Tonight’s double header of 2 Broke Girls fit together rather well thematically: both episodes were about Max (in ‘And the Big Opening’) and Caroline (‘And the Silent Partner’) getting distracted by boys, and blissfully ignoring the failures during the first month of owning a cupcake shop. Surround it with 41 jokes about sex/genitalia in 42 and a half minutes of television, and you’ve got two pretty typical episodes of the series.
What bothers me about these two episodes is how it undermines the supposed intelligence of their characters by reinforcing tired cliches about young females that are obsessed with – and parallel their love lives with – Kate Hudson and Julia Roberts-starring romantic comedies – or in the case of Max, abandoning any vengeful feelings the second she hears old fling Johnny (hipster with the glasses, girlfriend, and separate fiancee) comes around, because … well, because Max apparently rejects the cliches of romantic comedies by embracing them fully in this instance.
I feel bad for Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings at times – on some other show, with some other writers and show runners on a different network, those two could actually make a fun comedic pairing. But here, they’re forced to put on the pounds of make up and subject themselves to self-deprecating humor because that’s what people tune in for. I’m sure they don’t mind the paychecks, but I wonder at times if they ever regret signing up with the comedic black hole known as Whitney Cummings, who for some reason seems to not only hate herself, but all of females in general.
It doesn’t help that both episodes feel like they were pieced together with Elmer’s glue by an eight-year old on Adderall: both episode introduce and resolve plots seemingly at random, with no regard for rational structure or meaningful conclusion. Both episodes start out with plots about Sophie getting involved in their businesses, but both close with tired speeches that reveal the character’s complete lack of depth. ‘And the Big Opening’ finishes with Max/Johnny doing it a bunch, then breaking up four days later because “I only want guys I can’t have, and now I don’t want him”, and ‘And the Silent Partner’ concludes with Caroline getting her rom-com dream come true “I love you” moment with Andy (which in true 2 Broke Girls styles, happens while he’s taking a shit).
‘And the Big Opening’: D
‘And the Silent Partner’: D
Other thoughts/observations:
– ‘Big Opening’, being penned by talentless co-creator Patrick Michael King, is exceptionally misogynistic (and since he’s gay, has a flamboyant gay character who shed stereotypes… because he’s a bouncer!!) with 25 sex/genitalia jokes (or a SGJ rate of 1.17, a stat I debuted on Twitter earlier this evening).
– more 2BG stats: 41 sex jokes… but only 5 jokes about suicide!
– why would a Polish home invasion involve something tacky? none of their Polish humor makes any sense, and I think that’s what’s most offensive. You can write “Chinese man is short and no speak English good” but you cant write one fucking joke about Polish people getting confused easily? Fucking hacks, I tell ya.
– Max and Caroline wear black and white to their shop opening – because they’re, like, totally night and day when it comes to personality and hair color and stuff.
– as always, gays = validation.
– Earl, the old black man, likes a nice punchbowl full of cocaine, if anybody is looking to get him a Christmas gift (though he’s black, so on this show, it’s automatically Kwanzaa, right?)
– there were about eight references too many made to Sophie’s vagina in ‘And the Silent Partner’…. *shiver*
– two things I actually found funny: the way everybody just blatantly ignored Han in ‘Big Opening’ (usually looking right at him for a moment, and away with no response), and Caroline pounding pancakes later in the episode.
What did you think of tonight’s episodes? Feel free to leave your thoughts/comments below!
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