Alex Darus

Abbi and Ilana close out the season by causing trouble on a plane on Broad City.

Abbi and Ilana prove they are meant to be together in New York after they wreak havoc on a plane to Israel in part two of the Broad City finale this week.

For Abbi (Abbi Jacobson) and Ilana (Ilana Glazer), getting on the plane to Israel was a big enough challenge for the New Yorkers, but actually making it to their destination is a whole different story. When Abbi starts her period on the plane and realizes her tampons are all in her bag that the flight attendants made her check, the women create a plot to find a way to stop her flow.

Abbi and Ilana try everything to obtain, or create, a tampon for Abbi to use. Ilana tries to craft one out of a pita, a rubber band and a kippah, but it just won’t work for Abbi. The curtains in the cabin open to reveal a box of tampons in the first class section of the plane, and Abbi and Ilana plot to get them.

 

 

Broad City, while being outrageous, made an important comment on women’s healthcare in the episode. It touches on topics such as how homeless women do not have access to tampons in the ways of privileged people by having Abbi complain about her lack of tampons in-flight. The show also brings up the problem of the lack of menopausal women being represented in pop culture by having Abbi ignoring an old woman talking about the misconceptions of menopause. Broad City again shows that it can tackle serious topics while still showing the cool girls on TV.

 

 

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There are two flight attendants on the plane who spend the duration of the episode trying to figure out a good story for the one flight attendant to tell at her class reunion. When they hear Abbi and Ilana say phrases like “explosion” and “blood everywhere” without context, they get extremely worried. Rather than tell the air marshall about their suspicions, they decide they can take down the women themselves in order for the one flight attendant to get that good story to tell at her reunion.

The entire plane ride is full of strange sexual relationships and not a lot of romance. The group leader Jared (Seth Green) gets commissioned for each match he makes between two Jews in order to repopulate the Jewish population, so he tries his best to make anyone and everyone interested in another person on the plane. He even gets one redhead to propose to another after meeting one another earlier in the flight. The plane experiences a lot of turbulence because the pilots take turns performing oral sex on each other because “there’s something about doing it in the sky.” Ilana wants to be part of the “Mohel-high club” and perform oral sex on someone on the plane. She eventually joins the club by hooking up with the main group leader in the bathroom that Abbi is waiting in line for. Broad City wouldn’t be Broad City if it weren't for uncomfortable sex scenes accompanied by somewhat offensive jokes.

 

 

Abbi tries to distract the plane by singing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” while Ilana tries to sprint into first class. They are both taken down by the flight attendants, and Abbi later admits that she “had this out of body experience where (she) swear(s) (she) was in heaven.” The women end up having to be questioned at the Israeli airport by two very stern looking police officers, and are ultimately sent home on a plane in restraints while being watched by an air marshall. They aren’t really mad about being sent home from Israel because Abbi’s bag is covered in bullet holes and Ilana knows about a falafel place at home that is apparently better than the real thing.

 

 

The fact that Abbi and Ilana were intending to go on a Birthmark trip is a hilarious joke itself. They have never come across as extremely religious, and they really have only ever referred to their faith when they were being stingy about cash and commenting on the stereotype. When they were being questioned separately by the two police officers in Israel, Ilana even said she didn’t even know if Abbi was Jewish for real. Abbi is also really into Jesus and Ilana described God as Jesus’s “daddy.”

“He’s like a Jew but he’s not Jew-ish,” Abbi said about Jesus.

“Ah I miss New York,” Ilana said to Abbi on the ride. The Broad City women are just not meant to leave the city. The world is not exactly ready for them. They belong with thousands of other people to watch their crazy antics and endless amounts of places to get into trouble. Abbi and Ilana are meant to meet random men on dating apps or at weird clubs, not on planes to the Middle East. Some people are just not meant to travel, and Abbi and Ilana are definitely a good example of that.

Season three of Broad City outdid itself. The show brought depth to both Abbi and Ilana in ways that it never has before. The show also gave itself a basis to work off, with Abbi and Trey’s pending romance and the terrible break up between Ilana and Lincoln. This season also brought hilarious cameos such as Hillary Clinton and Blake Griffin. There was never a dull moment in the show, even though the entire two-part finale focused on the two women being trapped on a plane. Broad City takes mundane experiences, such as going to the DMV or getting a period, and adds outrageous elements to make the viewer get completely absorbed in the show for 30 minutes each Wednesday throughout the season. And, like every season of Broad City before this, it makes everyone want to be Abbi and Ilana’s best friend.

 

Broad City airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.

@_alexdarus

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