2 Broke Girls, S3E22 “And the New Lease on Life”: A TV Review

It’s been over a week, I know, but it’s still hard for me to get past the fact that Eric Andre aka Deke Bromberg aka Max’s boyfriend who literally lived in a dumpster is no longer with us. With the way the show revolves around its two female leads it probably would’ve been detrimental for either of them to settle down with a guy, and I can accept that. What I can’t accept is how poorly it was done. 

The fact that this blog is getting so many hits from search terms like “did max break up with her boyfriend on two broke girls” and “why did max and deke break up” just proves my point. Audience members aren’t even really sure whether or not he’s actually gone. This week’s episode doesn’t mention him at all, and with two episodes to go it’s unlikely it will.

Now I’m totally willing to admit if I’m wrong, but I just feel like their breakup could have served as a big emotional climax in the finale. Eric Andre was in eight episodes, which is a third of the entire season; that’s substantial. What happened instead is that they closed the door on that chapter of Max’s life and moved on to the final three installments. This one is about an old man. Next week’s is about horse racing and/or gambling.

To a point, this show has always had some sort of narrative drive. Season 1 was all about getting the money to open a cupcake store. Season 2 was about them actually running that business. Season 3 has been about Max going to pastry school and her relationship with Deke. Those both ended very abruptly in the same episode. Now we’re directionless. We’re just killing time until this season wraps up and we face the months-long wait for the next one.

There isn’t much to say about 2 Broke Girls this week, really. Not besides my tirade about how badly they handled Eric Andre leaving the show. In this episode Max and Caroline need to find the original tenant [old man Lester Donovan] to renew their lease, and then have to find a way to kick him out. It’s actually a pretty simple solution: he’ll leave once he has sex.

That all leads to the scene that tumblr is gushing about, where the two realize that they need to move out because neither is going to make it happen with a geriatric. Pushing aside the logic that they could just find another place together, it culminates with the two girls unloading some pretty emotional truths on one another-

“I’m not ready to live without you” isn’t a sentence that Season 1 Max Black would’ve whispered to anyone, let alone the once-wealthy heiress that owns a dang horse. My assumption is that the writers meant this to be a pretty significant moment, and it is, to a point. The problem is that we just saw the two girls slow dancing together last episode. Not only that, but we’re reminded of how close they are just about ever Monday night. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with promoting this image of a strong female friendship, but the show can’t get by on that alone.

Sophie saves the day, by the way. Not to say that she has sex with Lester or anything. She’s so skilled at the art of lovemaking that she intimidates the poor man, and he settles on a quick selfie as proof of his conquest to his friends back at the home [“Pics or it didn’t happen!”]

Whether or not to get down with a bad grandpa works as the loose premise for twenty-some minutes of TV, but the problem is that 2 Broke Girls has never pretended to be Seinfeld. It’s not a show about nothing. We have three episodes to wrap up the season and pave the way to next fall, and I’m curious as to how they’re going to keep the momentum going after the whiplash that was Deke’s exodus.

Current Total: $2,650.

New Total: $2,614. Last episode a commenter put me in my place regarding my quibbling over this amount. This time around, however, I really can’t think of why they’re $36 down. Again, even if they did spend money, are they not making any due to waitressing/selling cupcakes?

The Title Refers To: The girls get the lease renewed on their apartment. Also, an old person finds something worth living for.

Stray Observations:

• The diner staff meeting at the beginning really hits home how little we’ve seen of the secondary cast. Han really hits it on the head when he says he’s “noticed lately our diner family is drifting apart.”
• It’s apparently still funny to joke about how he is a woman.
• Caroline’s ringtone is “Let It Go”. Max keeps her phone on vibrate “out of respect for those around me and also for little orgasms,” which makes me wonder what can and can’t get past TV censors.
• “Quick, grab two things you love!” “I love nothing in here.”
• A toilet lawn actually sounds super rad.
• “At least the black mould made the other mould move out of the neighbourhood.”
• They talk about the apartment being crappy, but let’s not forget that it is gigantic.
• “I- I need you to wake up for this!”
• Old people really do have a lot of sex.
• This week, in Caroline never having taken sex-ed: “Are you sure, because I don’t wanna have an old baby.”
• “I mighta gone there too if knew he had an iPhone 5S.”
•  2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Nothing to see here, folks.