Review: 2 Broke Girls ‘And the Psychic Shakedown’ – Don’t Be A Bitch

At times, the lack of thought that goes into writing a 2 Broke Girls episode is actually impressive – having two character that adhere to the broadest of stereotypes at all times completely prevents the show from having to try and convey any kind of actual emotion beyond proud vulgarity. ‘And the Psychic Shakedown’ is an episode that’s worse than the average episode I described: it tries to set some emotional stakes for its character, and completely whiffs when it comes down to making any sense of it, as if they just gave up halfway through and said “who cares, just throw in some meth jokes and forget the ‘feelings’ stuff”.

At the beginning, it appeared that ‘Psychic Shakedown’ was actually going to dive into Caroline’s relationship with Andy, and specifically, why it ended. She’s drawn in by a shady psychic for a reading – after being enticed by the psychic’s mention of knowing her future love life, which of course is the only thing a girl cares about – who tells her that she’ll be successful, but ultimately die alone. It seems realistic: she threw away her relationship by being too focused on her career, and doesn’t really seem all that concerned that she appears destined to die alone.

It’s a dark idea – and if she would’ve taken the news more dramatically, it would’ve made Max’s psychic reading funnier. Her reaction to being told she’d have a happy ending is robbed of its comedic effect because its not paired up with anything: the camera and conversation switch back to Caroline’s happiness over succeeding in a job and never finding any happiness outside of work doesn’t amount to much but shrugged shoulders. More importantly, it doesn’t give us any insight into how Caroline views herself and her priorities in life – which is what the premise of the episode suggests the whole thing is about.

This season of 2 Broke Girls has been a lot more interesting than the first – not better, but more engaging in the rare moments where it attempts to characterize Max and Caroline further. But it also makes it more frustrating than the first: in the freshman season, there weren’t really any story lines that raised any intriguing questions or conflicts. This season, the introduction of the cupcake business and a serious boyfriend for Caroline has at least presented us with some interesting premises – though ones that the show is completely incapable of following through to fruition at any point.

With every episode, the inability – or complete lack of interest on the part of the creative team – to resolve these ideas gets a less disappointing, I suppose. The potential for these stories and existential ideas about adulthood and happiness come nowhere close to being resolved in any sort of way, with most episodes ending on a joke, the equivalent of a shrugged shoulder that says “Hey, we filled our 22 minutes… who gives a shit how it ends?” It’s an unfortunate – although popular – direction for multi-camera sitcoms, and it leads to episodes like ‘And the Psychic Shakedown’, where pandering for poorly-written humor becomes the focal point of the episode, not telling an interesting (but amusing) story about two women fighting for financial freedom.

Grade: D+

Other thoughts/observations:

– character inconsistency: Caroline wants to focus on success, but is obsessed with the idea of not finding love in her life. She bounces back and forth, depending on what the “jokes” of the scene require.

– Sophie…. oh, Sophie.

– I wish one of these minor characters would be funny… just one. The psychic who just quit smoking was not.

– the suicide jokes step up in tonight’s episode, where someone actually commits suicide. But he was high on mushrooms, so it’s his own fault.

– Max talking about Earl being born during the “9th or 10th worst time in history to be black” was the best moment of the episode: who knew they could mix a little social commentary into their jokes?

– answer to the question in the previous bullet point: nobody, because usually we get shit loads of dumb jokes about sonograms of the Kardashian/West baby (“That baby’s famous for doing nothing… just like her mother” is a joke that got tired in 2006).

– same goes  for talking about how the last election proved “white is the new minority”, something the two girls immediately want to cash in on. American values, right?

– sorry Amir, this is not a rom-com version of Homeland… just the thought makes me shudder.

– the Zero Dark Thirty joke was so poorly constructed, it doesn’t even sound like a coherent joke on camera.

– Han, we’re going to insult the shit out of you while we ask you this, but could your tiny, Chinese, hooker-loving, midget ass sign this recommendation letter we wrote for you?

– Psychics are always telling Kat things like “your mom’s in your anus, no man will be in your anus”…

– “It’s to get rid of bad juju.” “There’s no reason to get anti-Semetic!”