‘Broad City’ Season 2 Episode 6 Recap: “The Matrix”

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Sometimes, I think the cold opens in Broad City might be my favorite thing about the show. Sure, just about everything about the show is pretty great but there is a particular shine to the cold opens that are reminiscent of the original web series and often feel like standalone sketches. This week, we get a fantasy sequence of Abbi and Ilana killing it on drum kits (Ilana’s band is called “Pussy M.D.”) only to snap back to a reality where they are playing poorly in a music store and asked to leave. It has nothing to do with the episode that follows but it’s silly and funny, and a good way to start the night off.

The first scene is also spectacularly good and extremely familiar. Abbi and Ilana are hanging out and trying to figure out what to watch on television when they get distracted by the Internet — looking up Judge Judy, posting on Instagram, reading celebrity gossip, watching videos, etc. After a cool montage of the two dialed in, Abbi calls up Ilana on Skype and the two shockingly realize that they are actually still in the same room. They were both so engrossed in their computers that they forget they were hanging out. I’ve written a lot about relating to certain aspects of Broad City but I think Internetting so hard you lose an entire day and forget your surroundings is my new number one moment.

Anyway, this prompts the two girls to decide to leave their phones at home all day while they go to a dog wedding. Oh yeah — that’s the other big storyline this episode: Abbi, Ilana, and Lincoln going to a dog wedding for Ilana’s brother’s dog. So they rollerblade to the park, each struggling to exist without their phones. They have no idea where they’re going without a map and have to attract boys by interacting with them rather than swiping left or right on Tinder. Disaster quickly strikes, however, when Abbi blades down a hill and lands in a giant hole, spraining her ankle and getting herself stuck. Ilana takes off to find help and save the day. She does leave Abbi with her backpack full of survival supplies: lanyard, snacks, a hollowed copy of The People’s History Of the United States with weed and a tiny vibrator hidden in it, and, of course, creepy photos of Abbi.

Since she’s without her phone, Ilana isn’t sure how to go about getting help, especially since she doesn’t know where her brother is. Her solution? To become one with nature. She scoots across the grass, grabs dog shit, and later has sex with a tree. How does this help? Well, it doesn’t, but it’s definitely funny. Ilana, as always, fully commits to the bit and really goes hard on the tree, all culminating in her hands covered in sticky sap. Eventually realizing that this isn’t helping her quest at all, Ilana gets back to the original mission: Find Abbi help.

Meanwhile, it takes Abbi all of like, two minutes to go stir crazy in the pit. She gets high (for the pain!), decorates it with her minimal supplies (including “framed” photos), entertains elaborate homebody fantasies about everyone from Elijah Wood to Taye Diggs, and then stages an American Idol-esque show in which she judges inayimate otbjects. I absolutely love unhinged Abbi and I’m so glad that she’s getting more and more time to be this crazy during Season 2. The escalating humor in these scenes is only made better by the later reveal that Ilana has only been gone for a “half-hour, tops.”

Speaking of, Ilana has finally found Eliot and the wedding, thanks to — who knew — a map! She blades down to interrupt the ceremony and all the guests go on a hunt for Abbi where they find her, crazed and using Ilana’s backpack as a diaper. Again: She’s been down there for no longer than thirty minutes.

There are a few great character moments in “The Matrix,” especially when it comes to Lincoln. He’s one of the best men on TV right now, simultaneously totally in love with Ilana but also willing to back off and give her space, allowing the two to be in a non-relationship relationship. But, of course, he’ll marry her in a heartbeat. He’s the voice of reason throughout the wedding (though I would say that wearing a dog tie to a dog wedding is a little too on-the-nose) and calms down Eliot who has been nonstop panicking. Eliot, Ilana’s brother (in both real life and on the show), can’t calm down during the wedding not just because he’s nervous something will happen (to be fair, the rings did get stuck on Abbi’s swollen feet) but also because he has a huge crush on the other dog’s owner (father?). Lincoln immediately picks up on this and offers advice. There is also the return of Janeane Garofalo as a veterinarian/dog wedding officiant who clashes with Lincoln on who is more like a doctor: a dentist or a vet. Broad City‘s little world has been expanding a bit this season, and I’m all for it, especially since the writer is clever enough to never take away from the main girls.