However, four years before producer Amy Poehler helped her fellow Upright Citizen Brigade alums transform their warped humor into a network television show, it existed as a rough, yet promising, YouTube series of the same name. During Broad City‘s Seth Rogen-moderated panel at New York City’s Paley Center last November, Ilana admitted that the young showrunners “still refer to the Web experience for the TV show” and turn ideas from the YouTube series into episodes for the Comedy Central version. With season two’s finale airing tonight and Broad City already renewed for a third season, here are five episodes from the YouTube series that could make for fantastic episodes in season three.
V Chat
The V Chat episode from the first season of Broad City‘s YouTube series is five minutes of a day-long video chat session where Ilana helps Abbi prepare for an upcoming date with text message courtship techniques. The second season of the Comedy Central series featuring an episode where they “fall into the lint roll matrix” of Internet obsession, and they try to share marijuana smoke through video chats on the second episode of the Comedy Central series’ first season, but there is too much comedic gold in an all tech episode of Broad City to pass up. Just imagine Abbi running the New York City Marathon while video chatting with Ilana from a selfie stick after the site tracking the runner’s progress goes down. Or even an episode where Ilana demonstrates her aversion to a serious, traditional relationship by finding a mate through a dangerous cocktail of OKCupid and JDate searches.
Modern Family recently broke similar ground with an episode filmed entirely on Apple devices and framed within the Macbook screen of a technologically-inept Claire Dunphy as she frantically tries to contact her children with the help of Find My Phone apps and an easily hacked iCloud account (Snoopy is a horrible password, FYI).
Mom Brunch
In episode 15 of the YouTube series’ first season, Abbi and Ilana’s mothers meet for the first time at a brunch that devolves into a physical fight over which of their daughters has more of a right to flirt with the waiter. After Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Susie Essman’s gut-bustingly hilarious performance as Ilana’s mother, Bobbi Wexler, in season two, the Broad City universe needs more mom.
A 22-minute episode centered on the aftermath of Mom Brunch would fit nicely in season three. Maybe Abbi’s mom can explain the origins of her daughter’s drunken cabaret alter ego. Maybe Ilana’s mom can bestow upon her daughter cleaner ways to covertly transport drugs than using “nature’s pocket”.
Yoga
To violently independent millennials like Abbi and Ilana in Season 2, kids are malleable play-doh for them to mold with repurposed Nicki Minaj lyrics and underage bong tutorials. On the eighth episode of the YouTube series’ first season, the pair find a home for their exercising and gas in a yoga class that ends with their much older classmates discussing the importance of having children and how one “can’t imagine having sex without pretending I’m making a baby.”
A pregnancy scare episode would be just the thing to bring the Yoga episode to the third season. Ilana misconstrues her missed period as karmic compensation for her good feminist work as Abbi ponders if she’s infertile since she’s never accidentally be impregnated. Hannibal Burress’ character Lincoln has been in a friends-with-benefits relationship with Ilana since the Broad City YouTube series and confessed to Ilana his desires for a traditional relationship while she was knocked out on anesthesia in the Comedy Central series’ first season. The baby scare and subsequent search for the baby’s father through the endless list of Ilana’s sex partners would rock Broad City until she gets her period at the end of the episode.
Make It Rain
If Broad City were a neighborhood and you opened your bedroom window, you would probably see cars blaring Nicki Minaj. Make it Rain, the fourth episode of the YouTube series’ second season could have been named Broad City: The Do-It-Yourself Musical as Abbi and Ilana are enveloped in the rhythmic sounds of the woman’s bathroom.
For the same women who turned a bank into a Missy Elliott video in season one on Comedy Central, they could easily turn the hustle and bustle of New York City into a musical. They could perform a medley on the eight-instrument device hanging for all to play with at the 34th St-Herald Square subway station. Then they could hop on the N train into the midst of one of those impromptu dance performances that are becoming as common in subways as rats (and just as annoying to some). Add in a cameo from Times Square’s Naked Cowboy and Broad City will have turned New York City into an R-rated Glee episode.
Waxing
In Waxing, the fifth episode of the Broad City YouTube series’ second season, Abbi and Ilana end up with dark red blotches on their faces after Ilana convinces Abbi to get her upper lip waxed before a surprise birthday party. For season three, Ilana should convince a reticent Abbi to go to a nude beach with her and get matching Brazillian waxes.
Abbi and Ilana could spend the entire episode trying to figure out creative ways to be mostly nude without revealing their reddened genitals. Eventually this will anger the community of nudists whose ultimatum of no clothes or no admittance would be summarized in a group chant of “it’s either none or nothing.”
Abbi and Illana are currently working on an untitled film that will start shooting during the break between season two and season three. Little is known about the film except that the pair will not be starring,“which is so dope and so much more baller,” according to Glazer. To stay up-to-date on all things Broad City, follow the show on Twitter at @broadcity and YouTube.
