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| The origin story of Abbi and Ilana |
So, I love Broad City. I love it so much. Obviously, I try to be unbiased, and I will do my best here, but it will be difficult. Anyway, Abbi and Ilana are BACK. We've all been waiting so long. SO LONG. I loved last season. We all did. Even Ry Gos, and I'm willing to learn to love anything Ryan does, purely for that reason.
Anyway, season four kicks off with an origin story. And first things first, can I just say, I'm so happy Abbi and Ilana aren't, childhood best friends, have been together since they were in utero, know absolutely everything about each other, bffs. A la Rachel and Monica, if you need an example. I know they know a lot about each other, and if Ilana had it her way, they would have been friends in utero, but I'm glad they're not and here's why. Not that many of us have best friends like that. We might know that person, and hold them as a casual acquaintance, maybe in the family friends category of our social circle, but I think there are only a few of us who really have that type of best friend. Having them meet in their early twenties is far more realistic. In life, you need time to find your people. Most of my best friends, I met either in high school or university or work. Thanks to Facebook I can still watch my in-utero friends get jobs and boyfriends and do Facebook worthy things, but they're not my people. This Sliding Doors is the story of meeting your people, or in Abbi and Ilana's case, your person. Friendship in your twenties (and twenties plus) is difficult. Where do you meet people? How do you have a job and save enough money to live on, and yet still be able to go out, expand your social circle rather than get stuck in a routine? Or how do you balance those two things? Sliding Doors doesn't really go that far into life in your twenties, that's what the rest of Broad City is for, but it does show all the glories of finally finding your people.
I saw an interview of Abbi and Ilana on a late night show, talking about how Amy Poehler persuaded them to wait until season four to show their origin story, and I just want to thank her. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. One of my favourite things about this episode was all the throwbacks of characters and elements from regular episodes, which you wouldn't have gotten if this had been shown in the first season. Bevers. Goddam Bevers. Ilana's toilet naps and her inability to keep a job. Abbi's nervousness. Having seen three years of Abbi being a functioning adult, keeping most of her insecurities at bay and then suddenly being thrown back to the nervous, unsure Abbi of 2011 really exemplified the character development we don't see and highlights the importance of finding your people. If you hadn't noted, the bottom line of this review, and indeed Sliding Doors, is FIND YOUR PEOPLE.
When watching broad City, I always find myself internally screaming "YES THIS IS MY LIFE" or "GOD I WISH THIS WAS MY LIFE." The show manages to hit a middle ground between feel-good nonsense and real-life realness. All the while looking at it with the optimism needed at this point in 2017. Yes, Ilana doesn't know how to do her taxes and isn't financially independent yet. Yes, Abbi is still working at the gym and not as an illustrator full-time. A lot of things go wrong for them. Thinking back, probably more things go wrong than right for them, the most jarring possibly being Lincoln breaking up with Ilana and Abbi insulting Tre on their date, but it never keeps them down for long and it seems that the focus is on their celebrating them as people, rather than finding ways to put them down. Once you find your people (use that as your mantra, my gift to you) all the things that can potentially get you down will suddenly seem far less intimidating and your life will, in turn, be the better for it, which is what Sliding Doors is trying to say.
A+++++ stuff kweeeenz
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