Abbi’s wearing her blue dress, which always means it’s time to party on Broad City – and this is no regular party episode, taking place on a boat with some financial bros and all. “Citizen Ship” is Broad City gone maritime – and more importantly, is Jaime’s coming out party, both as a character and a newly-minted American citizen. Is it the funniest or most poignant episode of the season? Not by a long shot; but even when Broad City is resting on its laurels, it’s able to deliver an episode with dozens of quotable lines – and of course, the hilarious side adventures of Lincoln and Jaime, which has become my new favorite thing about Broad City.
The real meat of the episode, though, doesn’t quite lie with Jaime; and that’s where “Citizen Ship” feels a bit scatter-brained, with a Bevers plot tossed on top of a Jaime story (the Jaime story many BC fans have been waiting for, nonetheless). It’s not that the Bevers story isn’t good – for once, Bevers is both wearing clothes and being a reasonable human being – but it dominates the middle act of an episode, and builds to two climatic moments that are really hit or miss: Bevers calling Abbi a transexual (and her rolling with it, at least in the moment), and Ilana and Lincoln working through his “refractory period.” The latter of these is obviously funnier (and undercuts the over-the-top, horn-laden tribute to the Statue of Liberty), and the former has the added benefit of Abbi’s monologue outside the bathroom she thinks Melanie is in – but they both feel a little off for an episode that seemed destined to continue the existential discovery of Abbi’s inner tiger that season two has made its backbone.
That being said, there are not a lot of things about Broad City that aren’t funny in this episode, led by the poor seaman who gets stuck in the liquor room after Bevers, Abbi, and Ilana escape (Bevers has been partying there for 12 quarters, the only form of time the business bros can understand). It’s just not incredibly poignant, and at times, keeps the star of the episode (Jaime) at arm’s length to focus on Bevers getting Melanie to marry him (which leads to a lot of talk about jazz, which is most definitely not a reference to the musical genre, but BC pushing the FCC language boundaries yet again), a much less rewarding story than Jaime’s naturalization, which gets picked up in the last 90 seconds, after we get one more gross Bevers quote.
I love the two stories baked into the premise of “Citizen Ship” – however, it does feel like Broad City is a little unfocused in this half hour, the joke machine running at full blast (the scene of Ilana and Lincoln looking for a place to hook up is hilarious, in particular), but the episode lacking a way to make all those jokes mesh together for a cohesive episode. Thankfully, Broad City is fantastic at being funny – and “Citizen Ship”never forgets to do that, whether it’s the conversations between Lincoln and Jaime, or the enduring friendship of Abbi and Ilana at the show’s center. With a firm grip on those two dynamics, “Citizen Ship” is able to survive another Bevers onslaught, actually turning the show’s most unpleasant person into a sympathetic creature, if only for a fleeting moment. Plus, we get that endlessly endearing/creepy closing shot of Jaime’s American flag contacts; let’s just hope he gets those out before he scratches his eyes.
[Photo via Comedy Central]
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