2 Broke Girls, S4E15 “And the Fat Cat”: A TV Review

There were a lot of great things in this episode. First and foremost, the A-plot, which involved Max and Caroline trying to blackmail venture capitalist Owen Charles Boyd after his cat impregnates theirs. The fact that I could wrap it up in a single sentence underscores its simplicity. Once you’ve established the premise you’re free to concentrate on jokes and the absurdity that spins out of it, and the former has some wins [the latter I’ll get to].

While we’re staying positive, it was nice to see them back up the fact that the two girls live in a bad neighbourhood. They’re always going on about how horrible their life is in their enormous apartment, so having honest to goodness evidence that what lies outside of it is women screaming [which, let’s face it, is pretty uncomfortable] and men running away [presumably from some recently committed crime] and garbage literally everywhere is nice. It’s the closest the 2 Broke Girls has come to “showing vs. telling” in a long time, even if it is undercut by the fact that they still reference stuff off-screen. I guess that’s my cue to get into a little bit of criticism.

Those legs. Yikes.

Remember Chestnut? He’s been around since the first season but didn’t make an appearance until he absolutely needed to, for the Victoria’s Secret models to fawn over when they visited [S4E6]. On a similar note, we haven’t seen Nancy, their cat, since early last season, in “And the It Hole” [S3E8]. I totally understand that it’s hard to have live animals on set, but if it’s that difficult why bother “casting” them at all? To have a pet not appear for 30 episodes, or more than an entire season of the show, feels especially strange when one of the minor conflicts between Max and Caroline is how the latter is not a fan of said pet, while the former is.

To restate the first paragraph, I really do like the premise of the episode. I do. My problem is that someone in the writers’ room came up with it and they then had to sort of create a status quo out of thin air to support the narrative. Up to this point most of us had honestly forgotten that Nancy even existed. Except for me, of course, because-

I cannot forget this. Nancy was named after Sophie’s dead Polish friend because she was or is apparently a reincarnation of that person. I will never forget it because an actual Polish person called it out for being racist BS in the comments section and now here we are, and here’s this cat and all I can think is that humour based on false stereotypes rarely ever pays off.

As for the episode itself, their blackmail fails, which is unsurprising given that the show predicates itself on not giving the girls a “win”. I would like to note, however, that they are focusing on the consequence of the $10K business loan and the thousands of t-shirts that they cannot sell because a serial kidnapper wore it on the news. It may not seem like it, but this is actually the direst their situation has ever been, especially since they appear have all but given up on actually selling cupcakes to make money.

At this point we have five more episodes left before Season 4 comes to a close, and what I’m really hoping for is that the finale has all the lasting effectiveness of “And the Window of Opportunity” [S2E24] in regards to shaking things up, and not the forced and oft-repeated emotional beat of “And the First Degree” [S3E24]. I of course hope that things get better, or at least head in a specific direction, given the fact that as of a few weeks ago 2 Broke Girls was renewed for a 5th season. You read that right, everyone, I’m stuck to this show for at least another year. This isn’t the worst episode to ponder that idea, either, because as you can see below there was some pretty solid comedic writing this week-

Current Total: $1,475.

New Total: $975. Once again leaving viewers to figure out where $500 of cold hard cash went. They discuss fixing Nancy due to her being a “slut”, so I guess that’s what happened to their rapidly dwindling total.

The Title Refers To: Nancy being pregnant.

Stray Observations:

• Earl talking about how he might die during sex: “I know, those ladies don’t know whether I’m coming or going”
• “No, I sleep like a dead baby it’s my one gift.” I remember dead baby jokes.
• “Yeah, I don’t need a thousand pink t-shirts. My dad’s already mad at me I don’t care about sports.”
• “I-” / “Here it comes-” / “-went to Wharton.” / “-boom.”
• “This one won’t come out, it’s like the Queen Latifah of kittens.”
• Han doesn’t pay for cat maternity leave. “This isn’t Google.”
• “Did he just drop a gun?” / “It’s fine, he has more.”
• “Do either of you know how to turn the phrase self-absorbed ridiculous pig into a compliment?”
• There’s no way these kittens could be siblings, the look wildly different from each other and exactly 0% of them look like Nancy.
• “Invest? This is the financial capital of the world yes it is-“
• As a quick FYI to Max, Grumpy cat is a “she”. Everyone knows this.
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Not today.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: I’m not going to say I miss the T&A, but I at the very least miss writing about the T&A.
• Dated Reference Galore: There’s a Jonah Hill fat joke. I didn’t know we were still making those.