode gave us a look at Abbi's relationship with her mom, this episode explores a relationship for Ilana that's just as important: the one with her vagina.
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That will make sense in a second. First Abbi has some stuff to figure out, mainly that she no longer has a job but desperately needs to buy a heater for the increasingly chilly weather. In order to save up, she's decided to sell some of her art outside the steps of the Met. Her go-getter attitude is ruined, however, when Ilana shatters her confidence by finding Abbi's first gray hair.
"You are becoming a witch," Ilana says. "A dope and fucking powerful witch."
This casts a shadow on the entire day, and it doesn't help matters that once they arrive at the Met they meet Margot (Jane Curtin), a elderly, seasoned Met-steps-seller who has a lot in common with Abbi. They have the same grocery cart, same tupperware, and, if Abbi keeps going down the path she's on, the same future.
Ilana can't stick around to help, though, because she's clearly dealing with her own issue. Her normal crude and sexually outlandish behaviour has taken a turn for the obnoxious, and she's, like, painfully horny. She excuses herself from the Met in order consult with what can only be described as an orgasm doctor, Betty (played by Marcella Lowery) and reveals that she hasn't orgasmed in months. Specifically, since the election, something that dawns on her thanks to a painful montage of Trump's most egregious statements.
As Ilana works through her issue with a series of vibrators and mantras, Abbi becomes increasingly weirded out by her and Margot's similarities. While she contemplates her own ageing, she meets a 51-year-old Upper East Side dermatologist (Greta Lee) who doesn't look a day over 30. In light of the grey hair she found that morning, this encounter really throws her off, but it's nothing compared to what happens next.
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"Oh my God, Abby?"
It's Jeremy (you know, Jeremy, the man Abby almost pegged two seasons ago, played by Stephen Schneider), but in the past couple years, things have really changed for him. He's adopted a kid ("He adopted us"), has a partner partner ("We're not married — she's not my property!"), and he wants buy all the cards for an upcoming Planned Parenthood fundraiser ("I love helping struggling artists").
Jeremy's success is truly the last straw. With her newfound riches, Abbi heads to the dermatologist, just as Ilana figures out the solution to her drought. The moment she switches the Trump montage in her brain to a montage of women like Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Beyoncé, the floodgates open — so to speak.
Things are not going so well for Abbi. As soon as she gets botox in half of her face, she realises what a mistake she's making. The room is surrounded by pictures of women and young girls trying to change the way they look, and it suddenly dawns on her: "I actually really like the way I look. I think I'm really hot." At least, when half of her face isn't swollen from botox.
Fresh off of their own unique transformations, Abbi and Ilana bump back into each other on the way out, but their adventure isn't quite over. A bird drops a message into their hands from Margot, who's instructed them to meet her in Central Park for the winter solstice. After the day they've had, Abbi is ready to embrace witches, which she realises are just powerful women getting shit done.
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"Ilana, maybe we really are witches," Abbi says as they stumble upon Betty, Margot, and a whole coven of women by a fire in the park. This is the start of a brand new revolution.
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