Broadened Horizons

As Broad City’s Abbi And Ilana Venture Into Unfamiliar Territory—Like Politics, And The State Of Florida—Their IRL Selves Are Experiencing Their Own Evolution. .

- Paige Ferrari

“MAYBE IT’S THE RIGHT TIME TO THROW IN AN OVERTLY POLITICAL Seated in a sunny edit bay in Midtown Manhattan, Abbi Jacobson poses this declarative question to her Broad City cohort Ilana Glazer, and the two ponder for a beat whether the scene they’re working on should end with an anti-Trump sight gag.

In the episode, the girls travel to Florida and adopt the state’s local customs and costumes: perms, neon tracksuits, driving a Cadillac the size of a New York studio apartment. As the show ends, and the camera pulls away from the pastel sprawl of retirement homes below, they could insert a skywriter, or maybe an airplane trailing a fluttering banner that says #resist. It would be the final touch on an episode filled with Broad City standards: bong hits, irreverent Judaism, body-cavity jokes. Maybe it’s just the right flourish for 2017?

“We could put that in there,” says Jacobson. “But it’s also, like, just being ourselves is resistance.”

Side by side on a couch, in sweatshirts and ponytails, feet pulled up under them and computers balanced on their laps, Jacobson and Glazer don’t look different from their stoner alter egos. But after three seasons of Broad City, fictional Abbi and Ilana are still broke and struggling to get in the game, while the real Jacobson and Glazer have become one of comedy’s most powerful duos.

“[Over time] I’ve watched the machine of Abbi and Ilana just get faster and sleeker,” says Glazer of their IRL partnership. “And it’s just so delicious to press the button, or pull the lever. I’m like, ‘Just go bitch.’” She pauses. “I don’t want to speak for Abbi, but I’m pretty proud of us. We’re sick.”