overnights

Broad City Recap: I Now Pronounce You Dog and Dog

Broad City

The Matrix
Season 2 Episode 6
Editor’s Rating 3 stars

Broad City

The Matrix
Season 2 Episode 6
Editor’s Rating 3 stars
Photo: Comedy Central

I don’t ever feel like I need to leave my phone at home, largely due to the fact that I barely remember I have it with me most days. I turned all of the sounds off once when I was bingeing Doctor Who (you have your version of alone time, and I have mine); it was so nice, I just left them off forever.

There are lots of days when I wish the internet were corporeal so I could kick it out of a goddamn window, so I sort of understand Abbi and Ilana’s need to unplug from “The Matrix,” but ever since I heard about that guy bricking people in the face all over New York City a few years ago, I’ll keep my phone with me even when I’m not using it. Who would you call if you got bricked in the face? Not your mom, for chrissake.

After a fantasy drum-off between Razor Burnz (Abbi) and Pussy M.D. (Ilana) that results in their being kicked out of a drum store by TV on the Radio’s Kyp Malone, Abbi and Ilana go all deep web internet vortex when Abbi brings up Judge Judy. Not even the animated invitation for Eliot’s dog wedding can pull them out of their Grindr/DListed/BuzzFeed/searching-for-“Rihanna’s naughtiest moments” k-hole, and before you know it, they’re Skyping each other from opposite ends of the same couch, much to their horror.

Tons of studies say that the internet is best in small chunks, but have you ever tried that? It’s so fucking boring. And I know how to sew and do intarsia knitting and shit — I could fill my days making dope-ass sweaters like Laura Ingalls and it’s still not as much fun as playing Bejeweled Blitz for the 75th time that day! Anyway, disgusted with themselves, Abbi and Ilana strap on some roller blades, since they’re both already wearing Spandex, and they set out to “take in nature faster.”

What happens instead is that, in an attempt to bail after accosting some soccer players by yelling, “Wanna FOOK?” (I swear this will give you better results than any dating site on this planet), Abbi can’t slow down and rolls straight into a deep hole. The rings for the dog wedding are still on Abbi’s toes, so Ilana sets off to find Eliot instead of doing literally anything else to help Abbi out. Well, okay, she does toss down her backpack, which is full of figs, magician’s scarves, a hollowed-out copy of The People’s History of the United States with a vibrator and some weed inside, creepy pictures of Abbi sleeping, and a birth-control packet stuffed with two joints — in other words, sort of the best trapped-in-a-hole-for-30-minutes care package you can hope for, I guess. Abbi goes full-on Tom Hanks–in–Cast Away anyway, making letters out of tampon applicators, making up stories about being at an extravagant flea market with Mark Ruffalo, and having Fig try out for American Idol. She doesn’t deal well with isolation, you know? At least some tourists drop by to taunt her and take her picture.

Ilana is trying to find the dog-wedding gazebo, but home girl was definitely not a Girl Scout. I like that her survivalist instincts lead her directly to smoking actual leaves, picking up dog poop, scooting her butt on the ground, and eating grass, before veering off the beaten path and arm-fucking a tree hole. I cried a little when she actually pulls out something semen-y, but I think she did, too. It’s one of those moments that made me so happy that younger girls get to watch something this weird and funny and absurd on basic cable if their parents are cool enough to let them.

Was Janeane Garofalo showing up as the veterinarian minister the best surprise of your week, too? It doesn’t even seem that farfetched, to be honest. Ilana eventually finds the dog wedding, which is borderline chaos. Lincoln has blotting papers for ultra-sweaty, nervous Elliott, because of course he does, just like of course he helps Eliot and Brandon get together in the end. Lincoln is like an Inspector Gadget for your emotional core, even when he can’t tell the difference between dog quiche and human quiche. He even intervenes and asks Poppi the dog to put her wedding dress back on. He’s such a pleaser, that one.

Ilana rolls up and interrupts the ceremony, has a dog sniff some of Abbi’s clothes, and then sets off with the wedding party to find her; when they do, Abbi has turned Ilana’s backpack into a diaper even though it’s only been about 30 minutes since she left. Oh, like you wouldn’t do the same! The park is big, and Ilana is, to put it lightly, forgetful. Abbi makes it to the ceremony after all, albeit on a stretcher, and then is probably held in a 72-hour psych eval thereafter. I want the yarmulke Atticus was wearing, and I gasped with glee when he used his little paw to break the glass. Mazel!

Funniest Parts, Best Lines:

  • “Can in-laws hook up?” “Yeah, it’s like soft incest.”
  • Of course Poppi got married in Vera Wag.
  • “I love Scarface. Cocaine and incest, baby, can’t get enough!” (there was a lot of incest talk this week, right?)
  • Ilana’s computer background is Janet Jackson in Poetic Justice, so good.
  • “And then we have to RIP the cord out to go to sleep, rub one out, rinse and repeat!” 
  • BuzzFeed’s “Which Dead Child Star Are You?” Quiz
  • They look at Grindr way more than they look at Tinder.
  • Lincoln’s wall of ties, and the fact that he uses a video to learn how to do a Windsor knot
  • “Cold paws are the number-one killer of chee-wah-wahs!”
  • Abbi’s fantasy escalating from dinner with Elijah Wood to flea market shopping with Mark Ruffalo to being in Turks and Caicos with Taye Diggs
  • The Truth About Cats and Dogs joke Garofalo made at the end
  • “She’s a girl!” “Oh, so treat her differently, then.”
  • “If our foremothers can find countries without phones, then we can find a dang dog weddin’!”
  • “Chihuahuas were bred as a joke.”

Broad City Recap: I Now Pronounce You Dog & Dog