Broad City The Show

A popular American sitcom, Broad City was first aired on the Comedy Central channel on January 22, 2014. The show is about two friends, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, who are New York City residents in their 20s. They’re both creators as well as lead actors of the show. The sitcom was adapted from their online series with the same name, which was produced from year 2009 to 2011. In fact, one of the executive producers of the series, Amy Poelher, had earlier appeared in the finale of the web series too.

As mentioned above, Broad City follows the journey of Abbi and Ilana, two Jewish friends, who face all sorts of misadventures related to frivolity and carelessness that comes with staying in the New York City. Ilana tries to avoid work as much as she can, in the hope of pursuing hedonism to the best of her abilities! Abbi on the other hand is doing all that she can to make a successful career as a professional illustrator. She often gets sidetracked from her goal and gets involved in her friend’s misadventures. This sitcom is in fact considered one of the best tv series focused on friendship between young women, and challenges and joys involved in such relationships.

How the production came about?

Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson became friends when both of them were attending some courses at the Upright Citizens Brigade. They got together in February 2010 and casually started a web series on the Youtube website. That web series became hugely popular. Amy Poehler who ended up as one of the executive producers of the show got to know about the web series and played mentor to Jacobson and Glazer.

Interestingly, when the pilot script of the Broad City was written Jacobson and Glazer were named Carly Adams and Evelyn Wexler! Nevertheless, it was their actual first names that were eventually used instead. The duo continued scripting the Broad City episodes jointly, to the extent that as many as 50% of the entire show has been written by them.

Now, let’s have a brief look at characters featured in the Broad City show.

Main Characters

Ilana Wexler

Ilana Wexler, played by Ilana Glazer is a 23-year-old girl who is a hard-core marijuana fan and is least bothered about the way other people react to her strange and self-absorbed behavior. She does a full-time job at some random sales company going by the name Deals Deals Deals, but can hardly be seen doing any substantial work and takes breaks often lasting for many hours.

Ilana is looked down upon by her co-workers due to her laid-back attitude in life, but her boss Todd never fires her because of his submissive nature. Ilana stays with an immigrant going by the name Jaime and enjoys an active sexual life with her, apart from indulging in regular sex with Abbi’s friend Lincoln, who’s also a dentist.

Although Ilana is very clear that her sexual relationship with Lincoln is completely because of her physical needs, much to the disappointment of the latter, she can be often seen caring genuinely for him. If compared to her best buddy Abbi, Ilana is far more sexually liberated and a free-spirited person, however, her every escapade leads to unintended consequences, that in a way affect Abbi significantly. The latter often and reluctantly gets dragged into Ilana’s misadventures.

Abbi Abrams

Abbi Jacobson plays the role of Abbi Abrams, who is a 26-year old girl doing a job as a custodian in a fitness center known as Soulstice. She’s not a great fan of her job and feels that she’s overqualified for her role. In her opinion she could be a trainer, but luck always eludes her. Abbi is a struggling artist too and has a dream that she’d be able to quit Soulstice one day to pursue art on a full-time basis.

She tries very hard to strike a fine balance between her existence as a self-sufficient and responsible adult and the free-spirited and fun times that she spends with Ilana.

Abbi has a roommate who is always absent, but her freeloading boyfriend going by the name Matt Bevers is always around nevertheless. She has a major crush on Jeremy, her neighbor, but ends up embarrassing herself badly whenever he’s around. Furthermore, she enjoys marijuana just like her best buddy Ilana, but indulges in it less often compared to her friend.

Other Characters

Matt Bevers played by John Gemberling – As mentioned above, Matt Bevers is Abbi’s roommate’s boyfriend who is always around no matter whether her roommate is there or not. In simple words, Matt can be described as a disgusting and messy freeloader, with whom Abbi doesn’t get along very well. Regardless of his messy lifestyle, Bevers has been shown having a sensitive and sweet side sometimes.

Trey played by Paul W Downs – He’s Abbi’s boss at the fitness center Soulstice, and is heavily into health and fitness. Despite being an ok guy, Trey has no idea about Abbi’s wish of becoming a trainer one day and pesters her constantly to clean things in the gymnasium, to the extent of making her clean vomit and pubic hair in the changing room. Quite interestingly, Paul has also written a couple of episodes for Broad City, namely “Knockoffs” – Season 2 Episode 4 and “Working Girls” – Season 1 Episode 3.

Lincoln Rice DDS played by Hannibal Burress – Lincoln’s a highly successful pediatric dentist who is sexually involved with the Ilana. Although he holds romantic feelings towards her, and is desperate to take his relationship with her to the next level, Ilana doesn’t pay heed to his advances and shows unreceptiveness to that idea. Lincoln is an easy-going and joyful dude who can be seen telling jokes and playing games with his patients. Furthermore, he’s a pretty loyal friend to Abbi.

Jeremy Santos played by Stephen Schneider – He’s Abbi’s sexy neighbor staying across the hall whom she has a huge crush on. Despite being pretty easy-going and polite in nature, his presence near Abbi makes her very nervous and leads to her acting in a pretty weird way.

Todd played by Chris Gethard – Todd is Ilana’s boss at her workplace. He is normally ineffective, submissive and helpless when it comes to correcting Ilana’s attitude towards her job.

Jaime Castro played by Arturo Castro – He’s Ilana’s gay roommate who is also her drug dealer. Hailing from Venezuela, Jaime can be often seen expressing extreme guilt about the things that he considers wrong, but has still committed them against his friends. Nevertheless, if you look closely, his wrongs are nothing more than minor transgressions.

Nicole played by Nicole Drespel – Nicole is Ilana’s colleague at her workplace and is a very serious worker. So much so, that she takes up the task of secretly documenting Ilana’s activities.