Last April, Jewesses collectively gasped (us included) when they heard the news that Comedy Central’s Broad City would end after a final fifth season in 2019.
Since it graduated from web series to sitcom in 2014, we’ve been lucky to follow the hijinks of co-stars and creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer’s exaggerated version of themselves, and have fallen deeper in love with the real life Jewish BFFs with every forthcoming season. Despite promising one last batch of episodes, the duo’s decision to end the only show Jewish girls could call their own sort of felt like a betrayal (at least to me). But, perhaps we’re being too selfish.
After spending the last decade in the universe they’d created — starting in 2009 with the web series — the comedic duo needs some space.
“It feels like we have two babies, who are our inner children, and we’re sending them off to college,” Glazer said in a highly enjoyable interview with the New York Times. “You don’t need us anymore.”
I’m not so sure about that last sentiment, but I do know that the fifth season of Broad City promises a bucketload of personal growth for both Ilana Wexler and Abbi Abrams, Jacobson and Glazer’s characters. How am I so sure? Because they dished some serious golden nuggets to the Times. Here are some of the highlights I’m most looking forward to:
1. A new friend?! In the fifth season, a story line will revolve around Abbi making a new friend (played by Lucia Aniello, who writes and directs for Broad City). We know this will be hard on possessive Ilana, who’d rather be the center of her best friend’s world. But it’s a very welcome addition, as Glazer notes: “…it’s actually a problem. They need other friends.”
2. A new girlfriend. Not only does she get a new friend, but Abbi also enters her first relationship with a woman in the new season. Jacobson herself is bisexual and wrote about it in her debut essay collection, and Glazer referred to this plot line as “completely sincere.”
“Abbi’s not the fumbling idiot we’re used to seeing, trying to ask someone out,” Jacobson said. “It feels more real.”
3. Funky formats. For those itching for more spoilers, we also have some intel on the season premiere: It’s going to look something like a documentary via Instagram stories. The duo have played around with experimental formats in the past — remember when they tripped on mushrooms and half the episode was animated? — so we’re looking forward to seeing how this one plays out.
Reflecting on the end of their “two babies,” Glazer and Jacobson said they feel free and proud to finally figure out how different and similar they are to their characters. “It’s not completely, exactly us, but it’s us,” Glazer said.
So, nu? What will happen to the comedians’ chemistry? Will it fade into an abyss because the show that glued them to the hip is over? Of course not!
The rapport the two Jewesses share on camera is very much a mirror image of their relationship IRL (and don’t worry, they also have two upcoming joint projects in the works). They constantly spend time together, and Jacobson said she even went to Glazer’s parents’ Hanukkah dinner.
“Um, I held Hanukkah,” Glazer interjected. “My parents were guests.”
Although the (objectively speaking) best sitcom about two, scrappy Jewish New York girls hustling to make ends meet has reached the finish line, there’s a silver lining for those in mourning. Glazer and Jacobson might be taking the amplified versions of themselves off screen, but there’s no doubt they’ll continue doing what Broad City gals do best: noshing on weed gummies, going to couples’ massages, and crying and laughing, and crying and laughing some more, when they get, as Glazer puts it, “verklempt.”
Header image via Comedy Central