Broad City: “The Lockout”

Broad City is settling into its groove. “Lockout” doesn’t take as many risks as last week’s experimental “Working Girls,” but it’s still a very funny episode that brings Abbi and Ilana back together. The script (written by Glazer and Jacobson) does have to do some logistic cartwheels to get them both locked out, since they don’t actually live together. So we open in Abbi’s apartment, which has apparently recruited its own tenants to bug-bomb the place, and quickly end up on Ilana’s stoop, only to find out she doesn’t have her keys. They can’t call Ilana’s neighbors (even pressing the intercom with the wooden stick provided sends sparks flying), trying to break in via the fire escape is just a comedy of errors, and the locksmith they call in is so repulsive that his every breath sounds like he’s coming down off a vigorous jerking off (I’m so sorry). They understandably get freaked out, then ask him to open another apartment entirely, which is perhaps a little less understandable. The ensuing series of mishaps feels a lot like the pilot, especially as Abbi and Ilana get more desperate, more depraved, and most importantly, more disgusting.
They get maced. Abbi wakes up in her own vomit. They have to pour bottles of water all over their burning faces while waiting for the subway. Abbi fakes her way through parkour while Ilana pumps fancy lotion into a plastic to-go bag (“Kiehl’s”). When they finally get themselves to Abbi’s big gallery opening, they’re tired and sore and cranky, and so when Ilana realizes that they’ve been busting their asses to see Abbi’s illustrations on the wall of a sandwich shop, the weight of the day hits them. It’s the first time we’ve really seen them fight. They play it off as a shouty joke at first, but Ilana breaking down to Lincoln about how she’s disappointed Abbi again is legitimately touching, even with the presence of garbage bagels. But it’s a lot to ask of the last three minutes to wrap up this story and end on a punchy button, so the conclusion of “Lockout” ends up lagging behind.
Even if the episode had some dips in energy, though, the commitment to detail on this show is consistently impressive. As Abbi’s running out of her bug-bombed apartment, she almost immediately doubles back so she can sync her escape with cute neighbor Jeremy. The seconds before their creepy Timmy Olyphant lookalike locksmith appears feature a concentrated sound cue of a screaming match down the street, which distracts Ilana from Abbi musing that maybe Michael Buble could use his crooning powers for good. They never say that Ilana’s apartment is the one completely coated in the bumper stickers you find at a Hot Topic register, but they trust that you know enough about her to understand that they decide to break into the wrong apartment. Ilana carries that pole around the entire episode, and somehow, they keep finding comedic uses for it. (The pole gets mistaken for a weapon, becomes a fake-out subway pole that sends innocent people crashing to the ground, and in the most Abbot and Costello bit yet, keeps Ilana out of the gallery as she tries to walk through the door while holding it horizontally.) Not all of these are huge laughs, but they’re all encouraging. A show that pays attention to the little stuff this early on isn’t likely to drop the ball later without a fight.