Final Thoughts: 2 Broke Girls (Season 1)
2 Broke Girls was easily the most-hyped freshman comedy of the 2011-2012 network season, inciting a bidding war between networks in December 2010 for its then-undeveloped pilot. Co-created by Sex and the City scribe (and director of the two horrible films) Michael Patrick King and female comedian Whitney Cummings, 2 Broke Girls boasted both a high-concept premise, and some star power both behind the camera and in front, signing up Kat Dennings of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist as its star.
And its debut certainly justified the hype, pulling in over 19 million viewers when it debuted back in September. But all the fanfare and huge audiences were buried underneath a trash pile of a pilot, full of low-brow humor so poorily it was offensive – a trait not helped by its rampant racist and sexist undertones. I hated the pilot in my First Impressions review, and while there did appear to be some form of potential underneath the hacky Asian stereotypes and constant self-degrading dialogues, it was a ray of hope quickly stomped out by 23 episodes that tried to be more obnoxious than the last.
In a nutshell, there’s nothing ‘creative’ about 2 Broke Girls, and to consider it one of the worst sitcoms of the last twenty years wouldn’t be a stretch at all. Its humor is nothing but tired juvenile sex puns, offensive racial jokes, and unfunny interactions all played out in the same repetitive, three-joke a minute format. And it’s not even like they switch up the jokes between segments: literally EVERY SINGLE SCENE from the entire season would take a joke, and repeat it three times in three consecutive lines, over and over and over again, revisiting the same joke sets in each and every episode.
If that wasn’t frustrating enough, as much as I love Kat Dennings, she sucks in front of an audience. Her line readings are always over-read, clearly pandering to the laugh track that the post-production team can then crank up to 300% during the episode, so every joke about Eastern Europeans and Max’s loose vagina actually feel like jokes, and are funny. Beth Behrs’s joke deliveries are no better – and she’s left with awkward jokes like taking cum shots to her face from ex-boyfriends, and her whole persona being an obvious parody of Paris Hilton. It is a reminder that terrible actresses from direct-to-video movies aren’t fit to handle the demands of being funny in front of a live audience.
The writers aren’t doing them any favors either, putting their amazing talents for writing paper-thin characters. We’ve got Oleg, the Eastern European sex addict who likes velour; Han, the Asian who was too short to be a jockey and likes karaoke; and Earl, the old black man who did a lot of drugs and white women in the 70s. There are no nuances to these characters, no redeeming qualities, and they’re all offensive stereotypes who aren’t given any material outside of saying “hand love” and speaking in broken English.
And Sophie…. the worst, and I mean, WORST, character I’ve ever watched on TV, male or female. I don’t know what the fuck Jennifer Coolidge was thinking signing up for the Polish woman who talks like she’s got helium shoved up her ass, and wears dresses six sizes too small, making it so that scenes can’t involve her doing anything but standing or sitting, because she can’t even move. She also has a Polish accent, but speaks perfect English, and simultaneously manages a disturbingly-unfunny business (Sophie’s Choice cleaning services) while being the stupidest person ever to wear high heels.
Every time she walks on set, she garners a vocal response from the audience, which is a telling sign of the mass audience 2 Broke Girls is pulling in. But can we be surprised that this show is popular? After all, people love Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, Two and a Half Men, and all the other mindless, offensive, culture-degrading piles of shit that are on television, so why shouldn’t 2 Broke Girls be the most popular new show around, right?
Every time I read a deprecating reader comment or see someone tweet ‘OMG, 2BG was EPIC funny 2Nite LolZZZ #Olegrules’, I feel a little depressed for every other hard-working intelligent sitcom showrunner. Too many superior writers enter May wondering if their ambitious tendencies will prove to be the death stroke of their show, cut in favor of money-making machines like 2 Broke Girls that ultimately, make our entire country look like a bunch of fucking idiots for enjoying it so much. But here it is, the most popular new sitcom on television, ready to return for season 2.
But hey, at least they got rid of the horse, right?
