Tag Archives: Nicholas Jasenovec

TV Review: Broad City S4E10 Friendiversary

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“Friendiversary” is really freaking weird episode of Broad City and it’s also incredibly simple. Unlike the Season 3 finale, which was a two part episode and involved serialization and a plane flight to Israel, director Nicholas Jasenovec and writers Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson just have Abbi and Ilana running around New York City. It starts as Ilana doing a scavenger hunt for Abbi complete with creepy masks, pretending to be a puppy and horse, and nauseatingly good chicken fingers and turns into a murder mystery. Having the girls bounce off each other in hilarious and heartfelt ways continues to be just as good as it was when they were scrounging up money to see Lil Wayne by cleaning adult baby Fred Armisen’s apartment back in the first ever episode of Broad City.

The murder mystery with a super freaky plot twist isn’t the only tension causing part of Broad City. Glazer and Jacobson decide to inject a little drama into Abbi and Ilana’s friendship as Abbi forgot it was their friend anniversary and didn’t have a gift or activity planned so she improvises with a facial mask and a trip to the top of Empire State Building. This pales in comparison to Ilana giving Abbi her family heirloom (Its backstory is Fiddler on the Roof meets Christopher Walken’s character in Pulp Fiction.) and dropping four figures on blowing cardboard versions of each other’s faces. Early, in the episode, Glazer gives little pauses, and there is a little less pep in her line readings as she realizes that Abbi flat out forgot their friendiversary. It shows a quieter, sad side of the character, but things are back to full energy when Ilana realizes that the observation deck on the Empire State Building is perfect for watching people have sex and also get “murdered”.

For many of the stories in Broad City Season 4, the writers have given Abbi and Ilana separate plots that dovetail towards the beginning or end of the episode. “Friendiversary” is full fledged team-up and a love letter to one of the most fun and endearing friendships on television. A lesser show would have them fighting over Abbi’s forgetfulness, but Glazer and Jacobson create a film noir story with a Broad City twist and show that she really cares about Ilana. I mean she would break into a possible murderer’s apartment and hide in his closet for her.

Although the cold open is all wacky comedy reveals and playful costumes worn by Glazer, Nicholas Jasenovec gets to go a little psychological thriller in his direction of “Friendiversary”. There’s a nice hip hop montage when Abbi and Ilana share chicken fingers and margaritas, but that is replaced with cold, steady direction as a man paces in his apartment with a knife or goes into the back room of a karaoke bar with a suitcase and leaves with no suitcase. Abbi and Ilana are the most unlikely gumshoe detectives, but their friendship conquers skill deficiency and genre tropes. Somehow, they end up in the man’s apartment, and the conclusion of the episode gets on-screen and offscreen laughs, but after Jasenovec does these tight, true crime angles that create an air of menace. It’s cool that “Friendiversary” gets to be a relationship study and a bit of a genre exercise.

In a Broad City season filled with mostly successful experiments and a few duds, “Friendiversary” is relaxing in its lack of ambition. Glazer and Jacobson, Abbi and Ilana put it all on the line, show how much they love each other, and get a little freaky along the way, which is all I could want out of a Broad City finale. Character growth would be interesting, but sometimes it’s nice to have a show that revels in its hilarious, chemistry filled status quo. Who doesn’t love a murder mystery that can be solved by the power of friendship?

Overall Verdict: 8.0

TV Review: Broad City S4E05 “Abbi’s Mom”

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“Abbi’s Mom” begins with a killer cold open from director Nicholas Jasenovec that is familiar to anyone who has ever speed cleaned and used special techniques to hide “sinful” things in their apartment from their parents. Jasenovec doesn’t shoot the scene with any kind of big camera flourishes or slow-mo like he uses later in the episode, but uses lots of fairly quick cuts and digs into the visual comedy of it all like Abbi thinking her mom will think her dildo is a kind of artsy knick knack or Ilana making a “Welcome Abbi’s Mom” poster for her. The cold open also ties neatly into the theme of parents and/or adult authority figure not being as put together as we thought they were when we were younger that writer Ilana Glazer chooses to focus on in this episode. This is in addition to a plot line that features Ilana’s seasonal affective disorder (SAD) hindering her performance at work at Sushi Mambeaux, especially when Marcel sets up a “winner takes all and the loser gets fired” Glengarry Glen Ross style table waiting contest.

Peri Gilpin, who was easily the best part of Frasier, turns in a performance as Abbi’s mom Joanne that is honest, funny, and tragic. At the beginning of the episode, it seems like Jasenovec and Glazer are setting up a whole “moms/middle age women” go bad kind of scenario, and Abbi and Joanne do shots, smoke weed, and even go shopping in a sex shop together during the closing credits tag. However, this “bad” behavior comes from Joanne feeling her mortality as a 55 year old woman when she gets a lump on her breast removed and realizes that she hasn’t “lived” as much as she wanted to.

She laments the fact that she and her current husband haven’t had sex in over a month and says that she penetrated herself with a bottle of cough syrup in a very matter of fact way that turns into total giggles when she starts smoking weed with Abbi. It’s super sad, but Gilpin gets the role of the overly moral mom with the hilarious delivery of lines like “I have never had a martini” or “I haven’t had hard liquor since I was pregnant with you.” She does broad comedy well too like when Ilana admits to being sexually attracted to her and when, of course, she flirts with a shirtless Bevers. Gilpin and Jacobson play off each other very well, especially with Abbi in semi-crisis mode after her very scripted, touristy plans for her and her mom go completely to hell thanks to Joanne’s midlife crisis.

Abbi really is the calm in the storm of “Abbi’s Mom” between messing around with tin foil to “MacGyver” the SAD lamp that Ilana has been carrying around everywhere to be like a functional human being and keeping her mom from having a public meltdown. Her being the glue between Ilana and Joanne’s storyline gives this episode a coherent, almost bottle episode structure with most of its running time happening in the unique ecosystem that is Sushi Mambeaux. From the beginning of the episode, it seems like Abbi and her mom will range over New York like she and Ilana have done in previous episodes of Broad City, but they basically chill at Ilana’s very upscale work.

By sticking Abbi, Ilana, and Joanne in this space, Nicholas Jasenovec shows how depression can make you feel trapped, not like yourself, and doing strange things to cope instead of taking more medication or going to therapy because that would mean you have “problems.” He uses a kind of slow haze effect in scenes that would be an upbeat hip hop montage like previous episodes set at the restaurant where Ilana makes a fortune with tips. Jasenovec and Glazer show Ilana at her most vulnerable, which Marcel thinks is some long con for the table waiting contest, but he eventually realizes that her depression is affecting her work performance and is empathetic in his own supremely petty way. It also allows RuPaul Charles to add a touch of dramatic nuance to his usual one-liner flinging and shade throwing.

“Abbi’s Mom” tackles the issues of depression, midlife crises and regrets, and mother/daughter relationships and still manages to be a devilishly funny episode of Broad City with RuPaul Charles continuing to build a case for a Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Emmy nomination.

Overall Verdict: 9.0

TV Review: Broad City S4E4 Mushrooms

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Man, I think a got a contact high from this episode. In Broad City Season 4, Episode 4 “Mushrooms”, writer Abbi Jacobson and director Nicholas Jasenovec cut loose animator Mike Perry, who has mostly worked on the show’s title sequence, to do an almost fully animated mushroom sequence. “Mushrooms” is one of Broad City‘s most stunning episodes to date with vibrant colors and little visual jokes like a skateboarder using a pat of butter to get across a pancake and a kooky blend of animation and live action when Abbi and Ilana run into the real world, namely, getting macarons for Abbi’s boss, Dara’s (Wanda Sykes) wife. But, like a bad trip combined with smoking weed, “Mushrooms” gets a little dark at the end, and Abbi gets some consequences for doing drugs around her boss, oops.

But before the comedown, there’s a glorious trip courtesy of the imagination of Jacobson, Jasenovec, and Perry. It’s a cliche to say that New York is a living organism and/or character in Broad City, but this tired sentiment is truer than ever in “Mushrooms”. Even though they’re playing their characters in voiceover, Jacobson and Glazer bound with energy and big thoughts about love, how moms are basically superheroes, and how pickles and French people are cool. Jasenovec revels in Abbi and Ilana’s trip for the first third or so of the episode and doesn’t cut away to live action people gawking at them, but explores the alleys and tunnels and rivers of this experience with a Bingo Bronson cameo playing the cherry on top. After their separation in previous episodes, it’s also nice to see Abbi and Ilana together enjoying life. The word “love” pops up a lot so this whole sequence is basically an animated dream world version of their friendship. I could look at the color palette of the animation all day and definitely smiled when their tripping-balls-high-five activated the Broad City 1-2-3-4.

Jacobson, Jasenovec, and Perry somewhat (He gives Abbi and Ilana big eyes to differentiate their tripping selves from the regular people they bump into.) continue the happiness into the real world as even tripping on mushrooms, Abbi and Ilana successfully deliver the macarons to Abbi’s boss. Yay, adulting! Also, the macaron buying sequence is another excuse for pretty colors and for Perry to animate an entire scene set in Paris with the character who sells the macarons to them speaking only French. Abbi and Ilana’s speaking patterns are a little off, like Ilana speaking on a beat and clapping when talking with Dara, but they find success to match the color of their trip. Dara has seen Abbi’s old art school website and offers to take time out of her busy schedule to meet with her while Ilana somehow has lucked her way into what ends up being a very kinky three way with an attractive, wealthy couple at the party. However, drugs and professional/sexual opportunities don’t mix unfortunately, and Jacobson takes “Mushrooms to the dark side as Abbi and Ilana come of their trip.

Towards the end of “Mushroom”, Jasenovec and Jacobson give consequences for Abbi and Ilana splitting up just before they’re having a bad trip and mixing mushrooms and weed too early in a logical, very non-anti drug PSA way. When Abbi and Ilana smoke a little too much weed mixed with the mushrooms, Jasenovec slows down the camera speed while showing puffs of color as they become even more incoherent. They have no idea how to act at a party or do sexy things with Ilana constantly going to the bathroom and having hallucinations of Lincoln (Hannibal Burress) because deep down Abbi’s situation is a lot of worst even though initially it looks like her boss is going to be cool with her tripping balls because it’s a weekend, and she’s artsy. But, then, it gets dark and funny when Dara discovers her cat dead and smashed against a door. Yes, Abbi is a pet killer, and it will be interesting to see the upcoming episodes explore the fallout of something I definitely laughed at, but is terrible. So, the girls’ first experience with mushroom didn’t go as planned even though there were definitely some pretty colors in the early going.

“Mushrooms” is definitely one of the most creative and definitely immersive episodes of Broad City thanks to the animation work of Mike Perry, who uses bright colors and dream logic to reinforce the show’s most primal ideas of friendship and having a good time. To be honest, the animation in this episode is superior to a lot of current animated shows like Adventure Time or any of the Netflix animated originals not named Bojack Horseman. But, like a lot of this season and the year 2017 itself, it ends up having a darker bent and consequences. Abbi especially takes one step forward at her boss’ party and then gets thrown off the path five states over.

Overall Rating: 9.8