Broad City Series Finale: An era of shenani­gans comes to an end

No one quite knows how to por­tray that bit­ter­sweet space in our mid-to-late twen­ties as Broad City’s Abbi and Ilana. A time when shenani­gans are still very much the order of the day, even though we try our hard­est to tap into the adult lifestyle soci­ety demands us to follow.

While oth­ers gave into the pres­sure of swap­ping their weed for chilled white wine and Xanax, gave up on their dreams of turn­ing their artis­tic tal­ents into a source of income, these gals chose to embrace their arrest­ed devel­op­ment and make the best out of the No Man’s Land we all find our­selves trapped in when we’re still firm­ly stuck in our youth yet on the brink of adulthood.

From its hum­ble begin­nings as a web series to its move to Com­e­dy Cen­tral, where it found the plat­form to explore and exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent approach­es to style and sto­ry-telling, Broad City has always found its strength in bring­ing a fresh whiff of New York air into our liv­ing-rooms. The city acts as more than just a mere back­drop – it has always been as much as a pro­tag­o­nist as Abbi and Ilana.

It feeds the nar­ra­tive arc of poor­ly con­struct­ed and lux­u­ri­ous­ly priced NYC apart­ments and the polit­i­cal atmos­phere cur­rent­ly pol­lut­ing its res­i­dents, while also act­ing as a home base: shots of the city’s cor­ners, plazas and parks act as a med­i­ta­tive break between bub­bling sto­ry­lines, invit­ing view­ers to arrive, absorb and pre­pare for the rest of a typ­i­cal Broad City day ahead.

The city not only informs its char­ac­ters’ hopes, dreams and per­son­al­i­ties but the style and atti­tude that is unique to New York. From neon-coloured fan­ny-packs to mesh crop-tops and Abbi’s famous lit­tle blue dress, five sea­sons of Broad City have sparked a fash­ion rev­o­lu­tion that has brought the fab­ric of this met­ro­pol­i­tan city into the rest of the world. Their lan­guage too has crossed bor­ders with women from all over embrac­ing their beau­ty, fem­i­nin­i­ty and sass with cel­e­bra­to­ry cries of ​“Yass, Kween!” and reclaim­ing the term ​“witch” for what it is and was always meant to be: empowering.

Most of all, Broad City has taught us the impor­tance of friend­ship in a man­ner few oth­er shows cen­tred on female rela­tion­ships have. Rather than focus­ing on the neg­a­tive com­plex­i­ties and com­pet­i­tive­ness sparked by our patri­ar­chal soci­ety, it high­lights the beau­ty of these intri­ca­cies: polar oppo­sites who find stronger foot­ing on com­mon ground, two dif­fer­ent types of crazy who have come to accept their extra­or­di­nary expe­ri­ences as mundane.

Their sup­port of one anoth­er is for bet­ter or for worse, even in the tough­est of cas­es, mak­ing their immi­nent sep­a­ra­tion more dif­fi­cult than any roman­tic break-up they have ever expe­ri­enced. While they are both will­ing to accept that, find­ing their own ways in life, away from the youth­ful dis­trac­tions they are drawn to togeth­er, is of great impor­tance, the fear of los­ing this bond – or pos­si­bly them­selves – dur­ing this new phase in life, is all-consuming.

Com­ing to a beau­ti­ful, emo­tion­al end in which Abbi and Ilana cher­ish every last New York minute they have been grant­ed togeth­er, Broad City leaves us with an impor­tant reminder. A bond as deep, real, beau­ti­ful, hot and mean­ing­ful as the one these two incred­i­ble gals share doesn’t come around very often – but once it’s estab­lished not even 1793 miles can break it. The prox­im­i­ty may change; the dynam­ic, how­ev­er, will nev­er reach a sta­t­ic point. And, with a city like New York for­ev­er feed­ing the con­ver­sa­tions and cul­tur­al diver­si­ty around Ilana, Abbi always has a direct life­line to the per­son and the envi­ron­ment she has and will, for­ev­er, call her home.

It’s hard com­ing to terms with the fact that Broad City’s era of shenani­gans has come to an end as, for many view­ers, the good­bye felt as intense as it did for Abbi and Ilana. Yet, as is true for these kweens, we are very much aware that this end­ing marks the begin­nings of many new and excit­ing things to come from the cre­ative minds and hearts of Ilana Glaz­er and Abbi Jacob­son. And when the time final­ly comes, we shall all wel­come them back with a unit­ed, roar­ing and pow­er­ful, YASSSS!