First of all, I’d like to personally thank CBS for not uploading any teaser pictures, which made creating the image above equal parts difficult and frustrating. This is the first time it’s ever happened, and for their mid-season finale, too. Which, pleas hold the applause for my effortless segue, are a fairly recent invention.

I more or less blame AMC’s The Walking Dead for hyping the last episode of the year as the “midseason finale”, a solid block of programming which would leave its audience with mouths agape, begging for more [I'm so sorry, I'm not sure where that came from] hyped for the show’s return. It makes perfect sense from a business standpoint, because every network wants viewers to remember to tune back in to the show after the three weeks of holiday specials. Mid-season finales have become big, which is probably why this week’s episode felt, well, small.

As I mentioned in my review [and in the review after that], “And the Pastry Porn” had all making of a mid-season finale. It was a huge shakeup of the status quo, and one that promised subsequent episodes that were going to be something completely new. In essence it did what every major comic book event advertises: “Nothing will ever be the same after this!”

I suppose that could also be said about what happened in “And the French Kiss”, in which Caroline snogs with Chef Nicolas and then finds out he’s married and breaks it off [in this case "it" refers to their romantic relationship]. There’s definitely the possibility that drama will continue seeing as they work in the same general area and a healthy amount of sexual tension remains, but I think we’re pretty confident it won’t turn into anything particularly exciting.

To zoom in a little and stop critiquing the show on a macro level, things were . . . interesting. Which  is to say not particularly good or bad, just . . . interesting. I guess that here “interesting” means that we get good and bad and they more or less cancel each other out.

Eric Andre’s Deke shows up in the diner, which is good, because it’s a daring move from what has been a pretty formulaic show. It’s also sort of bad, which Han sums up by saying, “Oh no, now there’s two of them.” Andre has some pretty decent lines like, ”Dame Judes texts me all the time; she’s thirstayyyyyy,” but also feels like a smarmy quip machine. In a way, Andre appears to be playing himself-

- it’s just that it doesn’t always work so well when there’s already a Max Black [who, let's be real, appears to be Kat Dennings playing herself]. I want to make a good–bad-good sandwich here, so let me also just point out Dennings fake-laughing/being amused never really works, and Oleg, Han, and Earl are all being criminally underutilized in spite of Sophie being shoehorned into every storyline just because.

But hey, there are good things, of course, even for an episode that I’d mark as a solid stop down from the ones that came before it. It basically all comes from the new additions, namely Bebe. Sorry, MVP-regular Caroline, but Mary Lynn Rajskub has really been bringing it lately ["Y'know salad, tastes just like lettuce."]. Back that up with Chef Nicolas’ totally nonchalant responses to Caroline accusing him of being married ["I know her name."] and you’ve got some legitimately laugh-out-loud moments.

To end things off, and with respect to my mid-season finale expectations, Deke does appear to be making the moves on Ms. Black, what with them constantly talking and him licking her face. That may also pay off further down the line, so I guess we’ll see what happens in “And the Big But” which debuts on January 13th, 2014.

Current Total: $77.

New Total: $220 [the girls' made money, even after Caroline buying two salads in New York for her girl-talk lunch].

The Title Refers To: French kissing, which involves tongue, which is what Caroline was doing with the French Chef Nicolas. There may have been a little more than just tongue involved.

Stray Observations:

• A guy on a unicycle tries to pay for a cupcake with a poem. Your first thought would be that this would never work in real life, and it doesn’t.

• “And if I have time to give you a punch, we have time to have lunch.” That joke made me physically frown.

• Deke is basically, among other things, just like “Denzel Washington trapped in Channing Tatum’s body.”
• Caroline describes a croquembouche [or croque-en-bouche] as being “a traditional French wedding cake with vanilla cream-filled profiteroles dipped in handmade caramel” while Wikipedia tells me it’s a “a French dessert consisting of choux pastry balls piled into a cone and bound with threads of toffee.” Close enough, I guess?
• A line from the Deke-Max fake makeout I barely mentioned: ”Let my mouth be your tongue’s panic room.”
• “Girrrrrrrrrllllllllllllll.”
• I loved Max and Deke going back and forth about how Chef Nicolas does things because he’s French. The latter’s final response of “Fraunch” made me think of this, though:

•  Bebe’s not good with languages because she once got hit by three cars.
• “Oh, he’s the best. He has the heart and eyes of a dog.”
• I appreciated the vous/tu French lesson that happened.
• “Do you take this woman, and maybe some others?” I want to apologize to the Polish on behalf of CBS, but they should probably do it themselves.
• “Lesbians are strong!” Thanks, Han.
• Max’s joke that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable is not all that bad this week. I just thought the term “slam-piece” was really gross.
• 2 Broke Girls Beefcake Menu: The heavy petting between Caroline and Chef Nicolas that I described as snogging up above. Could also be described as “clothed sex.”

Welcome back to the CWR 2 Broke Girls Reviews, everyone! Did you miss the show? Did you miss me [writing about the show]? I’m going to say upfront that I appreciated the break like nothing else, and coming back was . . . difficult. Approaching a show from that angle is far from helpful, and I ended up analyzing every little thing, as I am wont to do regardless. But then the tone of the episode, and perhaps the rest of this season, became crystal clear.

2 Broke Girls is channeling the rom-com vibe like a successful séance. 

Fans of the show are well-aware that things are tense between Caroline and Chef Nicolas, what with him having an épouse back in France and all. On the snarkier, darker haired side of the coin, however, Max has not gotten a lot of action in the drama or bedroom departments. A little bit back with Johnny in Season 1, but since then it has been smooth sailing because her boat has not been rocking. The writers’ room has finally decided to amend that issue, but in a way that makes it feel like a Katherine Heigl movie.

Don’t Trust the B—- refugee Eric Andre has been more or less just playing a goofy dude as Deke, more friendly than flirty. This week he and Max bro a good amount, but also get their dough wet together [not a euphemism] as shown in the image up top. Not one to buck rom-com convention she must of course struggle with whether a potential relationship is worth ruining what they have going on right now. She’s not entirely against the idea, though ["I'm not bromophobic!"].

We’re sticking with the formula, so it stands to reason that Deke has another romantic strictly sexual prospect on the side, and that in her indecision Max tells him to go to her. Go to the titular Judy with the Booty [played by the, uh, endowed Estrella Nouri]. Well, Max doesn’t know her nearly that well, she meant “Judith with the Bootith”. She’s sad, as is typical of someone in her position.

Then finally, in the third act, he admits that him and Judy with the Booty never got to bumping uglies, and he kisses Max. In response to a line that really does feel cribbed from a movie called Misunderstandings Create Conflict Between Potential Lovers But Are Ultimately Resolved.

Then they kiss and it’s beautiful, I guess:

And so that’s what happened to Max, and I feel the need to reiterate it if only because the tone is just so darn strong. The other threads [I'll get to Caroline's in a sec] don’t exude it that strongly, but overall it really feels like a twenty-something minute rom-com. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but it’s not what 2 Broke Girls has been, even when the aforementioned Johnny was around. Kat Dennings is no Katherine Heigl, is what I’m saying. It remains to be seen how this season wraps up, but with so much emphasis placed on relationships that both female leads have with their respective love interests [I really am excited to get to Caroline] I’d be surprised if this didn’t keep up for at least a few more episodes.

As for Caroline she tries to be angry at Chef Nicolas about his cheating, and later breaks into his office with Max to steal exam info so that the latter can pass. This leads to a few lines that Beth Behrs delivers like, well . . . like it’s her job and she’s very, very good at it. I said it before and I said it again, her comedy game is on point in a big way:

“Max please hurry find the test and let’s get out of here because we shouldn’t be in here and it smells like him and I like it”

“Oh no, it’s Nicolas. I can smell him in the hall. And I like it”

“I’ve missed you. I’m in your office. That’s the only logical explanation I have for being in here”

“Now, kiss me again! But this time lay on top of me so your legs are out of the way. Now go!”

And lastly, before I get to the Stray Observations, I want to take this time to specially highlight that Earl refers to Han’s entrance from the winter-cursed outdoors by quipping “Still don’t know where Han is, but the new Bond villain just arrived.” I need to tell you all that Zao, from Die Another Day is one of my all-time favourite henchmen ever, Korean or otherwise. I mean, dude straight-up has diamonds in his face.

Current Total: $220.

New Total: $252.75 [still unsure of how they're making any money].

The Title Refers To: Judy with the Booty. I want to talk about how there is a big “but” regarding Deke and Max’s relationship, but that particular aspect of it is never really stressed at all. Sorry.

Stray Observations:

• Not only are they selling cupcakes and cocoa during a blizzard in the cold [haha] open, they’re selling them at night.
• Snow actually looked slightly more real than fake, too.
• Oleg has a chinchida hat. Made from the fur of the last one.
• Luis is around, and I really dig his “Who Would You Do” gameplay style.
• “I’m gonna go roll me a fatty; her name is Denise.”
• “Do you mind, Harry Pothead and I are trying to study-”
• Max’s impression of Chef Nicolas: “Hello, Caroline, I’m a man but I am pretty like a lady!”
• “You think she got that thing at a Kim Kardashian backyard sale?”

• “Move your big ass, we’re gonna burn!
• Max’s joke that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable: ”Like I said to my uncle in the middle of the night, ‘This better be good.’” Yeesh.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu:

The Hopefully One-Time Section in Which I Tell Professional Comedy Writers How I Would Better Do Their Jobs:

• Max tells Caroline about how Deke made her “bread wet, if you know what [she's] saying.” Caroline’s response is “Okay, thank you I’m finally off bread.” I personally think that joke would’ve been a lot stronger if she had made more explicit references to dieting, like “And I thought Atkins was going to be hard,” etc.
• Sophie talks about how Max and Caroline hooking up would ruin their friendship and “[her] opinion of Max.” When Caroline asks about Sophie’s opinion of her the Polish woman says “Oh, it’s already pretty low.” I would have had her admit that her respect for the blonde was raised, that her being able to land Max was an upgrade.
• Anyway, just my two cents.

This episode of 2 Broke Girls . . . I think probably the best way to sum up my feelings about this episode, humour-wise.

“So you thought that in your head and your brain was like: ‘That’s okay to say?’”

“That’d be funny if you got jokes.”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I’m not this show’s target audience when it comes to comedy. It’s not like I’ve forgotten that, either, it’s just that in the 21 minutes and 45 seconds of this episode I heard five iterations of the joke “brown chicken, brown cow” and that’s four and a half times too many.

And now I’m going to drop that thread completely, because no one tunes into these reviews to hear me whinge about how it wasn’t funny. I mean, this still manages to be a far cry from that one episode with 2 Chainz, so I count my blessings no matter how small they may be. 

Last week I touched on how tonally the show appears to be headed in more of a rom-com direction, what with Max and Deke and the “will they/won’t they seriously, when will they” thing they’ve got going on. Considering that the last time we left those two crazy kids they’d just shared a heavily-applauded kiss the next step was a logical one: Deke asks Max out.

And, as we might expect from someone left jaded after what sounds like a thoroughly horrific upbringing, she agrees. Following some kind of main date event they end up in Deke’s neighbourhood where he lives in, you probably guessed it from the episode title, a dumpster.

Which was actually kind of cool. I mean, cool until he makes the joke that when he said it was green he meant just the colour, because “it’s horrible for the environment.” It’s just one of those situations where the setup clearly takes precedence the logic of the joke. Anyway, I said I wasn’t going to dwell on the humour.

Seriously everything goes well until, in classic rom-com form, Max bails after their very successful lovemaking. She confides to Caroline [who has her own problems going on, what with a murder car's owner out to off her] that she’s bad at this whole being in relationships thing and, again, it feels like fluffy Hollywood fare. In spite of her assertion that guys “never want to know” he really does, and even proves his devotion to her by having moved his dumpster-home outside the diner. Twue wuv. It’s no holding a boombox over your head [full disclosure, I've never seen that movie] but it’s definitely the sort of big meaningful romantic gesture we’ve been conditioned to expect. Looks like things’ll work out for Meke . . . Dax . . . for these two lovable scamps, and at the very least their “relationship” is safe for the time being.

I did mention the murder car above, and Caroline’s B-plot [that's exactly what it is; she's really been taking the backseat lately] revolves around her having a car with tinted windows towed and then fearing the owner’s retaliation. It’s generally okay overall, because it is Beth Behrs who, and I can’t stress this enough, is great. Her desire for the company of others for safety reasons almost leads to a girls’ night with Sophie, but it’s cut pretty short. Still pretty funny, though, because wow that Polish woman hates that formerly-rich girl.

In an ideal world I’d be able to write more about the direction of this show as a whole, but it’s really just the natural progression from the last episode. Max and Deke continue to grow closer together romantically, overcoming the personal and external obstacles that crop up. At this point nothing too drastic has occurred, and it turns out their chemistry in bed is just, well, it’s a disaster. I mean, the third time he “only lasted 47 minutes and [Max] screamed.”

It remains to be seen if, when, and how their relationship falls apart, but I certainly don’t foresee it happening anytime soon. As for the other Broke Girl, something’s gotta happen. It can’t all just be flirtations [and occasional makeouts] with the married pastry school prof.

Current Total: $252.75.

New Total: $410.

The Title Refers To: Like I said, Max and Deke have sex in a dumpster. It’s by no means a first time for at least one of them.

Stray Observations:

• “The one with the tinted windows, AKA The Murder Car, AKA The Murder Car.“
• Caroline thought Rule #1 was “Wipe front to back.”
• “Well, if you don’t wanna be alone, then why do you act the way you do?”
• Not having anything even approaching nudity struck me as strange, and really made me wonder about the censorship surrounding the show [Max gets dressed after leaving Deke's bed by putting her boots on]. I was at least expecting something PG/PG-13, a strategically placed sheet crossing from armpit to armpit, etc.
• It was actually kind of nice to see Chestnut the horse and Nancy the cat as Caroline’s stand-in company/protection with Max away.
• Max’s outgoing message is a fart.
• “My legs! My beautiful legs!”
• “I’m sorry my brother threw that cupcake at you. He’s gluten-free and upset about it.”
• “Are we ever gonna do it naked?”
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: The Return of the Jammies.

I don’t know if I made it clear last week, but I really like Deke’s dumpster house. It evokes the whole Tiny House Movement that’s going on which actually helps make it appear less cartoonish, and it also proves just how much I loved The Boxcar Children when I was younger. All that being said, the prospect of there being a wine and cheese party in such a small space just oozes with promise, sort of like how the garbage outside of Deke’s place oozes with . . . other things.

In the hands of a more capable director and more creative writers, I’m ideally thinking the crowd from fellow CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, the majority of this episode could’ve taken place in the green dumpster no problem. There were so many interactions to work with, what with the whole diner crew plus Deke and Chef Nicolas and Bebe. Unfortunately the focus was pulled to the two title and the Pastry Schoolers don’t really mix in with the Dirty Diners [those are their gang names now and I stand by them].

Anyway, these reviews aren’t about me harping on how the show could be better [at least I'm trying to stay away from that] but really about how this has turned into one big rom-com. I suppose it could be argued that that’s all most sitcoms are in general, with the aforementioned HIMYM being a primary example, but most don’t fall on these tropes as heavily as 2 Broke Girls has. I mean, this week Deke has a secret and oh no, it’s a huge obstacle that Max will have to overcome [if she does, I mean, I don't know if she will].

See, it turns out that “that cute mochachino homeless guy with the jew fro” is rich.

Specifically, he’s a Bromberg [spelling?], as in the Bromberg Elevators, the ones that are in every building in the city, as in the Bromberg Colo-Rectal Centre at the New York Hospital.

You may have left your medication, but you took this reviewer’s heart with you-

Current Total: $410.

New Total: $560.

The Title Refers To: Well, they ice cakes at one point, and then Deke being rich could sort of ironically be referred to as “the icing on the cake” as far as Max is concerned. Conversely it would still work from Caroline’s POV. You could also really read into it and say that sugar is slang for money, and icing is made of sugar, then . . . yeah, you know what I’m getting at I can stop.

Stray Observations:

• “I know I couldn’t keep my hands off my first love. I’m talking of course about my penis.”

• How does Deke move his house every Tuesday between 10 and 2?

• Han, putting his foot down. ”That’s it! No more free jello!”
• Speaking of Han, his accent at the wine and cheese party was super wacky. It sounded really affected and more awkward than usual.
• I’m also kind of upset that no one appreciated his ”homemade kimchi bindaeduk”.

• “Bebe, how much time is left?”

  “For all of us? Oh gosh, I’d say two months, tops.”

• We won’t be getting any more of that on this show and that’s a tragedy is what it is.
• “Hurry, move faster Lindsay Slow-Hands!”
• Max is the guy who has been talking to Caroline on OkCupid.
• Deke’s cool with having his thing chopped off; he could stand to lose five pounds.
• “My mom invented dogs!”
• 2 Broke Girls Beefcake Menu:

This is new, and I saw another 2BG review do this, but here is a poll:

After so many weeks where the focus of this show has been decidedly anything but what the title implies we have an episode that is all about the Benjamins. Last time we were with Max and Caroline the snarky one had found out that her boyfriend [yeah, things were getting serious] Deke was a rich kid. Cue the feeling of betrayal, brace yourselves for the emotional fallout.

Her decision is to break up by breaking into his dumpster house and taking back her toothbrush and her second favourite gnome, Gnomosexual, both clear signs to Caroline that this relationship might actually have a pretty decent foundation. Even though Deke catches her in the act and speaks to the heart of her actions ["you're too big a babypants to tell me you're breaking up with me"] her reason is unassailable: the rich and poor don’t mix. 

A rom-com-esque scheme to have the two reconcile backfires on Caroline, and leads to Max more firmly stating her beliefs [a correction of her friend's assessment] : similar to people of two different religions [Smurfs and witches, in this case], a rich person and a poor person have so little in common that a relationship between them could never, ever work out.

So Deke, who is a smart guy, decides to show her what the other side is like and deposits a cool million bucks into her bank account. That’s when we get some money talk, and reactions that are actually very true to form.

To begin with, Max is so proud of her status pre-million that she decides to really splurge and buy gifts for her pastry classmates, spending all of $143 and intending to return the remainder to Deke. After he refuses it’s put out of her mind, that is until the lovely customer on the right sits in her booth and behaves, albeit a little rudely, like a normal sane person who is receiving terrible service.

Max shows the woman her ATM receipt showing her riches, and when the woman asks her what she’s doing working in a diner she has an epiphany. Why is she working in diner? Why is she working at all? As her and Caroline get more and more excited Max reveals that she doesn’t need dreams when she has money, because what more could you need when you already have it all?

The 2005 Showtime documentary Reversal of Fortune follows a homeless man who was given $100,000 to do with what he liked. He began from working in a recycling plant to having more cash than he knew what to do with, and then what? This man didn’t have a plan, but he had money and the idea that working would no longer have to be an option for someone in his position.

All of which brings on a second, status quo returning epiphany: Max being rich means Max no longer being Max. She writes another cheque to Deke and, seeing where she’s coming from, he accepts it. 

Seeing as how similar the two of them are [something Caroline will not stop going on about this entire episode] there was definitely some conflict needed, and it’s nice that it turns out to be exactly what the first two seasons were devoted to attaining. Whenever compatibility ramps up like this, with romantic obstacles overcome in one to two episodes, you have to wonder where all of this is leading. Will Eric Andre become a regular? I highly doubt it, so it remains to be seen where he and Max, “the Romeo and Juliet of ball banter,” will end up.

Current Total: $560.

New Total: $1,000,560. Heh, psyche! It’s really just $560 because Max returned the money, and apparently they didn’t profit at all this week [maybe it was the $143 spent on gifts?].

The Title Refers To: The diner’s new ATM, which is apparently deserving of a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Key because it’s how Max discovers her newfound riches.

Stray Observations:

• Seeing as how I’m constantly checking out tumblr for 2BG gifs and things, the “ATM: Asian Transgender Male” joke stood out for me as being poorly chosen for that crowd. Then again, the site does have a pretty diverse crowd.
• Max pees standing up. Yes, this is possible.
• “Do you look at life as a game of “Set new lows for Caroline?”
• Occupy Wall Street joke just to stay relevant.
• In this world of easy jokes Caroline mentions Bing and no one says anything.
• Yes, we get it, Earl is old. ”I forgot because I’m a hundred and twenty.”
• Caroline’s breathy distraught voice slayed me.
• Deke’s alter-egos: The Monopoly Man, Deke McRichyMcNeverHadToWorkForAnything, Deke RichyRichPretendedHeWasPoorenstein
• This and last week’s episodes were directed by Phill Lewis, who you may know better as Mr. Moseby from The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.
• Caroline’s joke that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable: “Max, who is Uncle Pennypags? Is he one of the ones who touched you?”
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu:

I’m gonna be upfront with this review, the basic plot of this episode is a complete mess. There are too many threads that are technically connected to the main storyline but ultimately feel disjointed or are completely lost. All that being said, I’m going to sum up what happens in the next paragraph and then focus on two particular issues that were dealt with Monday night on CBS, from 8:30 to 9:00.

Essentially Caroline doesn’t want to have anything to do with Chef Nicolas, but he tells her that he and his wife have an open relationship. She and Max get their hair done, and then a Skype call with the wife confirms that she’s good to bang the Frenchman if she’d like. Caroline decides to go to dinner to turn him down, doesn’t, sleeps over, doesn’t sleep with him. The end.

Now that that’s all over, I want to concentrate on homosexuality and birth control, which I think you’ll agree are pretty uncontroversial topics.

To start with, I’d like to remind you all that Michael Patrick King, creator, executive producer, and part-time writer for the show is gay.

This is a fact that he’s leveraged to defend a lot of the humour on 2 Broke Girls, in particular stating that he “doesn’t get offended by the show’s gay jokes.” I could get into the wrongness of one person more or less claiming to speak for an entire demographic, but I think we should instead take a look at how the show treats homosexuals.

To start with the good, there’s Grace, who was the lifelong lesbian partner of Caroline’s nanny ["And the Life After Death"]; she had some pretty good things to say about love and keeping it a secret and really, that’s about as good as it gets.

I mean, apart from that there are the titular bears from Season 2 Episode 13, “Big Mary” at the pastry school and, of course, Federico Dordei’s Luis. They’re not offensive characters by any means, but they’re all so horribly one-note. Every one of them is flamboyant, and what little more we know about Luis, who has appeared in 9 episodes so far, is that he has a huge crush on Oleg. I admittedly raved over the character since his first appearance, but come on, nine episodes. Granted, we don’t know much more about Earl and he’s been in pretty much all of them.

This week we can add at least one more appearance of an LGBT person when the girls hit up the the Tristan Evans Salon for some $6 haircuts. Max’s student stylist is named Jamus, and Caroline’s, well, he goes by Dan. She asks to trade for Max’s “gay” and her friend replies with:

Caroline makes a joke about straight guys and how they they treat girls who go down on them, but the general idea is clear: gay men are better at cutting hair, which is just another stereotype being perpetuated. Not only that, but they love Max. Jamus digs Max’s sass in almost exactly the same way Luis did when he first showed up, and just like the bears Deke [another Deke!] and Derk were way back in the second season. What exactly is Michael Patrick King trying to tell us about gay people?

As a gay man who works in the entertainment biz, and as a storyteller no less, King has every opportunity to depict realistic homosexuals on a weekly basis. That’s not to say that the gay men he has used don’t exist in real life, but all of the ones on the show have used the same affected accent, and all err on the side of flamboyant. We’re not going to find any Max Blums around these parts, that’s for sure-

Happy Endings, I miss you.

Again, it’s rare for almost any characters to receive a good amount of depth or dimension [see the review where I discuss 2BG's outlandish one-time characters], but that doesn’t mean that we can’t more of a straight-laced [no pun intended] gay man à la Captain Ray Holt of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I mean, at the very least throw a few more lesbian characters our way, maybe just don’t have them all be softball-playing short-haired tough girls.

On the other hand, this show also touched on birth control which I actually thought they handled really well. Max asks Caroline in the first few minutes for condoms because she’s “about to have sex and [wants] it to feel bad.” Joke aside, that’s some responsible lovemaking right there, and the show treats it as a given that of course she would have safe sex.

She decides to try the pill to do away with the complications of condoms, only to have it be revealed that they’re just as much a hassle. There’s even commentary about how it’s always women who are the ones that are responsible for ensuring they’re not getting pregnant, even if it is undercut by a rape joke. That’s all just the greatest, and I’m being serious.

In fact, the episode ends on Deke admitting that maybe she “needed a little help” and giving her a NuvaRing. Caroline isn’t super impressed, but I really kind of was. Having this discussed, even a little, in a popular sitcom continues the discussion and that is important. Sex pops up in basically every show on television but the minutiae of the act not so much. Winston can spend most of twenty minutes scouring the city for condoms on New Girl but talking about the unneeded intricacies surrounding the pill? Friggin’ NuvaRing? Well done, 2 Broke Girls. This episode completely flopped on storytelling level but you definitely did a good thing.

Next week let’s aim for coherent plots and rarely addressed contemporary issues.

Current Total: $560 again.

New Total: $840.

The Title Refers To: The three of them [Caroline, Max, and Deke] sleeping over at Chef Nicolas’ apartment. He is a married man.

Stray Observations:

• Oleg’s response to hearing Max may get a breast reduction: “NOOOOOO! [ . . . ] Why would you spit in the face of God?”
• “The pill’s $50/month that’s more than it costs to raise a damny baby.”
• “That’s because it’s not beef it’s not made today and it’s not special.”
• “We have all this relationship drama and we’re not even in a relationship.” Well maybe you should have told her you were in an open relationship sooner, Nicolas.
• Remember when Earl was kind of into Sophie? What ever happened to that?
• “I can’t risk some discount hetero cutting my hair.”
• Max’s new hairdo for the episode-

• -and her greeting are both references [which she outright admits] to Dame Edna Everage, who was a character played by Australian comedian Barry Humphries. The kind of joke young people will not get.
• “They’re like PEZ for sluts.” Admittedly not always the best commentary, but still. 
• Max and Deke’s joke that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable:

“…put it in and not move it around.”

“That’s what I do to you when you’re passed out.”

• “I realized I guess Nicolas is just going to be one of those people in my life that I’m always almost going to have sex with but never will.”
• “Like you and me.”
• Tumblr had a little too much fun with that one.
• 2 Broke Girls Beefcake Menu:

This week opens up with the strangely comforting scene of a table of eccentric [see: easily mockable] diners and the two girls’ reactions to them. Instead of hipsters or, I don’t know, bronies, we have half a dozen cumberbitches fresh from Sherlock Con. I had planned to live the rest of my life without ever typing out that term, but that’s behind us so let’s move on-

What you all have to understand is that I take everything I watch on TV very, very seriously. This means being extremely perplexed upon hearing Max insinuate that she never went to high school, particularly because it makes the story of how she lost her virginity [see the Stray Observations here and here] that much more disturbing. The thing is, I don’t think you have to be a stickler for continuity to see the gargantuan staring-you-in-the-face error in this episode.

The A-plot [and I'll be getting to the B-plot later, such as it is] concerns Caroline getting fed up with Chef Nicolas’ excessive flirting and sending him a text that reads ”I’ll have dinner with you when you leave your wife.” Oleg convinces her and Max it’s a bluff to get into her pants, but when Nicolas issues an exact time they have to rush over to keep his open marriage from falling apart. After all, Caroline is “the almost girl”, she only almost breaks up open marriages.

So they head over to his apartment and, after Caroline spurns his advances, he realizes he can’t end his open marriage. The girls think is great so he should just not Skype his wife. Except that she’s actually in the building and is coming up the stairs and goodness gracious, their open marriage is in real jeopardy he can’t be alone, so Max and Caroline need to go hide in the bathroom because who knows what his wife will think.

I now present exhibits A and B:

EXHIBIT A: An excerpt from last week’s review of the show.

EXHIBIT B: The first result on Google when searching for “open marriage”.

Let me make it even more painfully clear: Caroline was given permission by Chef Nicolas’ wife to have sex with him; that is what open marriages imply. His wife “catching him” with two girls in his apartment should cause him zero problems.

Which is unfortunate, because I actually think the girls hiding in the bathroom and then making their way unto the ledge outside the window is really fun. It starts out raining, because of course, and then proceeds to hail after they quip that “at least it couldn’t get any worse.” It’s hitting classic comedic bits, but pulls them off very well.

It’s not only pretty funny, but it looks great, too. I was just thinking to myself how cheap the bathroom set looked, but everything outside of it turned out really well. Multi-camera sitcoms often struggle with outside shots, but colour me impressed by how great the ledge made the entire scene.

After everything that happens after they crash in through the window you see on the left [Caroline slips, but when muted it looks like Max saves her from leaping to her death] I think it’s fair to say that this particular chapter of the show is closed. Chef Nicolas has realized that he will always almost have sex with Caroline, and we should see an end to his attempts at wooing her.

In other news, they appear to be giving Garrett Morris lines again. I remember back when Earl played more of a father figure to Max, helping to instill the idea that she valued others and had created a pseudo-family to make up for her own childhood,and that’s revived in a very short reference to how he cares about her being around.

Let’s be real with ourselves, Han should’ve fired both Max and Caroline a long time ago. Not only do they not respect him a whit, they don’t listen to anything he says and he is their boss. All that being said, I’m giving him the B-plot because of his adventures with the spider communities in the walk-in and dishroom. Things began escalating quickly, and a discarded piece of ham proved to be a matter of contention between the two kingdoms claiming ownership. It’s all so wonderfully absurd, and I enjoyed every second of it.

Current Total: $840.

New Total: $824. Please don’t ask me where or how they spent the $16.

The Title Refers To: Max and Caroline’s near-death experience out on the ledge.

Stray Observations:

• “Do you have eggs Benedict . . . Cumberbatch?”
• Tumblr is alternately giddy and scornful over the Sherlock fandom making an appearance,
• “Didn’t I tell you to keep my name outta your mouth?”
• Nicolas’ appearance at the diner elicited Sophie-esque whoos, which was interesting.
• Sophie’s movie biz fling “drives the Miramax party bus and [. . .] wears a big wig.”
• Earlis apparently an easy Morgan Freeman stand-in: “And if you need god, a judge, or an old guy sitting on a porch, I’m your man.”
• Deke’s absence explained away by him having the flu.
• There is a sweatshop in the same building as the pastry school, where “10 Vietnamese women are making next year’s ‘Prada.’”
• Lots of John/”Big Mary” in this episode.
• Max’s favourite Seuss book: The Whore He’s Leaving Her For
• Look, I struggled through two semesters of college friend and I know for a fact that “toilette” is feminine and therefore would use “la” and not “le”.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Nothing this week, folks.

Right at the end of 2011 Todd VanDerWerff, who I unofficially inherited these reviews from after Pilot Viruet passed the torch, wrote an article on the AV Club discussing how some shows on TV existed as “Nice places to visit”.

While the initial focus was on dramas he turns to sitcoms and describes how he divides them into two categories: “shows that aim for greatness and try to push the boundaries of the form, and shows that just want to create a bunch of characters that are fun to hang out with.” Happy Endings is my personal benchmark for the latter, with Parks and Recreation coming a close second. It’s not to say that neither show exhibits good writing [both do, in their own ways], more that they’re half hours of television in which viewers can relax, content to spend time with characters who are familiar and comfortable to them.

2 Broke Girls appears to want to be one of these shows.

The funny thing about this is that a mere thirty minutes before we join Max and Caroline for more of their latest financially-challenged escapades CBS’s most popular sitcom, an impressive hang-out show in its own right, takes centre stage. When compared to How I Met Your Mother it really isn’t much of a contest.

Where 2 Broke Girls feels necessary from time to time to remind us that Max and Caroline’s co-workers do in fact support them Max ["And the First Day of School"] How I Met Your Mother keeps all five of its main cast constantly interacting with each other [in pretty much every episode]. In the former the actual hanging out feels like a reminder, not only that the other characters care but that they exist; the latter has them interact organically to the point where it feels awkward to pull it apart describe it in this many words].

It’s not impossible for a show surrounding a primary cast of two [I've said it once and I've said it again, the girls are really the only ones driving the action] to be a hang-out sitcom, only that it makes it more difficult for us as an audience to react to them on that level. It’s easy to enjoy watching a group of friends enjoying each others’ company, but viewing two people can make you feel like a third wheel of sorts. So much one-on-one screentime and interaction inevitably creates some form of mild intimacy that I don’t personally want a show to be solely comprised of- like if The Office had been primarily Jim and Pam, or if Community revolved around Troy and Abed. This particular sentiment definitely isn’t true for everyone, so let me on and discuss how Han specifically holds the cast, and entire show, back.

This week’s episode is a celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday that apparently guarantees Han Lee a 100% chance of getting laid. While it’s a well-known fact that Asian men are not positively portrayed in the media when it comes to their sexuality the fact is that he gets the short end of the stick [not a pun, I swear] more often than not. “Is Han even a man?/Han is not a man” is the vast majority of dialogue concerning the character summed up in a few words. All that being said I was interested to see how this would work out for him.

About as well as I expected, it turns out.

Dressing up as holiday-appropriate mythical creature Lepre-Han is swarmed by women at the pub the gang heads to; for some reason that I can’t fathom Caroline can’t find it within herself to refer to them as female ["with all of those . . . I wanna say girls"]. Most of them are quite young and pretty, so of course Han initially opts for a “buxom paralegal” who “brought outside chicken”. That may sound appealing, but she’s not the most traditionally beautiful, if you get my drift.  He ultimately ends up going back to a woman’s “sister’s condo in Jersey City” where the two of them will have to be quiet.

It’s not enough that the woman’s entrance [seen on the right] is punctuated by the live audience’s laughter], Max makes a prophecy about their night together saying that it ”Looks like they’re going to be unlucky tonight.”

Han finally sleeping with a woman is not heralded with even a fraction of the woos that Sophie’s appearances garner, but is instead met with laughter. Han is a joke because he’s short, bossy, and ineffectual [we'll leave the uncomfortable racist humour back in Season 1] and, as a cherry on top, he ostensibly cannot gauge whether a not a woman is physically attractive.  

It’s not so much that we can’t have a character like Han, it’s that when a show takes said character and treats them a certain way it cannot attain that title of “hang-out sitcom”. Who was the butt of every joke in Friends? Was it Phoebe? Ross? Chandler? Monica? Joey? Rachel? Each one had easily mockable traits [except for Ross, because being a paleontologist is awesome] but were never reduced to them. They didn’t constantly lose in every aspect of life.

That’s all to say that if 2 Broke Girls wants to get there, to create a space where we can truly enjoy being around this group of people as a whole, at the very least Han needs to be handled differently.

Almost a thousand words in and I haven’t even really touched on what happens throughout the episode, which makes me feel like I’ve adopted more than just the burden of reviewing this show from Todd VanDerWerff. Allow me to do so in one long-ish paragraph and also apologize for overanalyzing a show that I’ve admitted to catering to the lowest common denominator and expecting more out of it. Tune in next week where I will be judging it on its own merits, as usual!

What takes place is yet another episode where Caroline comes to understand that her new life is better than her old one. After a rather unpleasant time at the pub the blonde opts to take the extra money they made selling Guinness and Irish cream cupcakes and take Max to The Plaza where they can drink Bellinis in peace. There she realizes how boring it is and they return to where all the fun is. To keep it from taking up too much of the Stray Observations Caroline is kissed several times on the mouth by an overly friendly drunk nicknamed Blarney Bill which is, suffice to say, probably an all-too-real occurrence for women on this holiday and as such doesn’t work as a joke for me personally.

Current Total: $824.

New Total: $1,150. Caroline gives Han $50 for the cab to Jersey City, so I’m not even sure if this total makes sense.

The Title Refers To: Kilts, St. Patrick’s Day, y’know. Earl wears one as well. I don’t think the play on “guilt trip” plays out in the episode at all.

Stray Observations:

• In the cold open we are reminded that Irish Catholics do not engage in birth control.
• “No one gonna pinch me today because I got all this green.”
• Eric Andre still AWOL “snowboarding somewhere called “Vale” with something called “a family.”
• The Ukrainian Oleg argues with a Russian taxi driver. This levels of political commentary are off the chain.
• His St. Paddy’s Day merch includes “Kiss Me I’m Irish” crotch t-shirts and “disposable funnel for upwardly mobile elegant young ladies who want to stand and pee in the street like a man.”
• Earl learned to play the bagpipes and drive stick after an acid trip.
• “Just so you know, if you’re an orphan, I’m interested.”
• “Are you over here making money off of me you wolves of Wall Street?”
• Lindsey Kraft, who played the drunk girl Monica, is a treasure.

“You guys, I just threw up.”

“I think I’m gonna need some water. I need to drive a school bus in four hours.”

“You’re a great American.” “I know what I am.”

• “That was before I discovered the sensation of a cool breeze circling my bag and my pipe.”
• “Told you girls, a hundred percent.”
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Nothing really worth mentioning. Sophie wears some kind of sexy shamrock outfit, I guess.

Here’s something regular review readers don’t get from me very often: I wish this episode had been longer. After what was basically a filler issue last week [and one that seriously had me picking apart Han's place on the show] this Monday night had us returning to the narrative that this half of the season has built itself around: the pastry school and Max’s relationship with Deke.

That’s right, Eric Andre is back after his character had the flu and went on a skiing trip. Every move this show has made so far, including the mild inconvenience that was Max finding out he was wealthy, has pointed towards him sticking around. She’s not one for relationships or even trusting others, and the way they’ve grown closer has made it seem like nothing short of death/something truly dramatic could break them apart. So this week the two girls meet Mr. and Mrs. Bromberg [as in the Bromberg Elevators, the ones that are in every building in the city, as in the Bromberg Colo-Rectal Centre at the New York Hospital].

To lead up to that, the pastry school arc is very abruptly cut off after “big queen” John explains that Chef Nicolas is in “France, with his wife.” Apparently there was something about Caroline and an affair and hold the phone this makes zero sense and-

Exhibit A from my review of Episode 17.

-and I need to calm down. I’m going to let that image speak for itself. And breathe slowly and deeply. If you really want to read more about my quibbles outrage over continuity you can check the link above.

Now normally I try not to recap entire episodes, because presumably you’ve already watched them otherwise why would you be reading this, so I’m going to do what I was going to do two paragraphs ago and get to Deke’s parents. Right before I do I’m going to mention and link to, for the last time ever I swear, an article stating that 2 Broke Girls is “The Closest Thing We Have To A 99 Percent Movement Comedy“. Everything about it makes it the perfect show to discuss ideas about poverty and wealth, the disparity between the grossly rich and the wretchedly impoverished.

The reason I bring that up is because Deke’s mother, played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, used to be poor. She confides to Max, and us, that “I am from Queens, New York. Yeah, that’s right, I’m just Genet from the block.” While that last line may have been a lazy joke referencing a JLo song, it really does sum up her character in a mere six words. Hers is the exact opposite experience of Caroline’s, going from having nothing to being loaded, and there’s a lot of potential there. The very fact that she reveals to Max that she used to be a stripper speaks to the kinship the two share over having [and having had] nothing, and it’s a shame that the internal conflict between her past and present lives is extremely minimal.

When the Brombergs’ family friends Adam and Amy visit and find out who Caroline is they are none too pleased ["Cannot believe you would invite a Channing into your home."]. Apparently her father’s Ponzi schemed cost them some dough, relegating them from the penthouse to the fourth floor.

Look, pause, I’m sorry but pause. Max gets pissed at them because they’re making too big a deal out of things, but money is money. That’s tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars lost. I’m not saying they shouldn’t be grateful for what they have left [which is a lot, mind you], but they do deserve to be angry.

Anyway, that’s when Genet very gently tells her son’s girlfriend to step off with a, “Max, these are our friends.” It’s maybe not as explicit as the episode’s creators might have liked, but it’s fairly apparent that the steps she takes to resolve the conflict are rooted not only in her sense of propriety but also her loyalty to Max as another girl who’s lived a hard knock life. That’s what I really wanted to see more of, because that struggle alone makes her more compelling than Oleg, Sophie, Han, and Earl combined. Then Max ruins everything by spilling the beans that Mrs. Bromberg was once a dancer of the exotic variety.

I’m going to address that in a bit, but first I want to get to the episode’s conclusion and dig up an idea I introduced seven episodes ago, which is that with Deke entering the picture 2 Broke Girls has taken an explicit turn tonally towards more of a rom-com approach. After their visit turns out to be a bust and their son sides with his girlfriend the Brombergs cut him off financially, and Max is left feeling that it’s all her fault. While this scene provides a return to the show stating how she and Caroline are BFFs, it’s also one of emotional maturity for her. She says that Deke can’t survive being a poor person, but that all really translates to is her believing that she’s holding him back. Kat Dennings’ acting is spot on, too, and she really lands the emotional beats. With her and Caroline literally pushing his dumpster house back to his parents at two in the morning it’s an unexpected turn of events, and one that legitimately has me looking forward to next Monday night.

Finally, let’s return to Genet Bromberg. As you may know I turn to tumblr after the episodes air, often to grab gifs but also to see what other viewers thought of what they just watched. While the comments are normally overwhelmingly positive, I came across these two:

Genet met her husband David back in her stripping days, and these are two tumblr users who don’t like the implications of that. While the first one makes a few too many assumptions, they both land on the fact that she was “rescued” from her former life by this White guy. They of course look past the fact that the two ostensibly love one another, but the truth is that made her way out of destitution by another person’s efforts with the races of both parties being severely scrutinized. I personally don’t think it’s something to dissect [and I am all about positive racial representation in media] but it’s certainly something to think about.

Current Total: $1,150.

New Total: $2,180. Explained within the episode! With the pastry school shut down the cheques for the spring semester’s tuition were returned to all of the students.

The Title Refers To: The Brombergs, who are rich. Probably the dullest title the show’s ever given us. Where are the double entendres?

Stray Observations:

• I fully realize that these reviews are reaching VanDerWerffian word count levels.
• Big gay John knows why Lady Gaga’s last album failed. I want to know this, because it had “Applause” on it and that song is great.
• Caroline and Nicolas ”made out once in six different places on eight different occasions.” I very much want to know if this matches up to past episodes.
• “Ain’t no party like a Caroline party ’cause a Caroline party don’t start.”
• Deke’s parents love pop art. Max eats soup.
• Jeff Garlin as Mr. Bromberg is inspired casting, and makes me realize how I can recognize him immediately without being able to name anything he’s in.
• “They were down. Way down. Like a crocodile. Or CeeLo.”
• Max had her feelings hurt in the 8th Grade by a boy named Tommy Dolan.
• Adam and Amy love naughty comedy, they watch Bill Maher.
• Tilapia is not, and I know this for a fact, a chickeny fish.
• “But we’ll get it as far as we can. And then at least when Deke wakes up he won’t be stuck here with me in the morning. And he can have a life.”
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Caroline lends her pearls to Max, and it is the nakedest I have ever seen her.

I had written this entire intro prior to watching this episode about how we should probably start readying ourselves to bid Deke adieu. The show had been moving towards him and Max breaking it off with no hope of reconciliation for some time. That and the fact that Eric Andre’s joining FX’s upcoming comedy Man Seeking Woman as one of the main cast. Altogether it seemed to point towards us not having much longer to enjoy the presence of one of my favourite Blewish [that's half-Black half-Jewish] comedians.

This is literally the last time I’m going to bring up the rom-com narrative style that has permeated the show basically ever since Deke showed up [first mentioned back in Episode 13]. He and Max have had their ups and downs, but it all came to a head last week when his parents decided to cut him off completely. When last we saw our heroines they were on a mission to push Deke’s dumpster house clear across the city in order to reconcile him with his folks, trading his relationship with Max for financial stability and overall a better life.

When we return we find that they’ve broken up and that’s that. Caroline asks her early on if she’s alright and Max responds that she’s “the one who threw his ‘fro out the do.’” Much later on, in the clearest episode I’ve ever seen that the writers’ room is well in tune with the Maxoline shippers-

-the former heiress tells asks her friend again, “So are you really okay, I know you really loved him.” The response is the kind of snark we’ve come to expect from Max Black: “I did, which was the worst ’cause it made me feel almost like a person.”

As far as I can tell that is the end of Max Black and Deke Bromberg. IMDb only lists all eight of the episodes that Eric Andre has already been in, so at this point I think it’s safe for me to call it. This of course means no huge emotional climax for the two, no firm conclusion to their relationship that we as an audience are privy to. No, instead we’re moving on to an episode that revolves around celebrity guest appearance Lindsay Lohan.

Look, she does a passable job at playing indecisive bride-to-be Claire. The very, very brief role for Stephanie Courtney [ie. the ever-Progressive Flo] as Eleanor, a neurotic wedding planner was thoroughly enjoyable. Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs together take part in the most enjoyable bit of physical and set comedy I’ve seen on the show ever, involving them carrying a cake onto a subway car and having their seat taken by an old woman, being hemmed in by two blind men, and besieged by a breakdancer. At the end of the night, though, I wasn’t satisfied.

I fully realize that it’s no HIMYM finale, that much should be said. Even still, I can’t help but feeling robbed of the end to a relationship that I was, for better or for worse, invested in. It cheapens it as a whole, and in spite of the references to Max’s sadness that they were sure to seed throughout it felt almost like it had never happened.

Ultimately this was just some episode about how bridezillas are a thing that exist. Max and Caroline’s friendship isn’t stretched to any levels, and as a whole it was just a gimmick. An fairly entertaining gimmick, but a gimmick nonetheless.

With that in mind, I’m going to commemorate Eric Andre’s passing [onto better and brighter things] with a short diatribe how this episode sought to exacerbate my disappointment with reminders of Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23. For one, Claire’s fiance is Ben Lawson, who appeared on the show as Chloe’s love interest, and that’s a big one. The other is less so, because a bunch of kooky store names are thrown around ["Get the Frock Out", "Unbeweavable", "The Wandering Juice"] for huge laughs. Listen up, 2BG writers’ room, this was the coffee shop where June and Mark worked on the other [better] show:

You know how often that was brought up? Literally never.

Current Total: $2,850.

New Total: $2,650. This makes zero sense to me. As far as I can tell Caroline received money for the cake they made for Claire’s wedding, yet this New Total shows a deficit of $200. The only solution I can come up with is that Max used so much ingredients to match the bride’s shifting requests that they didn’t break even. See 1 broke guy’s explanation in the comments below.

The Title Refers To: Caroline see what Max has baked and tells her “That’s quite a cake cake cake!” I have no idea of this is a reference to anything, but the audience thought it was funny.

Stray Observations:

• Caroline cries to get bigger tips, which should be a surprise to absolutely no one.
• Lots of tax talk this episode, which is exactly the kind of reality I don’t like to be reminded of.
• Han’s moccasins are controversial.
• “Too bad, that homeless guy almost had a front Porsche.”
• Claire was on that plane that crashed in the Hudson, so now everything has just kinda been “meh.”
• I made a gif of this because I thought it was that funny [it took time, so be grateful]:

• “You think ’cause I’m fake-smiling I won’t throw you down a flight of stairs?”
• I legitimately didn’t understand the joke involving the shot mannequins, “draw a teardrop on your face and they’ll move it to Banana Republic.” Assumed it had something to do with gangs.
• Scrubs did the double-vasectomy [and double reversal] joke first.
• The song playing during the dance is Sam Hart’s “Mario Kart Love Song”, so huge props to whoever made that happen.

• You should all read this thoroughly enlightening account of someone who attended the live taping of this episode.
• Max’s joke that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable: “Man, why does every uncle I know try to screw me?” I literally grimaced.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Nothing of note, really. Refer to the gif above, I guess.

It’s been over a week, I know, but it’s still hard for me to get past the fact that Eric Andre aka Deke Bromberg aka Max’s boyfriend who literally lived in a dumpster is no longer with us. With the way the show revolves around its two female leads it probably would’ve been detrimental for either of them to settle down with a guy, and I can accept that. What I can’t accept is how poorly it was done. 

The fact that this blog is getting so many hits from search terms like “did max break up with her boyfriend on two broke girls” and “why did max and deke break up” just proves my point. Audience members aren’t even really sure whether or not he’s actually gone. This week’s episode doesn’t mention him at all, and with two episodes to go it’s unlikely it will.

Now I’m totally willing to admit if I’m wrong, but I just feel like their breakup could have served as a big emotional climax in the finale. Eric Andre was in eight episodes, which is a third of the entire season; that’s substantial. What happened instead is that they closed the door on that chapter of Max’s life and moved on to the final three installments. This one is about an old man. Next week’s is about horse racing and/or gambling.

To a point, this show has always had some sort of narrative drive. Season 1 was all about getting the money to open a cupcake store. Season 2 was about them actually running that business. Season 3 has been about Max going to pastry school and her relationship with Deke. Those both ended very abruptly in the same episode. Now we’re directionless. We’re just killing time until this season wraps up and we face the months-long wait for the next one.

There isn’t much to say about 2 Broke Girls this week, really. Not besides my tirade about how badly they handled Eric Andre leaving the show. In this episode Max and Caroline need to find the original tenant [old man Lester Donovan] to renew their lease, and then have to find a way to kick him out. It’s actually a pretty simple solution: he’ll leave once he has sex.

That all leads to the scene that tumblr is gushing about, where the two realize that they need to move out because neither is going to make it happen with a geriatric. Pushing aside the logic that they could just find another place together, it culminates with the two girls unloading some pretty emotional truths on one another-

“I’m not ready to live without you” isn’t a sentence that Season 1 Max Black would’ve whispered to anyone, let alone the once-wealthy heiress that owns a dang horse. My assumption is that the writers meant this to be a pretty significant moment, and it is, to a point. The problem is that we just saw the two girls slow dancing together last episode. Not only that, but we’re reminded of how close they are just about ever Monday night. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with promoting this image of a strong female friendship, but the show can’t get by on that alone.

Sophie saves the day, by the way. Not to say that she has sex with Lester or anything. She’s so skilled at the art of lovemaking that she intimidates the poor man, and he settles on a quick selfie as proof of his conquest to his friends back at the home ["Pics or it didn't happen!"]

Whether or not to get down with a bad grandpa works as the loose premise for twenty-some minutes of TV, but the problem is that 2 Broke Girls has never pretended to be Seinfeld. It’s not a show about nothing. We have three episodes to wrap up the season and pave the way to next fall, and I’m curious as to how they’re going to keep the momentum going after the whiplash that was Deke’s exodus.

Current Total: $2,650.

New Total: $2,614. Last episode a commenter put me in my place regarding my quibbling over this amount. This time around, however, I really can’t think of why they’re $36 down. Again, even if they did spend money, are they not making any due to waitressing/selling cupcakes?

The Title Refers To: The girls get the lease renewed on their apartment. Also, an old person finds something worth living for.

Stray Observations:

• The diner staff meeting at the beginning really hits home how little we’ve seen of the secondary cast. Han really hits it on the head when he says he’s “noticed lately our diner family is drifting apart.”
• It’s apparently still funny to joke about how he is a woman.
• Caroline’s ringtone is “Let It Go”. Max keeps her phone on vibrate “out of respect for those around me and also for little orgasms,” which makes me wonder what can and can’t get past TV censors.
• “Quick, grab two things you love!” “I love nothing in here.”
• A toilet lawn actually sounds super rad.
• “At least the black mould made the other mould move out of the neighbourhood.”
• They talk about the apartment being crappy, but let’s not forget that it is gigantic.
• “I- I need you to wake up for this!”
• Old people really do have a lot of sex.
• This week, in Caroline never having taken sex-ed: “Are you sure, because I don’t wanna have an old baby.”
• “I mighta gone there too if knew he had an iPhone 5S.”
•  Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Nothing to see here, folks.

Hoo boy. I try, I really do try, to keep in mind that the original direction and focus of the show has changed, but you want to title an episode “And the Free Money”!? 2 Broke Girls writers room, please, I am begging you.

It is fine to have a cold open which revolves around the girls paying their bills and doing shots. Ain’t nothing wrong with that, not for a second. The issue is that Caroline tells Max [and us] that there are “only a couple bills to go and only $149 to pay them.” Ms. Channing, that could not be further from the truth. At the end of the last episode you had $2,614.

The show has not been the least bit clear as to what this money is going towards, but apparently it’s not for paying bills. It’s not for Max’s tuition for pastry school since that’s no longer a thing, and it has been literally 22 episodes since they opened up their cupcake shop. They’re sitting on over two grand with no apparent plans to spend it on anything, so I refuse to believe Caroline when she says “this is the first time we’ve ever broken even.” In general, I’d like to think that when she answers her own question of what to do next, it applies to the “New Total” amount as well.

Though Max has a fun alternative that I wouldn’t mind myself.

The obvious course of action is to gamble.

Not content to have the girls simply break even, the show sees fit to bless each of them with a cool hundred bucks, courtesy of Sophie’s new bookie boyfriend Nicky [Peter Onorati]. Now they’re really on top of the world, and that of course means they have that much further to fall.

Nicky invites them to the racetrack, and Caroline puts that Wharton education to good use and bets on a horse with 3-1 odds, winning and tripling their “free money”. This is a sitcom, so of course it leads to her catching the good ol’ Vegas Fever, a term I just now made up, and trying to further “invest” their winnings. The end result is their owing Sophie’s beau a whopping $3000. He says he’ll take their purebred instead [of breaking their kneecaps].

They’re not exactly parading Chestnut out all that often, so this meant next to nothing to me. Seems they can’t bear to lose a horse that apparently eats out of the garbage, so they try to use Han’s jockey friend as an in and bet again. And lose again.

Earl comes to their rescue by taking a single Benjamin and multiplying it 32 times. He chides them for getting into gambling when he’d warned of its dangers, and that’s that. They’re each left with the hundo they started with, and it’s added to the counter at the show’s end.

I do want to mention that the bill they gave Earl to gamble with was taken back from a waiter named Leon who Max tipped when they felt all high and mighty. Not for a second do they think to maybe return the money to him. Heck, I’m kind of pissed he let them talk it out of him in the first place.

At this point I feel like I’m going to have to completely ignore what they’ve been banking, honestly. It’s too distracting to me, and its very presence makes all of their references to being poor seem patently false. It may not bother other people, but watching that new amount tonight really got to me.

In other happenings, three of the secondary characters had some pretty decent material to work with. At one point Sophie is convinced that every food item that Nicky asks her to eat has an engagement ring in it, and while its not performed as well as it could be [Jennifer Coolidge can only do so much] it gets by on being a legitimately funny premise.

Earl had the bit above where he plays the older man who “comes out of retirement” and shows off his impressive set of skills and old Black man wisdom.

But Han . . . with Han something significant almost happened. The diner owner agrees to help Max and Caroline out if the former puts an end to the short jokes. The cynical part of me thought “great, now we’re down to just ridiculing his masculinity,” but the optimist thought the same thing and viewed it as progress. This is dashed to pieces after his friend’s tip comes to naught. On that note, they say that puns are the lowest form of humour, and this episode is replete with them in regards to the vertically challenged. One day good things may come, Han Lee, but today is not that day.

Current Total: $2,614.

New Total: $2,814. I complained enough about this up above.

The Title Refers To: The very sizable tip that Nicky gives the girls, no double entendres intended. From that point on they refer to the $200 as their “free money”.

Stray Observations:

• Far as I can tell the Mexican 500 peso bill does in fact have a donkey on it. That’s roughly 40 USD.
• Is it weird to anyone that Sophie is this generation’s Kramer?
• Nicky’s friends call him “when they need money.”
• Cobras cannot, in fact, swallow whole pigs.
• “She was second in seven furlongs, and this race is six furlongs” / “Yeah, you’re talking furlong.”
• “Let’s see, two, carry the one get out.”
• “…that Somali pirate never getting another acting job again” is a sure thing in Max’s book. It’s also sad.
• “Where’d you buy them, JC Puny?”
• I got a kick out of Han’s frustration and exit at the short jokes, accompanied with cries of “I don’t need it!“
•  “Now no more betting, ’cause the only sure thing in life is death. Have a nice day.”
• I should mention here that they’re really fueling the Maxoline shippers’ flames with a scene that appears under the 2BGCM below.
• “Max” may not be Max’s real name.
• Max’s joke that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable: the fact that we now know the uncle who molested/raped her is named Hank.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Caroline’s back in her jammies, and we have this:

After telling Caroline she might’ve missed some: “Just kidding it’s late and it felt kinda good.”

The finale to the season of a show is, to put it bluntly, important. It’s the culmination of several episodes, hours of television, and must assure viewers that their time was ultimately well-spent. Narrative arcs being drawn to a close is a given, and many series are burdened with the added responsibility of this installment potentially being their very last. It needs to work as a cap to the season, but also possibly for the show as a whole.

Seeing as 2 Broke Girls was renewed for a 4th season two months ago, the latter issue was not one the writers had to grapple with. The problem is that even when concentrating on the bare minimum of what’s expected this finale barely passes. Kind of like Max Black and high school. Flawless Segue Achieved.

Look, I’ve laid it out pretty clearly in the review from two weeks ago, but past season finales have not had this problem-

• Season 1 –  they meet Martha Stewart, a gigantic leap forward when it comes to them opening their cupcake store
• Season 2 – the decision is made to open a new store in a hidden room adjacent to the rest of the diner [given their old location having a car in one wall]

-this season ends with Max finally passing a US History final and getting her GED [high school diploma]. It’s not so much that it barely meaning anything to her, it’s that it means next to nothing for Caroline as well. As an episode of 2BG there’s nothing wrong with it, and it’s actually funnier than most [as the hefty Stray Observations below would attest to]. The problem is that this needed to be more than that.

There’s certainly content there that has the possibility of going above and beyond the age-old message that Caroline supports Max and they have a generally healthy relationship. Ex-history teacher now-principal Mr. Huck doubts Max and sees that he was wrong about her. In that alone there’s an exploration of a father figure in her life that’s not Earl, or maybe even her realizing that she doesn’t need validation from others [not when she has such a great support group, more on that in two paragraphs].

What’s most upsetting is that they actually build towards something that could be extremely significant. It’s not that we find out a little more about Max via the revelation that she was raised in Rhode Island [and is not NYC born-and-bred, as I'd previously believed], but that the show teases an emotional moment and then reneges on that promise.

Mrs. Black has long been a figure in the girls’ lives, if only because she’s constantly being brought up as the reason Max had a nightmarishly awful childhood. There’s a mix of resentment and apathy towards that woman, and when Caroline forces her best friend to invite her to see Max graduate with the Northeast High Class of 2014 I got legitimately excited. This could be the kick in the pants the show needed to shake up the characters! This could give us something to look forward to this fall!

She never shows. Instead the gang from the diner enters through the gym doors as Max’s surrogate family, a barely-fleshed out [barring Caroline] group of characters who do their very best to form any semblance of a loving, cohesive unit. While viewers may believe otherwise, the truth is that Han, Sophie, Oleg, and Earl only ever come together to support exactly one of the two title characters. Without her they’re nothing, and only pop in and out and as needed.

But that’s me criticizing the show as a whole instead of solely this episode. As I said earlier, it’s not a terrible twenty-some minutes of TV, and if I were grading these I might actually give it a B+ [scaled against the show as a whole of course]. Given how things end, I have no idea what to look forward to in this upcoming season, or if I should at all.

For those of you who tune in week after week, I am going to be sticking with this. On one side of things, there’s the fact that I do not ever give up on shows, even after my love for them wanes to close to nothing. On the other this is the first show I’ve reviewed, and tracking its progress is an experience I think I need. On yet another side these pull in the views like crazy.

I’ll see all of you loyal readers, if there are any, this fall. I’m going to keep watching and writing about 2 Broke Girls, and if you want to keep seeing what I have to say I’m more than happy to have you.

Current Total: $2,814.

New Total: $2,572. I guess bus tickets are pretty expensive? Google tells me you can snag tickets from NYC to Rhode Island for as low as $25 each way.

The Title Refers To: The first degree Max Black ever receives, seeing that she never received one from pastry school.

Stray Observations:

• Due to Oleg’s diploma guy Caroline is now a real estate agent, a French citizen, and a licensed pilot.
• “Water fountains? Gross. In private school we never bent down to put our mouths on something unless it had a yacht.”
• Google Glass: for looking through and buying tapioca on Amazon.
• You just knew that you were going to make a “Huck you” joke after hearing about the history teacher’s name.
• “C’mon, Max. I haven’t waited this long to hear someone say ‘Yes’ since I was at school for the deaf.”
• “Don’t look at me like that, Max. I’m a fun person, I taught myself the Dougie!”
• Oleg’s realization that women can vote is not only true to his character, but also pretty funny.
• “Oh my god. You know the toilet isn’t just there as a suggestion!”
• Hector, the kid taking the history final alongside Max, is as dumb as rocks. “Ay yo, this place is filled with tiny tables, yo.”
• “I’m going to ignore that, because if I don’t I will weep.”
• Max’s mnemonic devices are fun.
• Her babysitter was a prostitute named Tiny Marge who used to watch Sex and the City with her in a sketchy motel.
• She was also 1.5 months premature.
• “Thank you, Amy. It’s hard to imagine not hearing that voice every day for the next four years.”
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Sorry, nothing to see here, folks!

Believe it or not, I drafted this post over a month ago because I just assumed 2 Broke Girls was going to air alongside all of the other fall sitcoms. That was also when I put together the banner above, which I ended up using because CBS decided not to release any promo images. And heck, I was going to embed it somewhere anyway because I put way too long photoshopping Kim Noel Kardashian into that screenshot.

Here’s about the extent of what I know about the “American television and social media personality, socialite, fashion designer, businesswoman, model, and actress” [thanks for giving me her exact occupation, Wikipedia!]:

• she had a sex tape.
• she married Kanye West.
• her mobile game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood made a ludicrous amount of money, and if you want to know more about the effect it had, particularly on tween girls who were not happy about its downtime, you should listen to this episode of video game podcast The Indoor Kids because it is discussed in detail and to great comedic effect.

Here’s about what she did [Oh, hey! Welcome back, loyal readers! I’m using this awkwardly long pause in the middle of a sentence to say that I appreciate you and am glad you are here and we will face this new season together, you bet we will!] in the episode:

• appeared at 20 minutes, 18 seconds in.
• told Max and Caroline “I know how hard us girls really work to keep our businesses going,” which I found genuinely funny.
• exited the scene 55 seconds after she entered it.

Truly this was a far cry from Lindsay Lohan’s appearance on the show, and I can only imagine that for any really die-hard fans of Keeping Up With The Kardashians [henceforth referred to as KUWTK] who were waiting to see more of their favourite American television and social media personality, socialite, fashion designer, businesswoman, model, and actress this was, well . . .

In a big way this entire season premiere lies in the shadow of its guest star [that joke is low-hanging fruit and I will not go there], with her appearance being heavily advertised by CBS. From beginning to end we’re waiting for her to show up, and to get less than a minute of her on screen [which could not have taken longer than an hour to film] left me, anyway, feeling kind of cheated. The episode as a whole was decent enough, though.

The focus comes back to their business as the cold open has Max explaining to a would-be robber that they work all day and then some, only clocking in at about three hours of sleep a night. They can not and will not afford to empty out their register, and man wouldn’t it be great if an American television and social media personality, socialite, fashion designer, businesswoman, model, and actress with 24.8 million twitter followers showed them a little love [side note: Caroline kept saying 22 mil, but maybe 2.8 mil manifested between the taping of this episode and now]. To sum up the rest of that plot, which is really the only plot of the episode, an agent of some sort offers to film KUWTK at Max’s Homemade Cupcakes, then it doesn’t happen, Max and Caroline get sad, Kim shows up later to apologize and even tweets about them. The end.

Basically how I felt seeing Caroline’s new hair.

Okay, so maybe when I said it was “decent enough” I was referring to anything but the narrative. For one thing, Caroline follows in the tradition of blonde actresses in CBS sitcoms cutting their hair shorter for the new season and looks great. Seriously, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting’s new do has nothing, and let me repeat, nothing, on Beth Behrs’ makeover. In addition to that wonderful change Han said a bunch of really gay stuff [and I don’t mean that pejoratively] and for their first punchline, because of course they had it recur, the writers opted for silence. That’s not the kind of restraint that would’ve taken place in past seasons, and I’m choosing to view it as a sign of better things to come.

What I would really love them to start doing though, and I know I’ve mentioned this before [I’m just too lazy to find the appropriate reviews to link back to], is stop living in the past. Referring to a cupcake serial killer as “one fat Dexter” makes reference to a show that ended [poorly] last year, and honestly just makes me think of this instead:

This reference dates me, I realize, but someone has to! Hey-o!

Not only that, but when the guy tries to rob them it’s described as a “hipster hold-up” the first word being a term I haven’t heard in months. While a few Tinder gags felt like they missed the train, name-dropping Orlando Bloom and Justin Bieber was more like sleeping in and hitting the snooze button for the eleventh time. If the show wants to stay “current”, and saying that makes me feel like an old person, the writers need to let go of a lot of the topical humour, especially when it’s so far past its expiration date.

Anyway, that’s enough criticism for one day. I have sort of missed you, 2 Broke Girls. Here’s to 23 more episodes of Season 4.

Sorry, everyone, I went a little crazy with the Stray Observations this time around.

Current Total: $1,850.

New Total: $1,950. So Kim gives them $100 for the cupcake she eats, and apparently that’s all they make in two days? To be fair Caroline says that she spent all their savings on her hair, so I’m willing to handwave this all away. This time.

The Title Refers To: Kim Kardashian may be an American television and social media personality, socialite, fashion designer, businesswoman, model, and actress, but she’s most well known for KUWTK which is a reality show. That’s it. That’s the joke.

Stray Observations:

• Max doesn’t know where politicians are, or live, or work, or whatever.
• “Eat it red-haired lady and your Asian daughter!”
• “Hello, reason-I-do-two-hours-of-phone-therapy-Wednesday-before-work.”
• When Han says “I am not gay I’m restaurant curious” I swear you could hear members of the audience groaning.
• As someone who has downloaded Tinder, used it, and deleted it, I can tell you right now it doesn’t work that way, Sophie. Your matches don’t just pop up, you have to swipe them right first.
• “Hey, are wheelchairs sexy?” / “Well, it depends on who’s in one.” / “I say no.”
• Oh, speaking of things that are so yesterday, Caroline refers to Kim Kardashian as “epic”.
• Max would advise you not to try witchcraft just for the free snacks.
• I thought “Here Comes Honey Boob-less” was funny, but awkward in light of recent news.
• “My baby’s Nigerian. I mean if you’re gonna live here learn the language, jeez.”
• Max names the Kardashians: Kim, Kamber, Klondike, and the little ones Krispy and Kreme. Kim, Kooky, Kool-Aid, and the little ones Captain and Kangaroo. Kim, Cankles, Crank, and the little ones Kegel and Kickball.
• Listening to Jennifer Coolidge pretend to be Sophie pretending to be Kim is the most painful thing I’ve ever had to watch.
• Chestnut looks different.
• Caroline has used almost all of her cinnamon-flavoured makeup remover.
• “Good news is I think we can fit a penis in there.”
• “Who could that be? A rapist we’ve done most of the work for?” [Yes, I found this particular rape joke pretty funny]
• “Han, look, I made perfect bread!”
• Max’s joke that made me feel legitimately uncomfortable: “The only thing my mother did with my sex tape was copy it and give it to her boyfriend.”
• NEW FEATURE “FOR THE SHIPPERS”: “Hey Caroline, we’re finally about to scissor!”
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Goodness gracious, Sophie, that dress. Eesh.

The multi-cam sitcom isn’t exactly at the peak of its popularity right now, The Big Bang Theory reaching its 200th episode being a pretty extreme outlier. If you watch TV regularly at all you’ll have noticed that more and more sitcoms are trying to be the next, say, Community, as opposed to a worthy successor to How I Met Your Mother. A big part of that has to do with this older format being seen as looking cheaper, and that’s particularly true when it comes to a change in setting.

Not counting Max and Caroline’s spur-of-the-moment jaunt to Paris, which was completely off-camera, there has been at least one instance where the girls have left Brooklyn in a noticeable way. Honestly, it’s hard to forget that lambo sitting on the beach–

-because it was a legitimately great set. I mean, they had sand. It more than stands up to a lot of the exterior shots of Ted Mosby and co. exiting McLaren’s, or getting into hijinks in front of a brownstone. The unfortunate thing is that their other excursions don’t live up to that standard.

Sure, just three episodes ago Max and Caroline walked through a forest, but on the whole a change of setting doesn’t really mean anything exciting. Typically a trip to a cabin in the woods means just the cabin, or having Rhode Island mostly be cheap hotel rooms and high school classrooms. While last week’s episode had me very excited to see the duo hit LA I knew at the time that we wouldn’t be regaled with shots of them driving past palm trees with the top down. It would’ve been nice, though.

Instead 2 Broke Girls provides us with three new sets: a hotel room, hotel bar/restaurant, and a Hollywood exec’s office. I’m not saying that the production crew needed to really glam it up, but a little glam, maybe? At the very least hiring a Johnny Depp impersonator to make a brief cameo appearance as opposed to just name-dropping the actor would have been cool, and pretty cost-effective.

While Caroline is in Hollywood to try to get her movie off the ground Max is . . . just there. They both meet Lawrence [Alec Mapa],

who I’m sure we’ll see more of soon. Max also bumps into Randy [Ed Quinn], and the two of them end up doing what consenting adults sometimes do. The big conflict in this episode revolves around Perry [Chris Williams], who owns the office I mentioned up above. He’s not actually all that interested in the proposed film, and Max ends up reacting to this as she does to most things.

That’s “not how you do things in Hollywood”, and it looks like she may have torpedoed Caroline’s chances at having her life story up on the silver screen. That is until Randy steps in and, as Perry’s lawyer, convinces the film exec to pay them a little more attention. It’s all very neat, but does introduce the idea that this guy wants to be there for Max, which is a relief to her given how interested she had been in him dropping her a line.

Even more interesting than Max’s new beau, which I don’t see lasting longer than a few episodes, is how the writers’ room was able to avoid the entire show revolving around the titular duo while they’re away. A hasty conversation over the phone about having her future child look like her causes Sophie to flip-flop on her decision last week to adopt, and suddenly she’s back to wanting to do things the traditional way, opting to go to a healer based in LA. I definitely feel a little betrayed given how I gave the show props for going this route, but it does make sense. 2 Broke Girls has invested too much in its other cast members to simply jettison them for two or more episodes, and even had the cold open set in the diner instead of just starting things off on the west coast. They can send Max and Caroline away, but they can’t ditch the whole crew.

In the end this sitcom seems invested in following the Hollywood arc for at least a little while longer. I’m not confident that it’ll be the springboard out of poverty they’re ostensibly looking for, but I don’t think they’re bound to find one before the last season’s finale. At the very least things are more interesting than they’ve ever been, and I look forward to seeing if the film is ever greenlit, and if the rest of the gang at the Williamsburg Diner make their way over to sunny Los Angeles.

Current Total: $390.

New Total: $390. When they said “all expenses paid” it looks like they meant it.

The Title Refers To: Oh, right. Max’s baggage is lost, but it ultimately contributes nothing whatsoever to the plot. She gets it back a little later on.

Stray Observations:

• “Ha, I knew you two weren’t going to LA! I knew you were just pulling my chain!” Oh Han, ye of little faith. And no, that wasn’t a short joke.
• Also Max registered Han as a sex offender at city hall which is pretty messed up.
• “This is so sweet! Is that why they call it that?” That’s some live-action-Disney-show-level humour right there.
• “These are the only 12 steps anyone’s ever gonna get me to take.”
• “You were supposed to be in a room with two queens. Well, three if I was in it.” Oh, Lawrence. You card.
• “Look, not everyone in this hotel is gay. But Claude is hands-down-ma’-pants the gayest.”
• “Can I buy you a drink? [. . . ] A house?” Randy is rich.
• “It’s not the agency. I called to talk to Max and got Caroline’s My Life Doesn’t Suck Anymore podcast.”
• Alongside Lawrence this episode also features Quan [Nikki Tuazon], Perry’s disdainful receptionist. Two [additional to Han] Asians in an episode of 2 Broke Girls without any jokes relying on racial stereotypes. I’m calling that a plus in my book.
• “Absolutely, set in stone! We’re so excited.”
• Nina, who is Caroline’s agent of sorts, tells her that “You need to look broke. Busted. Discarded from society.” Which is fair, because you would never think she was living below the poverty level at first glance.
• “Maybe she’ll smooth everything over. Like everyone does here with their faces.”
• “Perry, what’s happening here, why is there bread on your table-“
• “I didn’t want to come on too strong. Should I not have taken dating advice from David Spade?”
• “Hey, we got a lady that looks like you back at home.”
• Unforunately Lawrence is unable to land the part of “a Filipino gay general manager of a hotel who used to be straight.” Guy just can’t catch a break.
• I’m really regretting shelving my “Pop Culture Put-Downs” feature [first seen here] because this episode was rife with them. Among the many dissed celebs there were mentions of: John Travolta, Keira Knightley, Kevin Hart, and Shannon Doherty.

Have you ever watched an episode of 2 Broke Girls and thought to yourself, “That episode ended too soon”? The latest installment of Max and Caroline’s Hollywood adventures continues this week, and somehow manages to feel much shorter than its 21-minute runtime.

A large part of that is because the show largely eschews showing for telling, with two big moments taking place entirely off camera and only referenced after the fact. While this can be effective, the result is ultimately more confusing than anything else. For sitcoms the primary goal is to make your viewers laugh, but the second priority of telling a good story comes swiftly behind that. A lack of emphasis on that aspect is what leads to viewers being confused as to whether or not a love interest has been written out or not.The Caroline Channing film is still well on its way to actually existing, and it’s time that screenwriters entered the picture. I’ll openly admit that I don’t know much about how Hollywood works, and so was unsure if the aforementioned screenwriters typically meet up with the men and women that biopics are about beforehand. Either way, apart from the wonderfully bubbly Leslie [Alison Rich, who unfortunately doesn’t appear again] the primary takeaway from their meeting with Caroline is that Max’s character won’t be in the film.

There’s actually a fair amount of complexity surrounding this conflict, with Max initially miffed she’s asked not to be present for the discussion and later having to accept that she’s been cut out of the story. Her primary outlet for keeping her mind off of all this is Randy, who she’s still seeing, and auditioning for The Price is Right. She’s never been one to stick around when she’s not wanted [that’s why she “hightailed it out of [her] mother’s womb”], but also doesn’t want to drag her friend down.

On the other side of things Caroline has to be as easy to work with as possible to ensure her film is made while also coping with the fact that Max is spending far more time with Randy than with her. There’s also the addition of Bob, a Hollywood relic that Max’s sort-of-boyfriend [they’re not putting labels on it] sets her up with. The audiences’s reaction to seeing George Hamilton [who?] on-stage was pretty telling as far as who the show’s primary demographic is.

Sophie is also still around, appearing onstage to particularly energetic whoops, while the diner continues to chug along, more or less, without its only two waitresses.

The first big event that takes place completely off-camera is Caroline’s wild night out with Bob in Vegas, during which he “lost $50,000 and somehow Faye Dunaway’s Oscar.” This is a perfect example of when a single camera format would have worked wonders, with a quick cutaway to their raucous evening that isn’t possible when filming before a live studio audience. The inclusion of that gag certainly isn’t necessary, but it would’ve been nice to have any kind of lead-in to it happening.

While in Vegas Bob imparts his centuries of wisdom [they make a lot of old jokes this episode] to Caroline, which has the effect of her running to find Max, who has just been picked out for The Price is Right. She asks her best friend to step away from a chance to star on a gameshow and instead help argue for her inclusion on the film. It’s one of those classic “Max and Caroline are friends!” moments, and leads up to the next scene the audience doesn’t get to see.

The follow-up meeting with the screenwriters is likewise skipped over, which is a lot more fine, what with the vastly less entertainment to mine from it. Max thanks Caroline for fighting to keep her in the movie and her life and things wrap up. Both scenes being excised is a big part of what makes it feel like the episode is short for time, as well as the weird resolution to Bob [he leaves on a helicopter and Caroline cries out after him, because of course] and lack of resolution for Randy, who ostensibly will be back around next week. This week actually had a far better narrative structure than most, and kept me engaged with what was going on, but ended up feeling rushed for whatever reason.

Current Total: $390.

New Total: $390. See my “all expenses paid” comment in my last review.

The Title Refers To: An exchange between Bob and Caroline:

“I don’t need fake friends, I have Max.”

“That’s what Wesley Snipes said about Jane Fonda.”

“They’re not friends.”

“You bet your ass they’re not.”

It’s a really weird line to title this episode with, at least in my opinion.

Stray Observations:

• No Lawrence in this episode, but there’s honestly no room for him.
• “I just wanna tell Earl about the pot sitch out here. He’ll think it’s high-larious.” Groan.
• I really want to know if they got a stunt double for Caroline’s fall-

• “Max, you’re going out with Randy again? I’ve barely seen you since we got here. And I’ve seen David Schwimmer four times.”
• “Writers are actors who gave up, so, they’re allowed to eat.”
• “That’s so unprofessional.” / “Right, like I’m the one who has to stay 500 feet away from Fred Savage.” Leslie and Jason, the other screenwriter, have fun.
• “I have an appointment to stand in line for a little thing called Price is Right. Y’ever heard of it? [laughs] You know you have-” Arguably one of the best line-readings Kat Dennings has ever done on the show.
• JLaw wants to play Caroline in what’s sure to be a brave “no makeup role”.
• Cue the old jokes-
• “I think that’s the very first Bob.”
• “If me and Randy are May-December you two are May-dead.”
• “I’m not gonna sleep with God’s college roommate to get ahead in Hollywood!”
• “That man sure knows how to make an exit. Not from life, but, from everything else-“
• “We’ve got a lot of 12-year-old boys playing sick at home, how long can you two jump up and down?” The Price is Right producer knows her audience.
• “Carpool and . . . fluffernutter . . . because soccer, right?” Sophie’s attempts to act like a stay-at-home mom from the Midwest.
• I actually found the cutaways to the diner a lot of fun, as Max left a series of Home Alone-style traps in Han’s office, “each one more fiendishly clever than the last.”

Money has always been an integral part of 2 Broke Girls, and this episode had me thinking quite a bit about the show’s budget. Well into its fifth season and having passed the 100th episode milestone some time ago, it’s a show that CBS has some confidence in, albeit one that’s barely beating Mike and Molly in ratings, a show that is currently airing its final season. With all that said, I began wondering about how much money the network was willing to throw its way.

Almost as if reading my comments about the limited settings this three camera sitcom has to offer, and with the sole intent of having me eat my words, “And the Great Escape” is the closest the show has been to feeling like it doesn’t take place in front of a live studio audience. While that’s not necessarily a hallmark of a great episode, it’s impressive to say the least.

The first, pictured above, is Randy’s house. While the interior is nothing special, it’s the fact that production also created an exterior year that really made an impression on me. The sand and plants are a really nice touch, and it even offers an opportunity for some great physical comedy on Beth Behrs’ part [her greatest strength, in this reviewer’s opinion].

The second is the Hollywood sign below, which is particularly notable because of how big it is. Having Max and Caroline walk around near the bottom of the letters hid how large they actually were, and the wide shot pictured is one the most visually exciting that the show has ever done.

As far as the actual narrative of the episode itself, there are ups and downs, as usual. The A-plot is arguably Caroline trying to get in touch with Jennifer Lawrence, who past episodes have hinted would be playing her in her riches-to-rags biopic, for the actress to see if she “digs [her] vibe”. They say her name [usually in the form of J. Law] a lot, though it’s not like any audiences were surprised when she never showed. As with most television, big celebrity appearances are advertised well ahead of time, and there was never anything akin to the media push that people like Martha Stewart, Lindsay Lohan, and yes, even 2Chainz received.

Max’s storyline is still largely centred on Randy, who unfortunately isn’t much to write about. He’s affable enough as a character, sure, but really isn’t very interesting. Things are moving full steam ahead with him and Max, and she almost says the L-word when talking to Caroline about him. This is all played up to make her taking care of his dog Bruno be that much of a big deal.

The two storylines intersect when Bruno runs out the door that Caroline left open. Their search brings them beneath the Hollywood sign and a conflict immediately arises when Caroline would rather FaceTime J. Law instead of search for Randy’s dog. She ends up stuffing her phone down the front of her pants to dissuade Max from getting at it, but to no avail [I’m sure the dozen remaining Maxoline shippers were thrilled]. Max takes the phone and hangs up on the Academy Award-winner.

There’s also a cannibal serial killer named Walter Gary Vance on the loose to really raise he stakes, but is overall pretty inconsequential.

While the episode closes and centres on Max and Randy admitting how much they like each other, in their own unique way, what concerned me is how much they diminish Caroline’s issues. J. Law ends up passing on her film, and realistically her involvement was probably one of the largest factors to it becoming a reality. It’s all swept under the rug, really, and Max never really apologizes for it. The high point for Caroline is Sophie giving her flowers as some sort of peace offering, only for the Polish woman to yell “Mind your own business, bitch!” in her face.

Current Total: $390.

New Total: $390. Yeah, this isn’t changing anytime soon.

The Title Refers To: Bruno escaping from home. I would include Walter Gary Vance in this as well, except that it’s never explicitly stated that he’s escaped from anywhere. Considering that he’s revealed to be Randy’s neighbour makes it’s hard for me to say that he has any sort of thematic connection to the episode title.

Stray Observations:

• “If you see Burt Reynolds tell him that I have his belt.” The audience really loved this line from Earl, but honestly I don’t get it.
• One of a handful of high point moments was the cut from the diner, where the gang are listening to Max and Caroline regaling them with live coverage of a red carpet event, to their hotel room where the two girls are getting drunk off of tiny bottles of liquor.
• “I feel bad lying to Han, I mean he’s already been catfished three times this year.” To be fair, two of those three times it was Max.
• “This one’s like licking a beet’s undercarriage.” Randy’s pressed juice gifts are appreciated, if not enjoyed.
• “Wish I had my vibe. They wouldn’t let me bring it on the plane.”
• Another great moment: Sophie entering holding a bundle of burning sage, the fire alarm being heard in the short moment the door is open.”
• “I’m going for Grace Kelly, not Woody Harrelson.”
• Sophie is trying to be nice to Caroline to cleanse her aura, and she describes the latter’s behaviour as “triggering” her. I could write more about that, but maybe some other time.
• “I’m looking down on all of LA.” / “Oh, I’m doing that from here.”
• Caroline gave Randy a look like his wifi password was difficult, but I listened to it once and wrote it all down and it’s not that hard: “125bD–63fF521”
• “Not sure but you can get a baby for $80 on the dark web.” I will never not enjoy jokes about the dark web.
• “You are coming with me! Randy loves Bruno and I lo- like Randy.”
• “Can cannibals climb?” / “Well they’re not called climbables, so that’s good.”
• Sophie shows up at the end of the episode wearing a bindi. I’m ambivalent of how to feel about that, so here’s both a point and counterpoint to consider.

You know what I realized after two whole weeks off of writing reviews? I don’t have to watch these episodes anymore! No, I don’t mean that the show is ending. 2 Broke Girls has actually been renewed for a sixth season alongside a slew of CBS’ other programs. What I mean is that a quick visit to their website will tell you everything you need to know about the next episode.

All of the images I use for the banner graphics above my reviews are taken from slideshows on CBS.com, which are always accompanied by captions. This week’s, for example, contains such gems as:

• Randy’s therapist breaks some bad news to Max.
• Max drowns her sorrows in tiny bottles of booze.
• Max listens to what Sophie’s guru has to say about her recent breakup.
• Max, Caroline, and Sophie return to Brooklyn after an extended stay in Hollywood.

You could also just read the synopsis given underneath the very first promo photo, which tells us that:

The girls near the end of their Hollywood adventure, which finds Caroline signing away the film rights to her life story while Max deals with the fall-out after her L.A. steady, Randy, breaks up with her via his therapist. Plus, Sophie continues to try everything she can to get pregnant on the next episode of 2 Broke Girls entitled “And The Pity Party Bus.”

Which isn’t to say that other TV shows don’t also use similar write-ups to hype their upcoming episodes, they do, but they also tend to preserve a bit of the mystery. A conflict is typically mentioned, as opposed to the conflict [Max gets dumped!] and the eventual conclusion [the girls return to NY!]. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that you could skim a dozen or so photos instead of tuning in for twenty-something minutes of TV every Thursday night. You could always just do that and then read my reviews!

To be fair, the episode lays it out in the first few seconds that the girls will be back in Williamsburg before we know it. Caroline closes out her deal to sell her life story while talking to Max about how serious it’s going with Randy, which foreshadows the breakup that immediately follows. The three of them are sitting in the same hotel bar/restaurant they first met when they’re joined by Elliot Charles, Randy’s therapist [played by John Michael Higgins, probably best known now for being the Pitch Perfect commentator who’s not Elizabeth Banks].

Though I’ve always loved him as Professor Whitman on Community. [Season 1, Episode 3 “Introduction to Film”]

Between there and the diner there are only two more short stops, with the first dedicated to closure. Unlike her breakup with Deke, which offered so little resolution that audiences of the show were unsure things had even ended between them, things with Randy are given a definitive end. Deciding to take a party bus back to the airport to cheer up her best friend, Caroline directs their driver to Randy’s house and forces the . . .

. . . incredibly well-built gentleman . . .

. . . to explain why he chose to break things off. He tells her that “the truth” is that he “[likes her] too much.” And that’s that. Later they drop by to see Audra, a healer, who is supposed to be helping Sophie get pregnant. Instead she spends much more time helping Max with her feelings, still raw from the day’s events, with a hokey procedure involving literally bottling [okay, jarring] her feelings.

All in all, it feels like a way of amending what happened late in Season 3 of 2 Broke Girls, even if it is an entire two years late. Of course it would help if we really felt anything about Randy, who doesn’t quite hold up a candle to Deke as far as being likeable or interesting. Still, I suppose it’s the thought that counts. Max has an important relationship come to an end and the show devotes a good amount of screentime to allow both her and the audience to come to terms with it. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s an improvement in storytelling at the very least.

As a capper to the episode, it turns out that Sophie has been pregnant for the past three months! This is really exciting news, blunted slightly by the fact that she’s been drinking this entire time [most recently five martinis on the plane ride over]. That unfortunate fact aside, it’ll be interesting to see how the show treats this going forward, and if the show has room for a infant actor and the chops to appropriately deal with Sophie and Oleg as parents. Max and Caroline [and Sophie, I guess] coming back to Williamsburg coincides with 2 Broke Girls‘ return to television, and I’m hoping that the time away has given the writers’ room the time they need for a full return to the status quo to feel new and fresh, instead of just more of the same.

Current Total: $390.

New Total: $90. Ostensibly spent on the party bus. It’s also heavily implied by Caroline that they’re going to be coming into money within the next month or so, so I’ll be watching out for that in the coming episodes.

The Title Refers To: Max’s breakup resulted in her feeling sorry for herself, which she spent doing, in part, on a party bus. Honestly, this is one of my favourite 2 Broke Girls episode titles ever, and I only wish they’d spent more time on it.

Stray Observations:

• “Earl, I told you to mop the entrance! That floor is dirtier than Bob Saget at a Comedy Central Roast.” Han has gotten snippy with the girls away.
• “I don’t think any of us are gonna make it past tomorrow. Han’s walkin’ around like he owns the place.” / “I do own the place!!!“
• There’s a whole bit where Caroline talks to Max about how she’s always using the f-word, which feels off if only because it’s so obviously false. I half expected them to opt for some old-fashioned bleeped out swears [a la the most recent episode of Black-ish], but instead they opt for a non-censored “bitch”.
• Mao, acupuncturist to the stars. Tag-line: “He’s poked more famous people than John Meyer”
• This episode also feels like a slap in the face to Maxoline shippers. First with Max saying that she was only bisexual for a week, but mostly because she was hitchhiking. Then with her cracking: “No guy, but now I have a middle-aged lesbian lover.”
• It’s really hard to shock Caroline ever since she saw a mouse dry-humping a potato on her couch.
• The last time Max was really angry she tore off an eyebrow. Caroline, seconds later: “And it took me a long time [dramatic pause] to grow it back.”
• “I rarely say this to a lady, but, ‘Put a baby in me!‘”
• “You know what they say, absence makes . . . me have to masturbate almost constantly.” My favourite-ever line from Oleg, I think.

In a little bit of a continuation from last week’s review, tonight’s episode could easily be summed up with “Max and Caroline’s friendship is tested very little, and unsurprisingly manages to remain intact.” While that’s par for the course for quite a few episodes along the years, with a bit of a shakeup in their relationship occurring every so often, what’s interesting is the showrunner’s decision to turn to this narrative just as the status quo is reestablished.

Yes, Max and Caroline are back to waitressing at the diner, and almost immediately the impending $250K payday from Caroline selling her movie rights starts being thrown around. The thing is, it immediately starts to collide with the goal of the first few seasons: the girls’ cupcake business. It’s so strange to see that being brought up again, especially when it hasn’t been brought up since Episode 10 of this season [and even then, it was simply to have Max bump into an old friend].

Their cupcake business has played so small a part that when the studio audience gasps in response to Sophie asking Max and Caroline if they “know any bakers” I was initially confused. Why would they be offended by that question? When was the last time they baked anything, let alone sold any baked goods at all?

I suppose that Max’s Homemade Cupcakes taking a backseat to the rest of their zany adventures adds to their eventual [and short-lived] conflict over what to do with the money. That disagreement is introduced by Martin Channing [Steven Weber], Caroline’s imprisoned father who we haven’t seen since late in Season 2 [seriously, it has been three actual years since the last time he was on the show]. While there are some pretty entertaining diversions with the musical he wrote as a part of his therapy in prison, he’s primarily there to be a wedge that [temporarily] keeps the girls apart.

Yes, I’m belabouring the point a little, but the truth is that things never escalate all that far. Martin Channing tells Max that the $250K is exactly what his daughter needs to start a new life and that “this is her big chance, you just gotta let her go” [ie. to Wall Street, to make it big]. While she never explicitly states how she’s feeling, Kat Dennings acts exactly the way someone would when being accused of being the anchor that holds people back: she lashes out. There’s a bit of a fight involving cake batter that culminates in Han getting the majority of it in his face, and not long afterwards Caroline is asking her father what he told her friend.

While that plot ends as it always does, with Max and Caroline staying committed to their friendship and business partnership, what I have to give the writers credit for is how much they’re calling back to what 2 Broke Girls was at its outset. Chestnut [their horse] makes an appearance, and  they even muse aloud how “Five years ago we were sitting on Chestnut with our iced coffees.” They even said at that time that $250K was all they needed to start their business, and now here they are with that money coming to them in a fairly short time and the shop already in place.

While the Wharton graduate has no exact plans as to how to spend their money, it’s her streetwise roommate who comes up with “Dessert Bar”, a way to combine their current business model with the tiny bottles from the minibar they enjoyed so much on the west coast. It’s an intriguing idea, albeit one that ignores the hurdles necessary when it comes to obtaining a liquor license. That said it’s still a return to the Max and Caroline doing what they always set out to do, and while it’s not the freshest direction it somehow feels right to have them return to chasing that particular dream.

This episode also has Sophie and Oleg wanting to find out the sex of their baby. They ultimately don’t, which is fine.

Current Total: $90.

New Total: $72. Okay, so Sophie and Oleg hire the girls to make them a “gender reveal cake”, but Caroline botches it by forgetting the food colouring. The Eastern European couple refuses to pay them, which is how I’m accounting for the missing 18 bucks.

The Title Refers To: I suppose this could refer to the gender reveal cake that I mentioned up above, though it honestly comprises such a small part of this episode. That’s what I’m going with, though. The expectant parents want to be shown the sex of their child, but not verbally told.

Stray Observations:

• Han admits that he’s “been wanting another Asian in the mix for some time!” While I want this in almost all media, this show may be the exception.
• He also claims that Freddie Prinze Jr. works more than Max and Caroline, which was a pretty sick burn.
• This week Earl is so old he can’t shake his head.
• Caroline’s means to save money are pretty bad, actually [using their bath mat for toilet paper?]. Maybe she should head over to /r/frugal for some pointers.
• “If those inmates weren’t hardened criminals before, they will be once they see you wearing that-“
• Honestly, the musical numbers are not as bad as those I’ve seen in other sitcoms.
• “Steel bars; steel bars on our balls / Steel bars on this jail, and there ain’t no bail / And nobody caaaallllllls”
• Also, huge props to the writers for not going to the well of “people have gay sex in prison, hahaha”.
• “Moody Giuliani” is the best nickname I have ever heard on 2 Broke Girls.
• “I didn’t lose it, I just don’t have it and I don’t know where it is-“
• “Like a waitress at a vegan restaurant, you’re bringing almost nothing to the table.”
• “That’s the hardest thing I’ve had to take in all day. And at lunch they served us something called ‘brown’.” Prison is hard.
• Sophie and Oleg had such a bitingly clever exchange it felt strange coming from their mouths.

“[The cake’s] white, what does that mean?”

“It means it has a chance of being nominated for an Academy Award.”

So apart from Max heckling customers, which the show hasn’t used to grace a cold open in quite some time, and every character besides Han poking fun at the diner’s general hygiene, the typical setting of 2 Broke Girls has rarely been a source of specific humour in the way, say, Sacred Heart hospital was on Scrubs, et cetera. We generally know it’s a dump, but the joke doesn’t extend far beyond that.

Honestly, I didn’t even know what I was missing until I got a taste of it [pun only somewhat intended].

It all begins with Oleg calling out that a “tuna malt” is ready to be served, which is honestly such a ludicrous miscommunication that I couldn’t help but smile.

In addition to that there’s the blackboard of specials, which Max’s atrocious handwriting has turned into a list of food that is . . . well, not as special as Han would probably like. They feature such dishes as “Sloppy Jobs”-

-and “Pork Chips”-

-and while the characters kind of run them into the ground a little, they’re all pretty entertaining. Just having it say “desert” instead of “dessert” is funny, especially given that no one makes note of it. The Williamsburg Diner may be a disgusting establishment, but it’s nice to see that it can also be a place where incompetence is present in the food preparation and signage as well.

As for the actual episode itself, Ed Quinn’s Randy is back! I don’t mean to keep harping on how Max’s relationship with him had its parallels with her dating Deke, but this just proves how much the show is shying away from that approach. Not only did their breakup have a resolution, it turns out it wasn’t really the end! He’s back in New York and looking to start a little something. To skip to the end with this particular arc, after Caroline expresses enough concern to actually grill him in a mock trial he admits that he’s committing to staying in the city for one month to try to make things work. A surprising turn of events to be sure.

As for the rest of the episode, Caroline’s movie money finally comes in and the two girls decide to make their Dessert Bar a reality. This means finding some real estate as Han won’t let them expand their cupcake shop into the dish room. Not willing to leave them in the lurch, their boss decides to connect them with Evie [Camille Chen], a realtor who apparently digs him.

Now, this is something I could cover in-depth down below under the “The Title Refers To” feature, but I’ll do it now. Essentially Evie wants to remain a virgin until marriage, but wants to have sex anyway. Now I hate to say it [and to use a slightly NSFW gif after the jump you’ve been warned], but this is actually something that generally terrible show House of Lies did in its episode “Bareback Town”, and that it did pretty well-

They were in Utah. She’s a Mormon. It’s really not a great show.

-by which I mean to say that House of Lies was pretty crass about it, which it may actually need in this case. 2 Broke Girls makes a bit of a running joke about “loophole” rhyming with another word, you know the one, but generally is kind of tame about it. There’s no real reason for Han to be so reticent about it besides the fact that he’s a pretty emasculated dude. Either way the audience absolutely loved it.

In the end Han decides to let them expand into the diner, and even try a few new things with Evie [just hot yoga, guys]. It’s an episode with some pretty decent highs in the diner-specific-humour and Randy’s return more or less blindsiding me, contrasted with the lows of a lacklustre aaaah-anal-is-scary-and-gross subplot and some iffy race stuff I’ll mention below. In other words it’s standard fare for 2 Broke Girls, but ultimately better than most.

Also Sophie is more pregnant now I guess.

Current Total: $72.

New Total: $250,072. So yeah, that movie money 100% came in. I’m not sure they need all $250K as startup, but NYC’s an expensive place.

The Title Refers To: Anal. See above.

Stray Observations:

• “Aw Sophie, you’re showing! And this time it’s neither of your nipples.”
• The following line joins their crack about White Academy Award winners last week, which doesn’t seem like the sort of lowbrow humour they usually use and which gives me some hope for the show moving forard: “The baby kicks, so it’s either going to be a soccer player or a Los Angeles policeman.”

A Brief Break for Stray Asian Observations:

• “In my country we never comment on two things: women’s pregnancies or Kim Jong-un’s haircut.” Okay, so Han’s North Korean?
• Max quips “Did you say real estate Asian?” and I’ve literally never hated her so much.
• [As far as I can tell] Evie lustfully tells Han “nalang haja” [“나랑 하자”], which translates to “let me”. Han tells Caroline that it means “she wants [him] to come at her hard!”
• At Han and Evie’s exit Max asks “Where were Mickey and Minnie Mouse going?” and honestly what is that even supposed to mean? What the **** is that all about?

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Stray Observations:

• “She likes me, you shrews!” Han’s outburst made me chuckle.
• Randy utilizes “the ol’ Scooby-Doo-fake-footsteps” to trick Max into turning around.
• Apparently Max was once pregnant and actually delivered a baby. Either that or she’d eaten Chipotle. It’s your choice, “whatever makes ya sleep sounder, sweetheart.”
• Randy’s neck is muscular, but not too thick.
• I did kind of like Han’s explanation about Evie wanting to just have anal sex as: “Below the waist she’s like a mullet. Business in the front, party in the back!”
• On a somewhat similar note, on Max’s pros list Randy looks like a man from the front and the back.