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2 Broke Girls

Credits

Cast

Network

Reviewer

Paul Asay

TV Series Review

2 Broke Girls might think it’s going for broke in an attempt to keep fickle audiences interested. But really it’s merely grabbing elements from a slew of other comedies. It’s part The Odd Couple: Paris Hilton-style heiress Caroline Channing is forced to move in with tough-talking waitress Max Black after her father’s arrested and divested for heading up a Ponzi scheme. It’s part Alice: The two work at a greasy diner staffed and frequented by a cast of revolving wackadoos. Then, in terms of its salacious sense of humor, 2 Broke Girls borrows heavily from its late, salacious network mate Two and a Half Men.
While Broke Girls is ostensibly about friendship in economic downtimes, the majority of its jokes are all about sex: The sex characters have had, the sex they’ve not had, the sex they hope to have, the weird sex other people are having. In the premiere, Max and Caroline launch into a series of jokes revolving around a certain region of the female anatomy, partly inspiring The New York Times to christen the 2011 television season “the season of the vagina.”

“I think our tolerance for what is edgy is changing,” says comedian Whitney Cummings, who helped create 2 Broke Girls. “We’re getting a little desensitized, so sometimes you have to be more and more shocking because now you have YouTube and the Internet and all the rest that’s available for us to watch. … If one day passes without me writing any more vagina jokes, my career is blown. Vagina jokes paid for my house.”

Indeed, this sitcom’s writers pack more sex jokes into a half-hour comedy than some airlines pack in seats on their planes. And just like the aforementioned plane can do a number on your kneecaps, the jokes here can make viewers feel mighty uncomfortable.

Perhaps we can’t entirely blame CBS for Broke: Times are tough for them too, and everyone knows sex really does sell. So let’s just say it’s out of desperation to keep audiences from turning off the telly and updating their Facebook accounts instead that they’ve taken a tried-and-true sitcom body and injected it with loads of salacious, Botox-like content.

Episode Reviews

2 Broke Girls: Jan. 6, 2016 “And the Not Regular Down There”

Max dates a guy who won’t have sex on the first date, which freaks her out. He tells her that he’d like to get to know her first, that he wants there to be a certain emotional intimacy between them before they get physically intimate because, he says, he’s not “normal” below the waist. It turns out he has two penises—a word repeated at least a dozen times, and a condition joked about at least 20 times more. Max and her boyfriend kiss. We hear Max undo his pants. We also hear lots of crude slang for the male anatomy.

There are jokes about Max’s promiscuity, along with verbal allusions (sometimes graphic) to oral sex, infidelity and sadomasochism. Their older friend Sophie worries that she and diner cook Oleg aren’t able to have children, despite having lots of unprotected (and sometimes public) sex. She goes to see a gynecologist, which she’s nervous about because her old gynecologist was also a sheep veterinarian (which yields a lot of “baaaad” jokes). There’s much talk about allowing the doctor sufficient access to her privates.

Diner employees get in trouble for stealing things, and the girls’ boss threatens to pat them down (leading to a visual and verbal gag about Max’s breasts). It’s discovered that Caroline is trying to smuggle toilet paper clenched between her legs. (When she brings home a stolen cheesecake, Max asks her if she smuggled that between her legs, too.) Characters drink wine. Malt liquor is referenced. We hear two misuses of God’s name.

2BrokeGirls: 1032011

“And Strokes of Goodwill”

Max introduces Caroline to the joys of shopping at Goodwill. Caroline promptly becomes despondent when she finds a pair of her old $900 shoes marked down to $8. And Max cracks, “That’s not pain. That’s karma.”

We hear joking references to homosexuality (including a reference to the “friends” Caroline’s father is making in prison), rape, prostitution and the three registered sex offenders living in Max’s building. Double entendres and allusions evoke genitalia and animals in heat. Both Max and Caroline wear tight clothing, and Max whips out ketchup and mayo packets from her bra. Caroline sings about being naked.

Caroline suggests that she and Max “get drunk,” so they go to a bar and down shots. When Caroline squeals after a shot of tequila, Max says, “God knows what your orgasm sounds like.” She also says it’s a good idea to check the pockets of Goodwill clothing for pills. (We learn that the last time she took just such an unknown tablet she “fell asleep for eight hours.”)

Characters say “a‑‑,” “b‑‑ch,” “p‑‑‑ed” and misuse God’s name several times. Someone spits out a Spanish swear word that shocks even foul-mouthed Max. References are made to horse droppings. A woman pulls Caroline’s hair.

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Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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