2 Broke Girls And the Upstairs Neighbor

In a truly amazing blaze of glory, 2 Broke Girls returned with its first episode since the TCA debacle. I think Martin Luther King Jr. wrote this episode. Super far from all things racist the cold open was. It featured Max and Caroline confronting Oleg for his sexual harassment by returning the favor. The best way to get a pervy guy to stop hitting on you is to hit on HIM! Laughs forever.

After the guy upstairs dies, Caroline decides they should know the rest of their neighbors. If I was their neighbor, they would already know me because I would have told them to get rid of the smelly ass horse they kept in the yard. I don’ t understand the urge to get to know your neighbors unless they happen to be a calendar girl. That’s just more people you have to pretend to care about. Anyway, here’s where it gets still not good. They think the new upstairs neighbor is a madam. Do you for some odd reason think that sex workers are people? Then you are going to want to have sex for money with this episode!

The “young people please relate to this show” joke

Caroline: Max, this is life. Not Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

The gay joke

Caroline: Max, come out.
Max: If I came out, it would not be for you. It’d be for that hot dragon tattoo girl.

The edgy joke

Caroline: I mean who does she think I am? Someone she can just buy off with a tube of Chanel?
Max: Well your legs did kind of snap back over your head pretty quick when she offered it.

The dark joke

Caroline: It’s weird not to know your neighbors.
Max: No, it’s weird not to know your father but by the time you’re four you get over and it move on.

The non-PC joke

Caroline: “Hi, thanks for the lip gloss and the series of uncomfortable conversations with every lover I’ll have the rest of my life.”
Max: You don’t need to tell them. They’ll figure it out eventually.

The vagina joke

Max: More optimistic, right? On the other side of that door is all the money you lost. And then we move back into your townhouse and I masturbate in your tub for a change.

The joke that leads to a lot of questions

Max: You’d be a terrible hooker.

Wondering what exactly would make her a terrible hooker?

Caroline: I have a heart and soul and dreams and wanna fall in love and have a family.

All in all, this episode was not racist. It had no time to be when it was too busy spewing the feminist agenda that accompanies all female-fronted comedies. I feel so empowered right now. It’s almost like I could do whatever I wanted to with my body and be ok with it.

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Brittani

Brittani Nichols is a Los Angeles based comedy person. When she's not tweeting about white people or watching television, she's probably eating pizza. Actually, she's probably doing all three of those things concurrently and when she's not doing THAT, she's sleeping. Brittani also went to Yale and feels weird about mentioning it but wants you to know.

Brittani has written 328 articles for us.

15 Comments

  1. Why do the ladies here at autostraddle continue you to watch and review shows that the writer obviously hate? Here’s an idea that I have floated before. Write your own show. The collective talents of you lady writers would be better used for positivity rather than these mean spirited reviews of shows.

    • I was going to point out how this isn’t exactly ‘mean spirited’, that some of it hilariously encourages the opening of dialogue on various issues. But then I veered off course and thought “OMG if they did write their own show they would still write ‘mean spirited’ reviews about their own show and how awesome would that be?!”

      And then I veered off course again and thought “Why do people always point out things they don’t like after reading said things instead of using their positiveness to write their own positive recaps if they don’t like it so much?”

      • “And then I veered off course again and thought “Why do people always point out things they don’t like after reading said things instead of using their positiveness to write their own positive recaps if they don’t like it so much?”

        THIS!

        but also, many of us have written our own shows (including me)! but getting a show on television is about 95% about who you are and who you know and 5% about whether or not that show is good. it’s nothing like what people imagine it to be. and we do have two of our own shows right here on this website — Unicorn Plan-It and In Your Box Office.

        personally i’ve never hidden the fact that i am incredibly bitter and jealous of Ilene Chaiken b/c she has the connections to get crappy shit on teevee and none of the talented writers I know/love are able to do the same. i mean, Logo doesn’t even make shows about women anymore, it’s kinda depressing.

        • also i am fairly certain brittani does in fact work in TV, and actually is part of the process of creating shows rather than just sitting back and wishing they were better. which is neat! i mean, someone has to, right?

          • I do! And I want to write for television shows! And the list of people I am jealous of includes anyone with more than 75 dollars in their bank account! And if 2 Broke Girls offered me a job right now I would write ten racist jokes without a second thought. I have no morals people. I am an affront to society.

  2. ummm, there was a room full of women in sexy pajamas/lingerie type things. that’s what i remember from this episode.

    i want to go to there.

  3. Glad to hear the terrible racist jokes are (possibly) disappearing from the show. Despite the presence of Kat Dennings, I was not able to get through more than two episodes without wanting to vom. Maybe I’ll start watching again. Hopefully they have realized that you can make characters funny without resorting to lame racial stereotypes (and also that maybe that their show would be more successful without them).

    I enjoy Brittani’s recaps; I don’t get the sense that she hates the show, only that she enjoys poking fun at it’s flaws. You can like something while also being critical of it.

    Oh, and is the dumb horse gone yet?

    • Thanks. I don’t HATE it. There are shows I hate and this isn’t one of them. I am generally not a huge supporter of multi-cam comedies. I was a big fan of a few of the writers coming into the show and to seem them resort to jokes that are, for lack of a better word, “easy” is disappointing.

      I make fun of everything. Me making fun of something doesn’t mean I hate it. I make fun of myself all the time. But I do hate myself so maybe that’s not a solid point.

      The horse is gone! For the most part anyway.

  4. I want all of you to know that last night I was waiting to catch a train and this show was playing loudly on a TV at the train station. There were multiple Amish families waiting for trains, and the TV was too loud to ignore. It was really uncomfortable to watch this episode surrounded by Amish.

  5. Despite your amusing recaps, I just can’t watch this show anymore. I think I’m finally going to stop recording it.

    The show has some great writers, it’s a shame they can’t really let loose with their comedic style.

  6. No racist jokes? How about the whole ‘hey we have an eastern european character, let’s make sex work punchlines!’ thing?

    • Word. I was totally taken aback when I watched the episode. While the show consistently has a lot of racist jokes about the diner crew, I don’t feel like there’s been an episode yet where the central plot revolved around a xenophobic stereotype.

      I’ve been thinking about it a little more though and I guess I do like that the resolution ended up being that the girls were completely wrong. I’d like it if the show turned things around and ended up making fun of the girls for being prejudiced, rather than continually mocking minorities. I don’t think this episode did that in a very clever or effective way, but it would be an improvement.

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