2 Broke Girls, S6E3 “And the 80’s Movie”: A TV Review

Even given the premiere’s botched opening it’s still a bit surprising that we return to see Max and Caroline’s Dessert Bar as having been open for a full week. As the girls’ most recent attempt at finally making it big I expected there to be more excitement surrounding it, yet we find that they’re still working at the diner due to their business having trouble taking off.

It’s strange to type the words “still working at the diner” since that’s such a core aspect of the show. All of CBS’s promotional material for 2 Broke Girls has them wearing their waitress uniforms and at this point doing away with them would be like having Howard Wolowitz in anything other than a turtleneck, or Barney Stinson without a suit. The fact that the premiere would even tease them leaving their mustard yellow threads behind  was jarring enough, however shortlived it was. Having them hint at moving away from the status quo in consecutive episodes may just be a coincidence, but if it shows up again next Monday something has to be up. It’s not to say that I expect the show to make any drastic moves right out the gate, but there does appear to be a testing of the waters.

All that being said, the A-plot of “And the 80’s Movie” isn’t anything to write home about. Seeking upscale clientele for the Dessert Bar they hit up the chicest spot in Williamsburg where they’re bound to find “models, gays, rich guys that want to have sex with models . . . and gays.” While Caroline starts rubbing shoulders with the aforementioned Max find a kindred spirit in a snarky female bouncer. This in turn leads to said bouncer showing up to the Dessert Bar with a crowd of rowdy, boisterous women who also happen to be members of NYC’s Elite Ladies’ Underground Arm Wrestling . . . Association [I’m not sure what the group is officially titled, they never say]. This of course is the opposite of what they wanted, and it’s up to them to figure out how to get them out of there.

A big part of these reviews has always been prodding at the gaping holes in the narrative’s logic, and this one is harder to ignore than most. It’s not so much that the group is loud [they are] and bothering other customers [they’re actively scaring them away], it’s that they aren’t technically even clientele. Caroline points out that the beer they’re drinking they brought themselves, and when she insists they order something they ask for a round of waters. This is a valid and legal reason to ask people to leave your place of business. Instead they have to arm wrestle Big Reba, because of course they do, in order to get them to leave.

In another predictable turn of events Caroline is the one to defeat the champ, not Max. The climax of the episode involves the latter motivating her friend by shouting about how awful her life has become, to which the former bumps it up to another level of overacting. 

Now don’t get me wrong, “You haven’t had sex in a year!” ain’t bad. “You chased a dollar onto the third rail of the subway and you didn’t even get it!” is actually quite funny. “You work as a waitress in a diner” is, well, a fact Caroline should be familiar with given the past few years. It’s just, “Old Navy is out of your price range!” isn’t the strongest closer.

That and, although I’ve very often cited Beth Behrs as being the comedic bright spot that makes each episode significantly more bearable, she’s a bit much here. It’s like each successive level she was being directed in a bizarro WKUK sketch where she was told to instead act “angrier and with your mouth open”.

There’s a C-plot for both Earl and Han which involves them fighting over a stool that’s not bad, especially considering that it gives 2 Broke Girls least-utilized players something to do with one another, however short that time may be. What I regretfully feel like I need to touch on [with a ten foot pole] is Sophie and Oleg’s B-plot.

Last week I wondered if the show would “be able to balance its trademark raunchy humour with the presence of a toddler”, but that question is relevant now given that I feel they’re struggling to do that with an unseen newborn. Both parents spend most of their time onscreen lusting after one another, which leads to a truly horrific scene in which they essentially use the stroller to low-key grind on one another-

I found myself mimicking Caroline’s facial expressions, but in or outside of a comedic context it’s wildly unsettling. This is the very first full episode in which Sophie and Oleg and a mother and father, respectively, and while the latter has a brief moment where he fawns over his daughter they’re largely preoccupied with trying not to bone one another. It’s certainly not the character growth I was hoping for, anyway.

All in all this episode was largely foreseeable, and doesn’t offer much promise for future installments, at least as far as what might come along next. At the very least Max and Randy have “decided to continue [their] non-exclusive long-distance sexting thing”, which has been comforting in its own way.

Current Total: $535.00

New Total: $1,050. My assumption is that the bump in funds is profit from the Dessert Bar.

The Title Refers To: Max and Caroline having to arm wrestle for control of their very own business. The latter even directly says “it’s gettin’ real 80’s movie up in here.”

Stray Observations:

• the cold open had a joke about an entire pack of dogs entering the diner and trying to have sex with Caroline. Yikes.
• That said, what were the censors even doing with this episode given that Oleg helped Max sext Randy by typing “”your testicles are two glistening Cadbury Eggs and mama’s got a sweet tooth” to which my only reaction is-

I’ve actually never seen Oreshura, I’m not some kind of anime nerd.

• In all seriousness, though, 2 Broke Girls appears to be pushing the limit on what they can get away with.
• Sophie treats the stroller with her infant child in it really roughly. Caroline quips that “there better be a cartoon baby dressed like Al Capone in that thing”, but really, yikes.
• Oleg’s erotic poetry was rejected by National Pornographic.
• “I can’t wait for you to put your butt on my butt . . . in my pants.” But really though, Max was not good at sexting.
• “Nahani and Arielle are models, they can eat whatever they want HATE THEM.”
• “It’s my cheat night, that’s why I’m with him.” Oh, those sassy gays.
• I enjoyed how they called the bouncer out for showing up in gym shorts and a SUNY Albany sweatshirt.
• “Can you unfollow a person in real life?”
• Earl flaming Han for being short is pretty hypocritical, really.
• “Find a dock or a junkyard or a Buffalo Wild Wings.” / “Who wants to drink where they work?”
• “I’m gonna tell you what I tell three tourists a day: I am not Carl Weathers.”