Roughly six years ago I sat in a guest house in London, England, and complained to a Korean friend about not being attractive. It’s funny seeing it typed out now, and it wasn’t so starkly apparent at the time, but that’s exactly what I was worried about. We were studying abroad with a group of mostly White classmates from a predominantly White liberal arts college, and as an eighteen-year-old I had dating on the mind. That, and the beginnings of the idea that things might not be so easy for me given the colour of my skin.

And unlike John Cho and his suit, my skin does not peel away to reveal more equally-good-looking skin underneath.

My primary source was media and pop culture, and how interracial relationships weren’t showcased much, if at all [not much has changed, 2009!]. I suggested that this might create a life-imitating-art situation, where young non-hyphenated-American women might not be as open to the idea of getting together with an Asian guy due to never seeing it on screens small or large. He brought up that he’d had no problems in the past [being musical, and with that bone structure?], as well as the more damning evidence that neither had I. With that I left the topic of conversation alone, not entirely convinced or at peace with the whole thing.

Truth be told, I can probably draw the origins of my obsession with racial diversity to that point in time. It may not have been motivated by any great injustice [though I was single throughout college, (correlation or causation?)], but fast forward to the futuristic year of 2014 and we find that when observing the pop culture landscape things are little better.

Now would probably be a great time to pause and assert, possibly needlessly, how deeply important representation is. It’s not to say that we should not or cannot empathize with characters that don’t look like us, but it should never be a challenge if and when we want to. When I was a kid my favourite people on TV were Arthur, the titular aardvark, and Billy the blue Power Ranger. And do you know why that is? Because they both wore glasses.

The ABC promo people were this close to making this the most appropriate gif.

Let me drop this knowledge bomb on you that I haven’t stopped citing since I first found out about it in 2012: “The self-esteem of white girls, black girls and black boys decreases with TV consumption.” Conversely White male children, the adult versions of which have arguably the broadest and overall most positive depiction on television, get a boost. Take note that it’s not just the overall presence of a certain race or gender that’s important, it’s how they’re presented.

Take, for example, Han Lee, the only Asian cast member of a show I have reviewed 41 episodes of. Now I’m going to throw out as many adjectives that describe him as I can: short, cherubic, childlike, disrespected, impotent, unmanly, unattractive, gullible, emasculated, unpopular, effeminate, desperate . . .

I wanted to use solely Selfie gifs for this post, but the above needed to be shown.

Let’s just say that for the most part, when they’re not actively denying their heritage, Asian men are not portrayed as being particularly desirable. One of the points I brought up to my friend all of those years ago was that interracial relationships were [and are] almost exclusively presented as a White male and a non-White female, with the reverse rarely ever occurring. Asian women were exotic and alluring, Asian men were, well, asexual at best.

Over half a decade after that first conversation I had another with a different handsome Korean named John Cho, the romantic lead to the ABC sitcom Selfie. While he never spoke to me directly his existence in that role was evidence enough that maybe things really could change.

While the show was revealed to be cancelled roughly two weeks ago, thankfully there are others out there on the internet willing to contribute paragraphs towards just what it was that we lost [and, consequently, what we could gain back with its unlikely renewal]. As Sonia Saraiya says, “This was the most promising interracial couple on TV”. Having an Asian actor be front and centre on any show is a surefire win, but to have that person also be portrayed as, dare I say it, attractive?

Mild spoilers for a show you should’ve been watching gosh darn it-

The briefest of segues for our honourable mention, of course, to Glenn and Maggie-

This makes up for the 2 Broke Girls gif, but ultimately dilutes the Selfie concentration.

-but at the end of the day the draw of The Walking Dead is and always has been the zombies. Don’t talk to me about human drama, because if you take the walkers away there literally is no show. Selfie was, at its core, a program about two people drawing closer together and it was a truly beautiful thing [helped, of course, by those two people being beautiful]. The Walking Dead posits that in this post apocalyptic wasteland anyone can find love, whereas Selfie shows us a fictional world that exists to revolve around a would-be couple and has the male half of this heterosexual duo be Asian.

Which is all to say that it was, and is [ABC has to air the remaining episodes somehow], a groundbreaking moment in television history. Cho himself is not blind to what it means, and “would call [it] revolutionary.”

“Revolutionary?” “Revolutionary.”

Reading that word three times back to back helps shine a lot of light on how far we’ve come since my first year of college, and how far we were even then from the days of Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s [gif not provided as the point of this post is not to elicit anger and/or rage]. It’s revolutionary that we might turn on the television and be presented with an Asian male character that is actually meant to be seen as desirable.

Vulture cites Cho as being Type 1 of 6 when it comes to Asian men who get to have sex on TV, and let me tell you the majority of the others are not flattering. In “An In-Depth Cultural Analysis of Asian Male TV Characters Getting Some Action” the Korean-American and the characters he plays are followed by The Humorous Hookups [sex for the sake of humour] and The Color-Blinds [Asian men who, due to the way their characters are written (and named) are essentially White]. Due to his appearing in the successful Harold & Kumar and Star Trek film series Cho has managed to represent a Type all his own, an Asian man who doesn’t deny, or wallow in the foreignness, of his ethnicity.

Which isn’t to disparage Ken Jeong’s career as a comedic actor or, as mentioned above, Steven Yeun’s role in The Walking Dead. I’m ecstatic that both are successful and are doing what they can to further Asian diversity, but it’s not in the same way Cho has, and that Selfie would have continued to do had ABC not canned it.

I like to imagine that he’s shrugging here at any and all efforts made to keep him down.

It has been a number of years, so I’ve more or less gotten over the feeling of not being considered attractive due to my race [living in the most diverse city in North America has helped]. In spite of that no longer being an issue my desire to see the media landscape shift has not stopped. I don’t want any other Asian children growing up having to find connections in what characters wear. Moreover, I want us to be able to live in a world where a movie will feature a diverse cast and any of the guys, not automatically the White dude, could have a chance of ending up together with the girl, where none are viewed as less handsome due to their ethnicity.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS but seriously I really liked Fast Five. Shoutout to Sung Kang.

NOTE: While every single gif used admittedly features an interracial relationship between an Asian man and a White Woman, my point doesn’t extend to solely those couples. The reason I veered away from couples where both were Asian is due to the very popular idea that people of the same racial background will pretty much always end up with one another which is pretty problematic in and of itself.

Consider the placard in the image above to be fairly representative of my views of this episode: things are looking up for 2 Broke Girls. No, this episode didn’t feature Han gloating over his ability to both ride a bicycle and maintain an erection [no easy feat], but it did bring the focus of the show back to what it ostensibly should be. That’s right, we’re finally back to watching Max and Caroline try their darndest to make some money.

That’s always been one of my favourite things about the show, because, well, the struggle is real. Now granted, I say that as someone who had free room and board at his grandfather’s while he spent months unemployed, but I bought gluten-free pasta recently because it was on sale for cheap and that stuff is not good. My personal financial state aside, the journey of two young women doing their best is a compelling one, plain and simple.

Now you’d think that upon discovering that she’d been shanghaied into attending a seminar called “Business Bump” Max would-

-leave forever, never to return-

– right after making a joke about teen pregnancy, and you’d be half right.

After sneaking back into the seminar [the logic of which confounds me, and which I’ll try not to get into] the two girls sit before Gordon Something-or-other, a business guru who believes that truth is what it’s all about. After people buy what you’re saying they will buy what you’re selling. “Don’t do what you can, can what you do! Do you get it? Do you get it?”

It’s the sort of motivational mumbo jumbo that we’ve all been conditioned to mentally bristle at and thankfully, for the sake of the show, it leads to some conflict with Max and Caroline. Their partnership is sailing in two different directions, and as it turns out they have very different ideas for what the business model of Max’s Homemade Cupcakes should really be. Honestly, this should be no surprise whatsoever to anyone who has watched more than a few episodes, but it really comes out here in full force with the two parting ways and doing their own separate Brilliant Business Brand presentations. The surprising thing is, Max’s idea is so much better. It’s fuelled by the unadulterated sass that runs through her veins and involves cupcakes that say things like “Eat it!” and “Lick me!” and if there exists a restaurant that people go to because the wait staff is purposefully rude to customers then trust me there is an audience for it-

What I love about the episode is that it doesn’t serve as a big I-told-you-so to Ms. Caroline “I went to Wharton” Channing. Yes, Max’s business idea trumps her artisanal cupcakes as far as creativity, but Max is also really, really terrible. At so many things. Her idea for marketing their business with t-shirts that have a big ol’ cupcake on the front is bad, and she takes creativity by doing what she does best: yelling at the critics.

The episode ends with them acknowledging how much they mean to each other, which is pretty par for the course, and Caroline even donning a shirt of Max’s design. Unfortunately it also concludes without them having made any conscious decisions about how to turn business around, which needs to happen if Caroline really is eating six cupcakes a night to make it look as if they’ve sold any [also because she’s sad]. It’s fantastic that we’re back to focusing on their business which the first season, and then the second, culminated to. I fully realize that if they end up succeeding the name goes out the window, but honestly, if Jessica Day can still be the “new” girl after three seasons I think Max and Caroline will be fine.

Other things happened with Sophie and Oleg, but not much.

Current Total: $2,735.

New Total: $1,695. I remember Caroline saying that the seminar was a grand, but assumed that was per person. Even if it was for the of them that still leaves a full $40 unaccounted for.

The Title Refers To: They go to a seminar about branding, I guess. There’s not really any play on words here as far as I can tell.

Stray Observations [I had almost only nice things to say above so trust me I am way more critical below]:

• the kooky customers in the cold open are dressed like they’re from the 20s, seemingly for the sole reason of allowing Max to call the man “Not-So-Great Gatsby.”
• “I know, we’re like Oceans 7-11.” I kinda liked the whole wine-swap thing, even if I don’t get why anyone would bring wine to a diner.
• “You are not hooking me up with that guy who is listed in your phone as ‘Oral Redenbacher.'”
• “Leave early, who are we, Congress?” Pretty high-brow joke for a woman who doesn’t know where laws are made.
• “Y’know, matching tattoos are the deepest expression of commitment.”
• “This is not an intervention! Max, your behaviour has affected me in the following ways…”
• “Max, stay alert this could go to cult like that *snaps fingers*.”
• Right after Gordon talks about his Truth Balls™ Kat Dennings makes the most amazing facial expressions. Then she makes an offhand comment about getting meatballs and I wanted to shake the writers and then rub their backs and assure them that sometimes silence is okay.
• “Remember, you can’t spell purpose without-” Without what, Gordon, finish your sentence.
• “Oh hello, welcome to the Williamsburg Diner. Can I get you anything, like a work ethic?”
• “And Pam, I know you think your ship don’t sink, but it does.”
• I’m With The Band, a company that creates guitar case suitcases, is actually a pretty decent concept.
• The sound of those koosh balls hitting Max and Caroline was very soothing. I was also very impressed that it went uninterrupted for five seconds or more.
• “I thought you’d rather have a black one.” / “On Tinder and in life.” Back it up, then, writers’ room.
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Directly referring to Max and Caroline’s partnership was pretty direct, but not really juicy enough for this feature.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Caroline’s arms in that sleeveless tee right at the end? Not much to see here, either.

The last “big” guest star I can remember 2 Broke Girls featuring was Grammy-nominated rapper 2 Chainz in what was hands-down the worst episode of the show I can remember reviewing. Similar to that last instance network synergy is what brings the Victoria’s Secret Angels to the sitcom, with The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show airing tomorrow night on CBS. The creative push behind this particular twenty-some minutes of television finds its source not in the writers’ room but in a boardroom, and the results are far from stellar.

Remember when I wrote a single review about the pilot episode of MTV’s Underemployed? That was a show entirely about young attractive men and women who were just barely making it through life [note the title of the show] while at least 1/3 of the cast lived in one of the biggest, nicest apartments I have ever seen. That lines up pretty well with Max and Caroline of 2 Broke Girls
constantly making note of how tragically poor they are while residing in an enormous apartment that has, revealed in this episode, a literal barn attached to it complete with sunroof.

WHAT IS THIS WHAT IS GOING ON.

I remember how in the pilot episode Max explained that she didn’t pay rent because the previous tenant died yet continues to pay for it with his pension cheques or something along those lines but are you kidding me? My suspension of belief already took a beating when they decided to keep the horse, but now to find out that they have an entire barn? Is that why they’re so poor? Otherwise, honestly, it makes no sense since they both work two jobs and none of what they make goes towards rent.Hoo boy. Sorry about that. It’s made all the harder when Caroline’s latest scheme to make some extra dough [the sort of plot I am usually all about] is to rent their place out on Airbnb, an idea which kicks off numerous characters telling them how much of a dump it is. Now look, my room is somewhat akin to a dump, and that’s only because I have a bunch of unpacked bags in the corner and a bookshelf that I bought weeks ago and still haven’t assembled, and even then it’s not particularly dirty. Max and Caroline’s apartment is both neat and well-decorated. Their kitchen in particular looks exceptionally great.

The actual plot, which involves them renting their place out to Victoria’s Secret models. That last period was a comma for a little while, but I realized there wasn’t much more to it than that. Well, they also befriend the models and there’s a party that very quickly goes south, but that’s not very well-developed. They also stop Oleg from cheating on Sophie, but only sort of, because no one anywhere thinks he could have done much more than spy on them with night vision goggles, which reminds me that this episode had some terrible writing.

In the last review I wrote about how the writers needed to get into the idea of “less is more” in response to Kat Dennings following up a fairly impressive show of facial physical comedy with a direct line about balls. Well, this week showcases yet another example, this one being a decent enough joke in its own right that has an unnecessary three-word sentence stapled onto the end:

• “That was some shower head. I’d marry it but it’s already attached. To the wall.“

Elsewhere in the episode Oleg is caught spying on the Victoria’s Secret supermodel party using night vision goggles. His response to those who have uncovered his despicable deed?

• “Turn that light off, I’m watching the Victoria’s Secret supermodel party with my night vision goggles.”

As one last instance of comedy writing that is far below my personal standard, one of the girls wonders aloud which of the two Jims owns the apartment where Sophie is hiding from Oleg. The Jim in questions flamboyantly struts out, makes a joke about her purse, and heads back inside. Max and Caroline grin, turn to each other, and say in unison:

• “Gay Jim’s.”

Lastly, this episode puts the most racist joke the show has made in a very long time in the mouth of a non-White character. Earl mishears “Airbnb” and responds with:

• “You’re renting to Arabs? Well good luck getting it back. they tend to be a tad territorial.”

It’s a lot, is what I’m saying. It’s a lot to deal with, and I haven’t even covered how the Victoria’s Secret models literally strut around in their lingerie with angel wings strapped to their backs at one point. When Caroline points this out it’s not even to comment on how ridiculous it is, but instead that it’s a vastly superior response to a rise in temperature compared to what her and Max do [which is slump lazily on the couch like normal human beings].

The creation of this episode was more or less brought about by an edict from the network heads and the writers did what they could, but honestly it was far from enough. Not only did viewers have their suspension of disbelief stretched farther than it ever should have, they were also bombarded with a lot of heinously lazy writing. At its best 2 Broke Girls is about the unlikely friendship between two very dissimilar women trying to just get by. At its worst 2 Broke Girls is “And the Model Apartment”.

Current Total: $1,695.

New Total: $3,195. In spite of Caroline’s insistence not to let them pay, Lily Aldridge gives her a cheque that I’m going to assume was for $1,500. Split five ways between the models for two nights, that’s only $150 per person per night, which is still pretty steep.

The Title Refers To: Models stayed in their apartment. The end.

Stray Observations:

• Caroline is a born marketer, as she described their place as being: “a Brooklyn bohemian barn apartment with a live-in horse.”
• Again, their apartment is actually great.
• “Aw shoot, now I’m gay.”
• Martha Hunt is a way worse actor than Lily Aldridge. I can’t for the life of me be bothered to remember the names of the other models, which hardly matters since they had no lines.
• I found it weird that they were drinking beers while frolicking around in their unmentionables since I would think the extra carbs would be a strict no-no. They should be going hard bar, am I right?
• Han jabs back! “No, I was on a call with Ripley’s Believe It Or Not to inform them that you still work here. and they didn’t believe it!”
• “I found plugs but I don’t think they’re for your ears.”
• “And Caroline, since you don’t really need to wear a bra, here. This apartment may be hell, but you are a real angel.”
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Upon seeing the models at the door Max proclaims she’s gay now. Not that it has anything to do with Caroline, but still.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: . . . fine, since you’ve been waiting for it-

Can you imagine if all TV shows handled their midseason finales the same way The Walking Dead does? Which beloved character would we create petitions to resurrect? Would the Williamsburg Diner be short a staff member or lose their most valued customer? Honestly, just thinking about it makes me wish it would happen, if only to really mix things up.

“And a Loan for Christmas” is a direct sequel to last-last week’s episode, “And the Brand Job”. To save you the time of watching it for yourself, or even reading the review, that installment of Max and Caroline’s wacky adventures concerned their respective business plans, with the former’s coming to life in the cold open: snarkily decorated cupcakes and t-shirts are on full display. What’s more, these new wares are doing great [no surprise, really]. So great, in fact, that there’s talk of acquiring some capital, because you need to spend money to make money-

– and I want to stop you [and Caroline] right there and be upfront with you all: I don’t know a lot about finances.

Honestly, I straight up don’t understand how taxes work. I don’t even know how to use my credit card to pay things when I’m not purchasing stuff online. I can do math just fine, but once you apply it to actual dollars and cents and the way the real world handles such things you have completely lost me. All that being said I just can’t wrap my head around why they need a whole ten Gs.

Obviously, as Caroline shares, having the t-shirts made in bulk will cut down on costs, but surely that could be done with less than half that amount. Considering the profit margins on t-shirts [pretty high] they would be making back much more than the cost of said apparel, so why borrow so much? Honestly I’m hoping someone with more business savvy will explain this to me, because Ms. Channing went to Wharton and I want to believe she knows what she’s talking about.

Anyway. What happens is that Max and Caroline enter the latter’s “childhood overpriced clothing store” and, after asking Barry, the gay Asian presumed owner of the establishment, if he’ll purchase their design only to be rejected, do exactly what I expected them to do-

-which of course results in someone spying their shirt and just loving it [and resulting in my favourite line reading of the entire episode, see the Stray Observations]. Obviously Barry [Nico Santos, for those interested] must have more shirts, as he sells the first for $300, and so now the girls really need to get them made and fast.

Their solution, since the one-day shirt company they were relying on falls through, is to have Han print screen them himself since he’s apparently artistic, and that just straight-up blows my mind. Okay, do you see these shirts?

That’s four colours at least. That’s four different layers that would need to be print screened on top of one another to create the cupcake image, and that’s not even including the words on the back [which use the Cooper Black font, if I’m not mistaken]! I’m surprised that it took Han two hours to make a single tee, since I assume he had to create the print screens from scratch.

Anyway, sorry. Their solution comes in the form of Sophie, who implores that everyone present [which includes Oleg] join in to help them finish their shirts provided that they also partake in her Christmas decoration rivalry with another Eastern European woman.

To backtrack really quickly back to my discussing finances, the episodes does end with them taking out a business loan to the tune of 100 Benjamins AKA $1,000 USD. Consider that Barry is selling the shirts for $300 and that, according to Caroline, they make $25. Shouldn’t the fact that they’re the original designers afford them a cut that’s a little higher than 1/12? I guess I know just about as much about fashion as I do math.

The episode ends with Max and Caroline holding each others’ arms, staring at their shirt standing in Barry’s hip clothing boutique-

-and it’s pretty schmaltzy, what with the instrumental Christmas music and the applause of the studio audience, but what really hit me was the exchange the two women had. In response to Caroline’s apology that she didn’t get her anything, Max responds with “You go me everything, look.” Surely enough it was the ex-wealthy blonde’s push that brought them to where they are today with their cupcake business which I suppose is now a t-shirt business. I suppose the question remains, as it always has, what next?

Will Max and Caroline continue supplying shirts to Barry? Will he join the cast, bringing the grand total of effeminate Asian characters up to two? Will their money woes finally cease, their newfound financial stability leading them to change the show’s title to 2 Lower Middle Class Girls? I’ve basically sworn to review this show until it screeches to a halt, but I’d love to know where this train is headed.

Current Total: $3,195.

New Total: $3,945. Surprisingly enough, this makes total sense this episode, barring its exclusion of the loan they took out. 30 shirts to Barry multiplied by $25 per equals $750.

The Title Refers To: It’s Christmas and they took out a loan.

Stray Observations:

• “Christmas is like herpes: no matter what you do you flair up once a year.”
• Max’s cupcake greetings: “Feliz He’s Not Your Dad”, “Joint To The World”, “Frosty With No Man”.
• “Earl, change please. A phrase I heard from both my ex-wives.”
• Their shirts are apparently “the perfect gift for a girl you’re not in love with just strictly banging.”
• Han’s chainsaw sound/action is the best.
• “Follow me.” / “Okay, sure. But not on Instagram because you’re out of control.”
• “You need to jump on those Wang pumps or like Ben Affleck they will be gone, girl.”
• I get that creator/producer Michael Patrick King isn’t offended by the show’s gay humour [as he is gay himself], but Max jokes about Barry “coming with strangers” and it all seems unnecessary and gross.
• Best Line Delivery: the rich lady eyeing their shirt deadpans, “So Cute. And look on the back, ‘cream-filled’. Funny. People will think I have a personality.”
• Lot of very specific pop culture references in this episode, with Han defending his handiwork: “It’s a masterpiece. You want one Citizen Kane or 30 Here Comes the Boom‘s?”
• “I’m just so happy I have new clothes!” Beth Behrs you are a treasure.
• “Alright, who am I again? Voltron?
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: They are holding each other at the episode’s end, but it is pretty platonic-like.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Sophie’s got some cleave going on as the “not-so-virgin Mary”. That is all.

This is the last 2 Broke Girls episode of 2014, and thus my last review for the time being as well. Come back in January when things start up again, and maybe stick around the site and check out what else we did this year. Gordon’s look back at the pat 12 months is a great place to start.

This is not a great start.

Look, this is my first post of 2015, but even that can’t offset the fact that before this I saw the 13th, and last, episode of Selfie, a show that never even got a proper season finale while this show staggers forward into the second half of its fourth season. That already had me primed to be somewhat less than gracious, but then we have the following happen in the first five minutes:

• the diminutive Asian diner owner referred to as “Han Jobs”
• the implication that he knows more about gadgets than Caroline because “formerly rich doesn’t beat currently Asian”
• his immediate defence of the Australian woman he’s flirting with online, saying “she’s part Aboriginal but has a great personality!”

So allow me to say, right now, eff absolutely everything about this show. This is some straight-up racist garbage and it physically pained me to have to listen to these lines. They made me want to visit the writers’ room with a sock full of so many quarters people would think I was about to spend two weeks at the arcade.

That being said, I am a consummate professional and managed to press on. See, once you can look past the absolutely disgusting racist humour they insist on broadcasting across North America from week to week there are a few redeeming factors that carried me through [that and the fact that there are people who actually happen to read these reviews].

For one thing, 2 Broke Girls actually appears to be building some momentum, with their business loan carrying over from the mid-season finale last month. As explained in that last review, the $10K was specifically for the production of t-shirts, not anything to do with their actual business of making cupcakes. It seems like a weird swerve, but at least now Max and Caroline are headed in an actual direction.

That’s not all the narrative has in store, either, as it’s not just any factory they turn to for their shirts. American Ace, for all intents and purposes, is the apparel carbon copy of the New Belgium Brewing Co. Lauded two years ago by Gordon, this company is not only 100% employee owned, it also treats said employees extraordinarily well. That’s all very much in line with American Ace, where “every employee gets a percentage of the company after 6 months” and “the longer you stay the more it grows.” This isn’t a terribly familiar concept hereabouts, and it’s actually great to see this model of business portrayed, even if it’s on a sitcom such as this one.

What’s more, Max’s cynicism [sensibly built up in this case due to working at several factories when she was younger] is undone here by the reveal that Ace Hardwick and his company are the real deal. The “Help Us” card she and Caroline find in their box of shirts flips over to complete the sentence: “Help You To Your Full Potential At American Ace!” The show doesn’t even make any jokes at what could easily be perceived as a “hippy dippy” way of making money, the only real one taking the form of the two Michelin-man-shaped guys who introduce themselves as “part-owner” followed by their actual duties [janitor and security guard, respectively].

That’s worth a good number of points, even if the cold open nearly reduced me to a bubbling puddle of frustration. It would also be good to mention that while both items directly have to do with where Max and Caroline [and consequently, the show] are headed, it’s not entirely clear where that is exactly. Characters are introduced [Ace Hardwick, the two pillowmen, two ladies they had a rivalry with] but none seem very lasting. Not only that, but there’s no indication of when the shirts will be sold or even how many were produced.

At the end of the night 2 Broke Girls nearly drives me away before pulling me back by spotlighting something that is actually good in the world. I’m still sticking with it, for better or for worse. The funny bits help too, for sure, and you can see some of those down below-

Current Total: $3,945.

New Total: $13,945. I actually have no idea why the $10K business loan only kicks in this episode. Also, shouldn’t it be significantly less since they presumably sent some to American Ace to make their shirts?

The Title Refers To: There’s a factory and it’s sort of fun? This particular one features two different carts, one with gelato and designer coffee and the other with prosciutto. Granted, this pokes a bit of fun at the model, but seems too absurd to really be taken seriously.

Stray Observations:

• Sophie’s B-plot has her creating a line of “vagina wigs” that results in a whole bunch more racist humour that I don’t even want to get into. Credit where it’s due, her “Everybody’s Merkin For the Weekend Collection” has a great name.
• The cover image up above is of the factory where Max expected “more torture, less Foosball.”
• Caroline just wants free [high quality] food.
• “You’re pretty much eating cardboard there you want me to get you another?”
• The noise she makes when being handed her prosciutto also raised this episode numerous levels.
• “Tortilla Flat, wasn’t that your stripper name?”
• The young Ms. Channing played Rizzo insteady of Sandy in her high school’s production of Grease because she let the girl with the limp have the role.
• “We know what you’re onto here!” / “What, profit-sharing and health care?”
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: To avoid a spat with two female workers Caroline blurts out that her and Max are lovers. They do not kiss to prove it, much to the disappointment of, I’m sure, some people out there. Here’s how Max reacted:

• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: You get to see Sophie’s merkin fall out from underneath her dress, which is really more gross than anything else.

It sure is weird that CBS released their first 2 Broke Girls episode of the season on January 5th, and then skipped a week. Not a great way to build up momentum. Not that I’m complaining, honestly, because a) it’s always nice whenever I get to take a break and b) that last installment was super racist and I was not having it.

Thankfully the worst part about this episode is that I can’t find any gifs of Jenko freaking out about lambos from 22 Jump Street. Man, that’s a franchise I am always going to be behind. Anyway, to the episode-

This is one of those weeks where not a whole lot happens in these twenty-some minutes of TV. In fact, I think I can summarize it in half a dozen bullet points:

• It’s Caroline’s birthday! She is optimistic.
• Her dad, Martin Channing, bought her a Lamborghini Aventador LP 700-4 Roadster! But they have to return it in the morning.
• Caroline is now pessimistic.
• Max roofies her and drives her to the Hamptons, which she waxed poetic about.
• They squabble at the beach, but make up and return to the diner!
• Oleg means to propose to Sophie and then does so.

That being said, this was not a bad episode overall.

It’s been a while since I’ve linked to it, but allow me to once again bring up the concept of the “hang-out sitcom”, or the sort of show where the audience basically enjoys watching people enjoy spending time with one another. Now the writer of that article, Todd VanDerWerff, condemns them, or at least their oversaturation of the airwaves, but while watching 2 Broke Girls tonight I actually found myself liking that aspect of the show. Or, that is to says, I found myself gaining an even greater appreciation for Beth Behrs.

Now it should be no mystery to any of you that I consider her the most consistent comedy MVP of every Monday night on CBS, but her character is actually not terrible to be “around”. While it’s hard for me to fathom that there might be people who feel this way about Oleg or Sophie [the studio audience’s cheering notwithstanding] it started to make sense to me why people continue to tune in week after week. 2 Broke Girls has become a half hour timeslot where audiences can watch characters they like and not be bogged down.

Bogged down by conflict, to be more specific, and [really, read that article I linked to] while this episode has it you can rest assured it doesn’t exist for more than five minutes. As weird as it is to write, I feel like the show has pared away the thorns of crude humour [which will sprout back] to make way for the soft, pillowy, comforting petals of feel-good TV. There’s a lot to be said about that, especially taking into consideration Gordon’s earlier discussion of what art should be, but I’m going to leave it as is and see if next week backs it up anymore.

Lots of great lines tonight too, which certainly doesn’t hurt.

Current Total: $13,945.

New Total: $13,545. I’m going to assume it was spent on gas. That’s all I’ve got.

The Title Refers To: One of my all-time favourite film franchises [alongside the 2_ Jump Street movies, of course], or at least the one that started with Fast Five and turned the Vin Diesel vehicles’ [pun fully intended] focus from street racing to insane heists.

Stray Observations:

• Oleg’s familiarity with the CPR doll [“Oh. Hey, Judy.”] Made me think of “Exodus”, a short story from Chuck Palahniuk’s Haunted. If you’ve read it you know how uncomfortable that train of thought made me.
• He’s also popping the question to Sophie, which Max makes that super gross by saying that he’s “already popped everything else.”
• “I thought a girl’s best friend was someone a little fatter than her.”
• Oleg’s whole story about his ring that culminated in it being “doody free” was actually really impressive, comedically. Props, writers’ room.
• “All my father gave me was that one iffy chromosome.”
• Caroline’s impression of Sophie was a pure delight.
• Han, in reference to them not being able to use the car in spite of it being there: “That’s like me having you two for waitresses-“
• “I would’ve gotten the car and driven up to the Hamptons and we’d sit on the beach all night, have lobster caught by one of the townies, drink champagne while taking duck face selfies until the sun came up.”
• The duck face she made right after that line was great.
• “Max, you did it again, you roofied me didn’t you-“
• Max on never having been to the beach: “No, what’s the point, I don’t own a metal detector.”
• “We are in very big trouble and we’re not even in the GOOD Hamptons!”
• “I am a ride or die kind of bitch!”
• “Are you Googling ‘ride or die kind of bitch?'”
• Caroline’s age dating window tops out at 40. Max’s is twice that.
• Oleg proposes to Sophie in a) the place they met, b) the place they’ve had sex most often, and c) the place they’ve had sex most recently. It’s her booth.
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Some people on tumblr thought that their scene on the beach was romantic, but I wasn’t really feeling it.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Caroline’s legs on the beach, I guess. No, I don’t guess. I know.

Speaking of “meltdowns” I totally had the best melt for dinner [not a grilled cheese, as some may incorrectly call them]. It had cheese, obviously, as well as homemade guacamole and spinach. The second also had kimchi [I should mention I actually ate two of them]. Now that my prose-version of Instagram is over, I suppose we should move along to the episode itself-

Now last week’s review was pretty short and sweet, but I mentioned, as I have many times before, that this is a show that focuses a little too closely on its titular characters. Max and Caroline are the headlining act for sure, but every other member of the cast appears to be relegated to bit players at best. This episode appears to be the writers’ room forcing me to eat my words.

The person doing the moving in happens to be Oleg, and the place he happens to be moving into happens to be Sophie’s apartment. This is apparently something he’s been looking forward to for the past three years, so of course it’s anything but easy. The problem starts when every one of his belongings that is brought up [by Han, for some reason] is immediately sent back down by his significant other.While he seems to take this in stride, things don’t blow up until the dinner party Sophie hosts in order to get rid of some soon-to-expire beef.

Their argument involves a painting of this [in]famous photograph.

Things wrap up in the back of a moving truck amidst Oleg’s filthy belongings. Caroline helps the Eastern Europeans through their issues and then . . . there’s what appears to be genuine emotional expression [that isn’t from either star]. The fry cook tells Sophie that “[he doesn’t] care about [his] stuff so long as [he has her].” Their relatinship appears to be headed in a very real, very serious direction. We end feeling the same way Max and Caroline do, flabbergasted at what just happened.

Now if any characters were going to receive the spotlight next it would have to be Oleg and Sophie, given their relationship with one another in addition to interacting with the two girls. Han is still [insert flaw here, in this case weakness] and for some reason we are obsessed with Earl’s age this week. That being said, it’s most definitely a step in the right direction. I can’t see them carrying episodes like this week to week, but it’s a delightfully refreshing change of pace to be sure.

Oh, and a lot of great lines tonight as well. I feel like the writing may have improved a lot in recent weeks [either that or I’m getting soft in my old age].

Current Total: $13,545.

New Total: $13,395. There was a very minor plot point about purchasing heat lamps for their new outdoor seating area [see banner image]. They were what cost $150, but honestly I feel like the only reason they were mentioned was so that the total would change between episodes.

The Title Refers To: Oleg moving into Sophie’s apartment, weren’t you paying any attention?

Stray Observations:

• I feel like tumblr may have begun to fall out or love with 2 Broke Girls, if their output of animated gifs of the show is any indicator.
• “Well our new outdoor seating area is about as popular as Paula Deen at an NBA game.”
• Sherry’s List is just like Craigslist, but “without the high probability of being murdered by a deranged medical student.”
• “From now on the booty call is coming from inside the house” sounds like the worst kind of horror story.
• “I know Jesus has a girl for me. He has to, I’m $400 deep into that damn website.”
• “Haha! Someone fell in real life!”
• “Really, Han, it’s like your arms are only there for decoration.”
• “Can’t it ever just be about me!?”
• “Is it me or is this party as tense as hell? I don’t think Sophie and Oleg are gonna make it.”
• “Why are his nipples so big?” / “They don’t seem that big to me.”
• “What? Is it throwing off this gorgeous indoor outdoor swing?”
• I don’t think Goodwill will take a loveseat that is actually covered in love…”
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Nada.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Zilch.
• Dated References Galore [Filler Feature]: Jokes about Rihanna and Chris Brown [domestic violence took place in 2009] and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [which premiered in 2008. If this episode aired six years ago people would have no idea it was from the distant future of 2015.

Is this 2 Broke Girls‘ most daring episode? I say that, of course, because this episode features Max and Caroline spending a very short amount in jail, a place that is interchangeably referred to by a handful of characters as “prison”. What I’m referring to is the very reason, as it so happens, that I missed reviewing this last night as I usually do:

It’s Orange is the New Black.

Arguably Netflix’s most well-known original series [sorry, House of Cards], Orange is the New Black has been a cultural phenomenon that has only been hindered, however briefly, by the extreme pause between seasons caused by their released in their entirety all at once. Incarcerated women now bring to mind Flaca [sorry, Piper, we all have our favourites] and the other inmates at Litchfield Penitentiary and the hardships and comforts their stays have awarded them. There’s a lot of pop culture baggage surrounding the topic, and yesterday night . . . well . . .

Yesterday night was your average twenty-some minutes of 2 Broke Girls.

After last week’s installment which concentrated heavily on the maturing relationship between two heavily accented Eastern Europeans [and took the spotlight off of the titular characters] for a very refreshing change of pace, we start things off with a cold open in the diner, Max serving yet another pack of eccentrics. What’s worse, she spouts off a rape joke just short of the 40 second mark. Yes, it’s the only one, but it ultimately feels like two steps forwards and one step back.

The plot is about as threadbare as it gets, with their first big order of t-shirts coming in to tie it loosely into the season’s overall narrative arc. There’s some flirtation between Caroline and a Jesus doppelganger that I’m surprised made it past the censors that results in her sleeping with him [twice, to her immense pride]. She forgets her rings at his place, however, and she and Max must break into his place due to him not texting her within the span of two weeks, something referred to as “The 2 Week Rule”. I’ve gotta pause here, if only because Max’s rules don’t quite approach the myriad that Barney Stinson introduced on another CBS sitcom that used to air on the same night.

Carrying along, their botched burglary results in them being thrown in the slammer where . . . nothing happens. I’m serious about that, too. Once they’re in the holding cell there’s a pretty weak joke about the tough tattooed inmate being very nice and inviting them to take part in a talent show that’s being put on. Soon after that they’re out again after making bail. They spend about 1/3 of the
episode in jail, but it seemed so short I felt I could have blinked and missed it. The fact that it doesn’t even approach the kind of depth [or humour, let’s be fair] of the aforementioned series kind of goes without saying.

I suppose I should mention that it also ties back into the Oleg-Sophie marriage storyline, as it’s Max agreeing to be Sophie’s maid of honour that convinces the Polish businesswoman to help them out. Between that and them following up on their t-shirt venture this episode appears to want to move things forward without actually doing much of anything. It’s filler at absolute best, and disappointing even without comparison to Orange is the New Black.

Last week appeared to be a real turning point for the show. My hope, however mild, is that we get more surprises and much, much less of the same.

Current Total: $13,395.

New Total: $3,395. Assuming that bail was $10K, this means that their entire bank loan has now been used up. No, this was never mentioned once.

The Title Refers To: Caroline loses some rings and they commit a crime. Pretty weak.

Stray Observations:

• Max serving a table of smokers: “Like I’m back in my mother’s womb, only there’s food here!”
• They got a bunch of Gildan shirts printed. That’s the same brand my college used to use for all their events.
• Their shirts number in the hundreds and they’re only selling 20 to that fancy boutique. How does that even work? If they’re selling them like this doesn’t that keep them from being unique?
• “I have an animal attraction to him.” / “What animal, the horny nerd?”
• “What are you two celebrating? I know it’s not a job well done.”
• The audience reacted audibly to that last line, which was new.
• “Skinny jeans are just boner x-rays.”
• “We don’t have crack here!”
• “I don’t have a game face. Unless the game is I-Give-Up-My-Life-Is-Over, then this‘ll do.”
• Caroline and Max’s gang names: White Lightning and The Blade
• “Well, orange you the new black?” Ah, there it is.
• Oleg owns 17 XXX movies with the title “Women’s Prison”.
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Max almost runs away, leaving Caroline stuck for the cops to find her. She turns back to help and they don’t make a big deal out of it like they normally would. Weird.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Nein. But you can have this great shot of Caroline hamming it up for her mugshot:

I swear, “And the Move-In Meltdown” really spoiled me. Feel free to read the review of last-last week’s episode yourself, obviously, but let met just reiterate here that it felt like 2 Broke Girls was really mixing things up. Oleg and Sophie were carrying the narrative and creating and experiencing their own emotional beats, ones that Max and Caroline actually had no real part in. If you rewatch that episode you’ll see that they just happen to be around when the finale takes place. They exist in that scene simply to justify the show’s title.

What accompanied that momentary change of pace and plotting for me was actually the pilot episode, which I caught a few minutes of while at my granddad’s. With both of these in mind I was forced to put a lot of thought towards what I wanted from the show moving forward. If the reality is that I’m going to be reviewing every episode until its eventual cancellation [I predict a minimum of three more seasons] I should at the very least be tempering my expectations. Ideally I should keep them reasonable, while still considering how the show could improve.

Han, in particular, has come a very long way. Granted, he’s come to Max and Caroline’s rescue more than once at this point, but he’s given an unprecedented amount of dialogue this week in an anti-bullying speech he delivers to a cafeteria full of prep school girls. Here it is, with its very noticeable overuse of the word “little”:

“You see girls, the bad thing about being bullied is that every time it happens it steals a little piece of who you are. And then, if it happens enough, little by little, you become just a little less of who you were meant to be. And that’s not cool.

And these two girls up here without knowing it, i’m sure, stole a little piece of max and caroline when they stole their little idea. And that’s so not cool.”

It’s the fact that it’s not played up for laughs that makes it a big step for the character, and having a student take the mic right afterwards keeps Max from snarkily interjecting and killing the moment. Put in the context of that pilot, it also presents a character who no longer speaks heavily accented English. Seriously check it out, it’s cringe-worthy stuff-

-what’s more, we even have the sassy waitress promising to pull back on the sass a little bit. It’s not much, but it’s progress!

Right before we get into the episode itself, I also want to comment briefly on Max’s character progression from that pilot to the present day. What struck me more than anything else was how, well, normal she was. Yes, she’s introduced by trash-talking two customers wearing woolen hats [touques, as we call them up here], but it’s because they’re rude to her to begin with. What’s more her voice doesn’t bear that affectation it currently does. It’s hard to pin down, but I can really only liken it to the difference between Marshall Mather’s speaking voice and Eminem’s rapping voice. In focusing on this alone it’s a pretty great example of how the character has been “flanderized”, or essentially turned into a caricature of their original self. The following comic illustrates that very effectively [and is also the image used on the TV Tropes page I just linked to]:

Click the image above for the full “Evolution of Fictional Characters by Medium” on Cracked.com

It all comes back around to “And the Move-In Meltdown”, because whereas Max has been reduced [in part, not as a whole] to a quippy snark machine the exact opposite has happened to the supporting characters. Oleg was the perverted fry cook who is now moving towards a [presumably] lifelong relationship with Sophie, a heavily accented Polish woman who . . . okay, so she hasn’t progressed as much. Still, it’s an interesting observation, and generally optimistic as not every character is being boiled down to their very essence.

As for the episode itself, we’re still chugging right along with this whole t-shirt arc. Max and Caroline sell a fair amount of them [accounting for all their profits, as you can see below], so it hurts that much more when they realize that someone out there has copped their design. Add insult to injury when it turns out that the thieves are children. Rich children.

Now unfortunately this doesn’t lead to all that much material for Caroline to work with, which is strange given that they share the same sort of upbringing. Sure, she gets a few choice lines in here and there, but it’s not what you might expect.

They’re difficult, which is to be expected, leading them to coercing Han into pretending to be their lawyer [see his nifty getup above] to combat the C&D suit leveled at them. Their conflict with the high schoolers culminates in the speech that I already typed out, word for word, up above. Really the only reason I got this far is because 2 Broke Girls did something amazing. Now let me be upfront and say I only saw this episode once, but I think 2 Broke Girls was subtle!!!

See those two girls down at the bottom? They have those bandages on their faces because they got nosejobs. Because they’re rich. That’s the joke. That’s the visual gag and [as far as I can remember] neither Max or Caroline say anything about it. That is incredible. And it’s a nice downplayed piece of humour as well.

Now that I’ve written almost 900 words [that were more or less] about this episode it’s time to wrap things up. While Sophie and Oleg do continue their own arc with wedding planning taking place they don’t arrive at any form of narrative conclusion. Sophie is searching for a wedding planner and the show actually ends without her finding one. It’s not even really emphasized that her search was for naught. Yes, it’s nice that they haven’t been completely forgotten, but having a such a half-hearted attempt at a B-plot seems equally bad.

Oh, also Han ends the episode by saying “Back to normal!” and wow I hope that isn’t true.

Current Total: $3,395.

New Total: $3,675. Seeing as Caroline talks about doing decent business with their shirts, I’m guessing they sold 14 for $20 a pop.

The Title Refers To: Knockoff shirts that were potentially cutting into their profits, and the “knockout” of Han’s speech, I think?

Stray Observations:

• According to the cold open women do not like beards.
• The woman working at the store selling the knockoff tees is doing a PhD in Social Ecodynamics in Western Civilization.
• One of the girls’ names is Kemberly, “with an ‘E'”.
• I sure am glad they didn’t make fun of that one girl’s weight/size.
• “It’s like a bad eighties movie. I don’t know whether to date James Spader or teach this town how to dance.”
• Wow, they were really whooping for Sophie this episode. I say that a lot, but really though-
• “Caroline” is Sophie and Oleg’s safeword. It’s the one word they would never say during sex.
• Max thinks the lawyer in the subway “only does accidentes.”
• Han dressed up as Sprout from the Jolly Green Giant commercial. You laugh, but he won $500.
• “Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is a better actor than Max!”
• “Their charity is bullying. That’s like Kanye West trying to raise money for laying low.”
• “First, your lawyer looks like the teacher on a Disney show.”

  Here’s Matthew Moy on iCarly. Best I could do.

• If you want to thank Han just send him an edible arrangement, how often does he have to drop that hint?
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Nada.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Zilch.
• Dated References Galore [brought it back]: “Wow, you’re carrying more issues than Amanda Bynes.”

Between the two titular characters [pun never intended] it should be plainly apparent to you all by now that Caroline is my favourite. Even if Max wasn’t as unfunny and abrasive as I personally find her the former heiress to the Channing fortune is still brimming with just the right amount of optimism and grim awareness about the reality of life to charm anyone. That being said she’s hasn’t received a lot of character work this season and I actually believe the show has been poorer for it.

“And the Great Unwashed” is all about Caroline trying to figure out who she is, or rather, who she wants to be. That sounds deep, I realize, especially for an episode of 2 Broke Girls, but stay with me. Is she a waitress? If she is, what does that mean for the one-time rich girl?

The episode begins with her receiving the Williamsburg Diner Award for “Best Waitress” and bemoaning the title. After the cold open she’s revelling in having one of their customers refer to her by name hair colour. All of a sudden her life has newfound meaning, she’s been recognized for her work. Then she sees herself captured in a photograph, immortalized in her polyester uniform in stark black and white. What’s more, the smile she wears with said uniform is openly mocked, said to be “a study of tragic, foolish optimism in a hopeless, dead end life.” That, and no one is bidding on the portrait. We’re back to square one, her occupation [and the identity it affords her] are an inescapable nightmare].

We’ve come such a long way since those that first season when Caroline actively struggled to grow accustomed to living a life of squalor and frugality. Since then we’ve gotten quite a bit of her acknowledging that this is where she is in life now, and that’s that. Ce n’est pas grave. What’s done is done. It’s easy to coast along through life and forgetting about past aspirations only to be stopped dead in your tracks by a grim reminder of where you are.

Ms. Channing is lifted out of her funk [sorry if that last paragraph put you into one] by Nola, photographer and diner regular, telling her that “a good photograph captures the truth”. No one buys that Caroline could ever be a waitress, so no one plans to buy the image. While this is a great way to leave the cast at their established status quo it does beg the question of what she is supposed to be.

If Caroline isn’t meant to be a waitress then what alternative is there? Is it independent cupcake shop owner? Office administrator at a pastry school? Trendy apparel vendor? If she’s not meant to don the polyester uniform that she’s wearing in all of the 2 Broke Girls promo imagery then what is in her future? And where is Max in all of this?

I’m bringing up a lot of questions that I obviously can’t answer, and that I honestly doubt the writers’ room has come up with at this point. It was nice seeing Caroline relive, however briefly, that struggle with her identity as a formerly wealthy socialite and her present position in the service industry, but if we’re meant to take it seriously then we need to see where that conflict leads her. If it’s to the realization that she’s happy where she is for now that’s fine, but we’re going to need to know sooner or later when she decides enough is enough.

Elsewhere, Sophie accuses Oleg of using a “boner/burner phone” to cheat on her. It turns out that he was using it to speak to his mother, which we all more or less assumed. At this point no one really believes that he will do anything but stay faithfully committed to their gross relationship, but it is still an effort to give the two characters something to do, which I will commend them for.

Current Total: $3,675.

New Total: $2,675. This makes no sense to me, as I was led to believe that Nola gave them her photograph of Caroline for free [and not for $1,000].

The Title Refers To: A term coined by Victorian novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton for the lower classes. Also the name of Nola Anderz’s photography exhibit.

Stray Observations:

• The Williamsburg Diner Awards are no Dundies, I’ll tell you that.
• I thought that Beth Behrs had gotten a haircut in the cold open, but realized later that she just straightened her hair. Also she got it cut in the first episode of the season.
• Oleg got the Foreign Film Award for always being covered in a foreign film.
• I wish I had a gif of the face Han makes whenever Max says something snarky to him.
• “Don’t buy batteries from that guy unless you want your heart to stop on the bus.”
• Watch a better show about an Asian restaurant owner being stingy about croutons! Catch Fresh Off The Boat on Wednesday night on ABC!
• “No man. Just me in here with my vagina and my photographs.”
• Nola just wants to eat her croutons “without the vaudeville stylings of Shecky and Nosy.”
• For all the jokes they make, Han is really not all that much shorter than Earl.
• “Maybe you should hang yourself in the bathroom like I thought you would three years ago.”
• Eesh. That last joke was made so much darker when Earl said he lost $20 on that bet.
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Maybe I should retire this feature?
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: And this one?
• Dated References Galore: Not really anything here, either…

At long last there appears to be an overlap between one of my favourite superheroes [Spider-Man] and one of my least favourite TV shows [this one], in a way that has the former redeem the latter in its own way. In the fifth issue of Superior Spider-Man supervillain Massacre approaches the manager of a big business, offering to kill a large number of people while wearing a shirt bearing her competitor’s logo. Here’s a splash page of him making his offer:

Which is all to say that Caroline freaking out about their brand being tarnished by a criminal wearing their shirt is actually fairly reasonable. Associations are created by everything from getting a particularly messy stomach bug while eating a certain type of cuisine for the first time to seeing a billboard crush three NYC tourists to death on the news. What I do want to focus on, however, is what the man in question did.

It turns out that the guy, Richard Griffin, AKA “Beer Belly Gym Shorts”, kidnapped three women and kept them trapped in his apartment for months. Now I don’t know if you remember the last few times crimes like this have been uncovered by the law, but it is always incredibly disturbing. There is a large amount of rape, is what I’m saying. The episode veers very far away from any implications that this guy was guilty of such acts, but still expects us to think that him wearing their shirt is a big deal. It’s a very fine like that the show traverses, and its success is up in the air as far as I’m concerned.

This is also a great time for me to briefly cover my whole beef with their shirt business. I’m glad the plot exists in that it’s giving them something to do, but as I mentioned in a previous review I continue to have no idea how they are allowing Barry’s hip clothing boutique to sell their shirts while also doing so themselves. Caroline even voices my confusion aloud, saying:

“Interesting, now our shirts are available at both Rodney’s, a high end Manhattan  boutique, and an apartment building that always smells a little bit like gasoline.”

Mind you, the latter was true because Max was literally giving them away for free to people in their building. I’m no businessman, but I understand a little bit about supply and demand, and that what they are doing makes the opposite of sense.

As it turns out, however, the “Cupcake Captor”, as the media has taken to calling him, as essentially ruined their apparel business. Rodney’s returns the order they were sent and suddenly Max and Caroline are back at square one. Sort of. I mean, they still have their actual business of selling cupcakes, which they rarely touch on anymore, and continue to be waiters at the Williamsburg Diner. Even still, Caroline is concerned as they still have that business loan to pay back, and their largest form of revenue is essentially sunk. With eight episodes left there are a number of directions they could head to fix this problem, though they’d probably get there faster if they weren’t spending so much money on streamers-

Please, no applause for my effortless segue. This episode also follows Oleg and Sophie’s impending nuptials, with the two girls working on throwing a wedding shower for the latter. Not much happens besides Max realizing come the end of the episode that she should get into the spirit of things and use pink decorations instead of black ones-

– which you could define as a character beat, though I wouldn’t. It also involved another great line from Caroline when she asks “Are Polish people always early, is that a stereotype I didn’t know about?” I found this funny because the last time I can remember them really getting into Sophie’s cultural heritage was when she said that “cats are the reincarnated souls of people who die outside,” a comment that raised the ire of actual Polish people in the comments section of that particular review.

Honestly, between this and former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd decrying the show for a racist joke about Australian Aboriginals I singled out a few weeks ago, 2 Broke Girls is still not doing so hot. It makes you wonder why they would choose to have the “villain”, in that he threatens their livelihood, take on the implicit role of serial rapist. Though I guess it’s not something we should think too hard on.

More optimistically, I am actually looking forward to what comes next. Obviously Sophie and Oleg will have to tie the knot before the season is up [I don’t think there’s too large a chance of them backing out of that, narratively], but it will be interesting to see what effect the Sword of Damocles that is their business loan has on them.

To end with, and because I didn’t want to save this to the Stray Observations, every time she appears Channel 2 reporter Maria Alonso Gonzalez very clearly enunciates her name in a way I imagine the writers’ room would describe as “ethnic”. I hate to break it to them, but her name has absolutely nothing on Carlos Chiang O’Brien Gambe, the news anchor from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show on Nickelodeon right now-

Current Total: $2,675.

New Total: $1,475. Streamers are expensive, I guess? Maybe they also bought the food for Sophie’s shower as well.

The Title Refers To: Strangely enough, Richard Griffin’s captives, who actually don’t make an appearance in this episode.

Stray Observations:

• I quite liked the signature drinks that Han was making for the diner. The Max is straight whiskey that’s “on the rocks”, just like her job.
• Caroline saw a rat having sex with a cockroach in their closet. We all know what that means should make an appearance soon…

  Fig. 1 – The Cockamouse

• The shower is “for Sophie, it means a lot to her and she has a gun.”
• Max left “16 [shirts] for the Sanchezes, so about six of their kids will have to share.” That’s racist.
• On that note if there really are combination Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts there’s no reason Das Racist couldn’t use them for song inspiration.
• Their apartment is seriously so big.
• Black toilet paper. “…the mystery of not knowing when you’re done.”
• The look in Agent Drake’s eyes as Sophie grinds on him has nothing to do with acting, it’s terror in its purest form.
• “This is so shocking. Max, you can read!”
• Sophie’s favourite sex move: on all fours while watching How To Get Away With Murder.
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Nope.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Nay.
• Dated References Galore: “Well, analyze this, Focker!”

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.

Did anyone else know that this is the second episode of 2 Broke Girls that Fred Savage, of that-little-kid-being-read-the-story-in-The-Princess-Bride fame, has directed? The first being last week’s. I don’t think there’s been any discernible spike or dip in quality, but it is kind of neat. I also feel like I need to mention that he’s 38 years old and his Wikipedia picture is of him at age 13.

This week the show decides to completely do away with the “Current Total” at the end of each episode by blindsiding us with the fact that Max and Caroline’s account is below zero. I’m going to spoil two of my feature at the end of this review to just lay it on you, because they go from a Current Total of $975 to a brand new low of -$14. And no, there are no solid explanations as to how this happens. Caroline mentions that their business loan payments are eating away at them, but the fact that she mentions it in passing makes the fact that they lost almost a grand in a week pretty jarring.

Their salvation comes in the form of the pastry school character you’ve all been clamouring for! Sorry, it’s not Deke. No, it’s also not Judy with the Booty. It’s John, AKA Big Mary, Max’s large gay classmate who was given a handful of lines last season. When the going gets tough the tough get a third job, and so the two girls are off to try their hand at working for The High, the new restaurant opening out of the High Line Park in Manhattan.

At this point the episode kind of . . . falls to pieces. There’s at least one laugh-out-loud moment, which I one hundred percent give them full credit for, but as far as the narrative it gets pretty unwieldy. Two different plots are introduced, and they neither reach any sort of satisfying conclusion nor interact with one another significantly. They are:

• Han, Earl, Sophie, and Oleg all showing up at the restaurant to support their friends/coworkers/employees.
• the never before mentioned fact that Max “can’t bake not baked”, which leads to her very short search to locate weed. Vaguely reminiscent of “Wasted Talent”, an episode of Family Guy where Peter could only play the piano while drunk.

The former isn’t really wrapped up at all, though it is far funnier. Max somehow finds some way to quiet everyone down and it is literally never explained. As far as the former, she gets weed from Rico in the kitchen and that’s it. There’s no frantic search for drugs or any indication that she wouldn’t have been able to do her job without being on any substances. Caroline merely finds out that she’s sober and insists she do something to correct that fact. I don’t think it takes up even three minutes of the episode as a whole.

It’s a mess. That’s all I really have to say about that. We end things and Caroline gets promoted from waitress to hostess and Max gets to keep being a pastry chef [those were the jobs they were working I did not mention that earlier]. I’m sure we’ll find out next week how they’re managing to juggle all three at once, probably with a Time-Turner or something like that. Harry Potter nerds, you know what’s up.

Before I put a solid cap to things I want to very quickly shine a little light on the LGBT characters in this episode. Big Mary [they call him that more often than John] appears to be interested in Han, and very explicitly refers to him as a “she”. I’m not going to claim to be any expert on gay culture, but is that common at all? It felt wrong to me. There was also the chance at a subplot when he’s sent to the kitchen, ostensibly because he’s not as attractive as Max is. This isn’t really followed up on, though. Also the owner of the restaurant, Joedth [the D, T, and H are silent] is portrayed as being in a lesbian multi-generational relationship, which is . . . progressive, I guess? She doesn’t appear to have any strong affection for her significant other. Either way, both appear to be the latest semi-regular cast members to grace our screens. It remains to be seen whether they’ll last anywhere as long as Luis, who has essentially evaporated into thin air.

Current Total: $975.

New Total: -$14. This is literally the lowest the total has ever been. The lowest it has ever been prior to this was back in Season 2 Episode 18, when it was a single dollar.

The Title Refers To: Allie, Joedth’s girlfriend, who shows up to the restaurant opening both high and drunk. Possibly also a reference to Max, though there is never anything said about a zero tolerance policy at The High.

Stray Observations:

• Modern Family did a drone episode almost four full weeks ago. Catch up, 2 Broke Girls.
• “I mean, if I wanted to be spied on I’d change my name to Achmed and buy a condo near the airport.”
• “Cupcakes. Buy cupcakes! BUY CUPCAKES!“
• The show’s philosophy encapsulated in an exchange between Max and Joedth: “Everything you just said offended me.” / “That’s my brand.”
• Big Mary’s three elder siblings all came out to his Mormon parents.
• For someone who’s emotionally attached to her pearls Caroline sure hasn’t been wearing them much lately.
• “Do I have any weed? Let me check my hump.”
• “Wow, this dishroom is cleaner than Chris Christie’s plate after lunch!” There was a very audible “WHOA” from a member of the studio audience at this joke.
• “If i could act I’d sell the restaurant and get cast in two-line roles as the doctor in any network television show!”
• “GIRLS LOOK, OLEG IS WEARING HIS NAPKIN AS A PARTY HAT!”
• “I’m gonna go have sex in the ladies room, unless you two prudes have a problem with that, too.”
• “Excuse me, can I get a latte and a red wine. ‘Cause I got a vicodin stuck in my throat.”
• “Bill Cosby has ruined it for all Black men over 70 who are just trying to buy a gal a drink.”
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: Retiring this post next week if nothing new happens.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Oh, yeah, Caroline and Max try to seduce Joedth after finding out she’s a lesbian.

This is a bad episode.

In all seriousness, though, this episode is awful. I honestly don’t think I’ve been as unsatisfied with an installment of 2 Broke Girls since “And Just Plane Magic”, where I listed off what happened in bullet points to avoid actually writing out what happened in multiple paragraphs. A bunch of stuff took place this week, sure, but to seemingly no end whatsoever. It says a lot that the writers were able to introduce a new recurring character [who will be reappearing in three more episodes] in such a thoroughly unforgettable fashion.

Anyway, I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself. The new character in question is Nashit, a handsome young man played by Austin Falk whose name is attributed to his being half-Indian and half-Irish [he very clearly isn’t]. Joedth, the joy which I get out of typing her name being the only saving grace of this review, hires him as a new waiter at The High. His stunning good looks create a ruckus and also causes Max to lust after him with a tenacity and passion she only ever devotes to . . . being snarky, I guess.

That’s pretty much the foundation of a lot of the humour on this show, with the words “doing it” escaping Dennings’ lips more times than I cared to count. Now two years ago I wrote a short post about our cultural double standard when it comes to male and female sexuality, specifically referencing how Barney Stinson’s getting around on How I Met Your Mother was viewed as, if not being outright laudable, at least noteworthy, and how Chloe on Don’t Trust the B—- on Apartment 23 helped counterbalance that by portraying female promiscuity in a similar light. I wish I could say Max did the same here.

The reason I don’t think she does is because her desire for Nashit has no depth to it. That isn’t to say that Chloe’s one night stands were presented with a lot of nuance or were necessarily meant to further her character development, but they were the actions of an adult. Max wants to have sex with the new guy the same way that a kid wants candy, and the comparison is one she makes herself throughout the course of the episode.

She wants to get down with Nashit, a desire only stymied by Joedth’s assertion that her restaurant is “about fine pastry not someone’s sordid lovelife,” ie. the help are not to shack up with one another. Caroline in her desire to attain quasi-manager status does all she can to keep their genitals far apart from one another and ultimately fails. She receives that promotion, however, and fires Max’s boy toy. Who is then hired by Han to work at the diner.

Sorry, let me finish that thought about the portrayal of Max’s sexuality and her relationship, such as it is, with Nashit, because man shall not get by on the joy of typing Joedth’s name alone. The issue here is that the latter has no personality. He’s handsome and homeless [a very recent immigrant] and has an Irish accent, and he thinks Max is lovely and therefore is fine with her wanting to sleep with him. While she at the very least lusts after him pretty intensely he is pretty much there and along for the ride. There’s no substance to their interactions, he’s not so much as a person as he is a plot device, and a very weak one at that.

The episode closes with Max and Nashit finally doing the dirty, presumably in the diner’s walk-in freezer. Caroline appears to be enjoying the monetary fruits of her labour. End scene. Honestly I’m not really sure what else to write, so we should just get straight to the Stray Observations-

Oh, sorry, before we get there. . . Actually, nah, I don’t care enough this week. Carry on-

Current Total: $-14.

New Total: -$286. Joedth gives Caroline three hundred dollar bills. The first two are to take care of the former’s junkie girlfriend. The third is out of pity.

The Title Refers To: The new restaurant Max and Caroline are working at, The High, and the hooking-up that one would assume would be a big deal but really wasn’t.

Stray Observations:

• The two girls are fine with letting the diner burn down because . . . they have new jobs now, I guess?
• The first in a long line of jokes from people not wanting to hear Caroline talk, but easily the best: “Honey, I’ll download an audiobook if I want to hear a story.”
• Nashit is “everything in a hot Irish coffee boy band package.”
• “”I love him, he’s my favourite. If I did men he would’ve been done by now.”
• “I went to pastry school, I’m not Shrek.”
• Oh, also Han was spying on the girls for some reason that is literally never explained.
• Max Bugs-Bunnying Han is funny the second time she does it.
• It doesn’t work on Caroline, though- “Please, I went to Wharton.”
• “I took you in when you had no one!“
• “Why hello, is it too late to be gay?”
• Joedth and her girlfriend Allie met at Coachella. They were both “on Molly, this intensely hot Filipino girl.”
• Maybe It’s Maxoline: This feature is dead. Say good-bye, everyone.
• Joke That Made Me Physically Frown: “This is impossible, it’s like putting an Oscar dress on Precious.”
• 2 Broke Girls Beefecake Menu:

Just to start, I’d like to offer a brief apology for my review of last week’s episode. For the most part I try to keep a pretty even keel and take each episode as it comes, especially since I try to judge 2 Broke Girls on its own merits. That means acknowledging that it is very far from high art or what I consider to be good TV, lauding it for when it is funny and appropriately criticizing it for when it’s racist or needlessly crude or very poorly written.

I still don’t think it was a good episode by any means, but I could’ve handled it better. Here’s to me getting through to the end of this season, guys and girls and everyone else.

Allow me to go straight to the jugular on this one and cover what happens with everyone’s favourite Indian-Irish [but not really] boytoy played by Austin Falk, Nashit. We find out in the cold open that he and Max are still getting down in the diner. After that he reappears in the wedding dress shop with the two girls, who use him to distract “Crazy Carl”, yet another flamboyantly gay one-off character, while they attend to their scheme.

Now he doesn’t appear again after that, which I find highly suspicious since the wedding dress owner tells Max and Caroline that “[they’ll] be back. In about a month! Hahaha. Tahiti, anyone? Hahaha, oh Crazy Carl, the ladies love it.” Did he end up actually abducting Nashit? Will we really not see much more of him moving forward? I mean, considering that next week’s episode is called “And the Look of the Irish” it’s pretty unlikely.

Honestly, I’m a little glad he left early if only because his accent is . . . I mean, it is definitely an accent. It is 100% a thing. Nothing against Austin Falk, though. I checked out his twitter page and it is mostly him really being in love with his wife. It’s just too adorable.

As far as the actual plot of the episode, it’s extremely straightforward. Sophie’s sister and bridesmaid Blanka is deemed unworthy of being in the wedding party, and so Caroline must take her place. The dilemma materializes when the bride-to-be announces that they will be going to a store [Rosenfeld’s in Brooklyn], and since Sophie has bad taste it will obviously be a nightmare. Oh, mainly because the wedding will be appearing in the Times and they [Caroline] can’t appear in that publication looking like . . . I dunno, a walking quinceañera decoration.

So they try to hide the dress, it doesn’t work, there are two Black girls who want it and who Sophie dismissively [racistly?] refers to as “Destiny’s Child”. Caroline has an outburst and calls the item of clothing “dressageddon”, Sophie overhears, says they don’t have to wear it. Then they hear the bizarrely popular Polish woman crying in the dressing room and it’s . . . super weird. Weird because this isn’t a character who is really offered a lot of vulnerability; this is the most emotional development she’s gotten since her and Oleg decided to be real with one another eight episodes ago.

It also results in Caroline being forced to admit that Sophie had good taste. I can’t remember the last time I praised Beth Behrs, so allow me to do that again by saying that her delivery of that line was perfect, and her physical comedy really put it over the top. Some kind soul on tumblr even captured that moment for all of you to see for yourselves-

And that’s the episode! Sophie will be designing the bridesmaid dresses herself! It’s the Warsaw Times and not the New York Times! A lot more of Nashit and his accent will definitely be back next week! This episode also wasn’t very good but it also wasn’t very bad!

Current Total: $286.

New Total: $711. No explanation given as to where the $425 came from. Possibly from the combined wages they’re making by working at the Williamsburg Diner, Max’s Homemade Cupcakes, and The High.

The Title Refers To: Sophie’s taste, or complete lack thereof.

Stray Observations:

• I’m legitimately surprised at the jokes the writers’ room manages to get back the network people, in particular Max quipping that Nashit “slipped out the back” and that she “popped him back in”.
• Caroline’s new role: bridesmaid. Caroline’s old role: run of the mill wedding guest.
• Han: “My morning fibre cookie has better taste than Sophie!”
• John/Big Mary is still around, mostly to make comments that directly refer to his sexuality.
• I like typing Joedth’s name a great deal, but man her character is incredibly one-note.
• I’m not doing a good job of reining back on the criticism.
• “You’re a poor person from Ireland. I’ll ask you your opinion when I need to know where to get free leg braces-“
• Crazy Carl really got me, mostly because I enjoy it when people crack themselves up.
• “This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a prostitute change her tampon on the sidewalk.”
• One of the Black girls comments on how they can’t pull off the “poppin’ lemon yellow” dresses because they’re White. This is partly true. The dresses are also hideous.
• Caroline very diplomatically tells Sophie, initially, that she “[thinks she has her] own unique style.”
• Joke That Made Me Physically Frown: Was not a fan of that “Destiny’s Child” bit.
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake/Beefecake Menu: Here’s another picture from Austin Falk’s twitter page to tide you all over:

I was going to start this review off by wasting a paragraph on how neat it would be to eat at the Williamsburg Diner, what with its eccentric clientele and all, but instead let’s dive directly into the latest 2 Broke Girls character to rake in the site hits: Nashit. What do we know about him? He’s a poor Irish immigrant, apparently half-Indian [uh huh…], and he has sex with Max. I could go on, but his entry on the 2 Broke Girls wiki [at the time of this writing] sums him up pretty well:

Yup. At this point in time Nashit’s undisclosed middle and last names could be “Tabula” and “Rasa”, because there’s really not much there at the moment. As mentioned in my review of the episode introducing him, Nashit didn’t have that much say in his relationship with one half of the titular duo. Max wants him and he more or less responds with an “okay”. He clearly doesn’t mind being with her, but it’s really hard to ascertain how much he actually likes her. Also, and this is important to mention, he has very few lines. It’s hard for a character to be well-rounded if you barely let them speak.

In this week’s episode Max decides that she’s been seeing altogether too much of her boy toy, and does what she can to get him out of the diner so that they’re not hitting the interaction trifecta [working, living, and sleeping together]. His new career path is chosen for him once he very ineptly handles Han’s gift to him [for being an employee who actually works hard], the Spritzy 5000. There’s more of that at the bottom of this post, so stay tuned. Short story shorter, he sprays himself and it turns out he’s hot.

The two girls teach him how to model, specifically for a Cocoa Puffs commercial. That’s fairly uneventful. At first he is terrible at it. Like really, really bad. Then we come back after a commercial break and he is good at modelling and all that. But it turns out that “Cocoa Puffs” is code for “pornography”! They’re at an audition for a porn movie! Specifically Sorest Rump!

At this point we get a little more of Nashit’s personality, specifically that he would do anything for Max, even “gay for pay”. Actually it’s never revealed if he understands what that really means, but at the very least he would be willing to make porn for his girlfriend, if we can call her that. It’s sweet, I guess. It’s not the best character work by any means because it’s really still just Nashit doing what Max wants. He knows that she wants him to do this [even if he doesn’t realize it’s to get him out of the diner], so he also wants to do it. Next week is, ostensibly, his last episode, and I really hope he gets to be a little more of a pretty face before his inevitable exit.

Elsewhere Oleg and Sophie practice celibacy before the wedding because it’s what her grandmother would’ve wanted. That doesn’t last for long, though Oleg does get a few great lines out of it. Joedth is looking for love after her junkie ex left the picture. Big Mary/John is beginning to get on my bad side because he only has one line and it obviously has to do with gay sex, which is his shtick now I guess. You’re more than that Big Mary/John, I know you are.

Oh, before we get to Stray Observations I should share one of Austin Falk’s tweets that provides a behind the scenes look at how this episode was filmed:

Current Total: $711.

New Total: $1,211. Last week they made $425, so with only $75 more this week I guess they’re being somewhat consistent. Again, I’ll just chalk this up to their combined three jobs.

The Title Refers To: A play on words that I actually really like! It refers to Nashit being Irish, him being good looking, and even sounds like someone with a terrible accent [see: Nashit] saying “the luck of the Irish”! This is the best title the show has ever had.

Stray Observations:

• “Sad Ladies Book Club is reading 50 Shades of Grey again. There’s not a dry seat in the house.”
• “Apparently the something blue at the wedding has to be my balls.”
• “I feel like a bull in a vagina shop.”
• “Move to call a moratorium on the words “grab”, “squeeze”, and “spray” until after the wedding-“
• Something something what you say to get lesbians to exit a building: “There’s a Subaru outside that’s about to get a ticket.”
• Joedth was using a dating app/site called “Lez Meet Up”.
• “I had the decorator redo it nine times. You can feel his anger in the walls. It’s electric.”
• “You’re eating is so punk rock. Tell me everything right now.”
• 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake/Beefecake Menu: You’re welcome.

I like DC Pierson. He’s one of the members of Derrick Comedy, a YouTube comedy group that featured the now relatively famous Donald Glover, AKA Troy from Community, AKA Childish Gambino. He actually appeared in a few episodes of the former-NBC-sitcom, and it saddens me to see him again here. Mostly because he doesn’t do anything of note.

No, DC Pierson merely serves as yet another eccentric diner customer, and one who doesn’t contribute to the overall plot at all. As far as I can tell, anyway. He plays “a legit psychic” who doesn’t tip Max but does end up reading Caroline’s palm where he initially sees two M’s and then “a small failure”. What could those letters represent? She comes up with “male”, “model”, “making (it with)”, and “Max”. That’s all pretty relevant to the happenings in this episode, except that she misses out on one key word: “Mother”.

[I’d just like to very quickly mention that Pierson has his own Wikipedia page, so who am I to criticize, really {and I mean that sincerely}]

Now I’m sure you were wondering just as much I was what the “minor problem” alluded to in the title of this episode was referring to and, well . . . it’s Nashit. Except it’s not really Nashit, is it? See, his mother, Maeve [there’s another “M”!] barges onto the set of his photoshoot to drag him back to Ireland and announces that she’s allowed to do so because “he’s just now 18!”

Admittedly, I am not a lawyer or a student of law or anything like that. Having stated that, they definitely treat him like a child, comparing Max’s sleeping with him to the actions of “Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, pretty much any of your big time 70s movie directors.” By making that comparison the writers are basically forcing us to view what took place as statutory rape at best, which seems like something they would not want us to do. But hey, they also had an episode that centred around a man who kept women captive presumably for sex and skimmed over the horrifying ramifications there, so I suppose it’s all par for the course.

In trying to continue this review I’ve come to the realization that this episode is a mess. Which isn’t something I’ve said since four episodes ago so maybe I’m allowed? See, Nashit’s mother spiriting him away is a big deal because it’s puts them in the bad books of Joedth’s girlfriend, which of course puts them in hot water with Joedth, which isn’t something they want since the owner of The High is planning on opening up a new location and wants Caroline to manage it who wants Max to be head pastry chef there. It’s this whole thing.

So of course Max and Caroline race off to the airport to stop Nashit not for love, but for their own brighter futures. They’re literally in the middle of a scheme to sneak him away from his mother when Joedth lets Caroline know that they are not in fact getting fired and oh, by the way, Nash has been replaced by some other model, a “hot orphan” with no parents. He and Max exchange a few words and that’s that.

Now we all know that Deke didn’t exit the show gracefully because they straight-up disappeared him suddenly without giving us any time to grieve. With Nash it’s completely different, because what we’re apparently supposed to do is be fine with what they had ending due to him being a little young. And no, he isn’t a minor in the sense of the age of consent, but he is a minor when it comes to drinking age [in the States, anyway]. And no, I’m not all that torn up about it because who was Nashit [Presumably-Indian-Surname], really? The closest we ever got to him wanting anything was him telling his mother he wanted to stay in America. He doesn’t even really look like he wants the girls to sneak him away.

It’s also revealed at the episode’s close that the new location for The High is actually the terminal where they were going to separate Nash away from his mother. This is seen as a horrible thing.

I am aware that we have two more episodes left before this season comes to an end. Two more weeks before I can enjoy a span of months where 2 Broke Girls is nowhere on my mind. I know this, yet I feel like I still need to let out some frustration at what I had to watch tonight. Fair warning for people who don’t need anymore negativity in their lives [I know that I don’t, so I’m just letting you know] what comes below is going to really pick this apart.

Current Total: $1,211.

New Total: $2,261. How did they make $1,050? If anything this should be an episode where their total drops drastically because Caroline bought them both first class tickets to Paris in order to get into the airport.

The Title Refers To: Nash being a minor. Which makes zero sense because if anyone had done their research they would have seen that in Ireland you can leave home at age 18 without parental consent. That’s right, legally his mother could not have forced him home, he’s only a minor in the sense that, as mentioned, in America he cannot drink alcohol. Wow, this episode sucks.

Negative Stray Observations:

• Use of the word “gay” in a derogatory fashion: “Well, not to me, but I’m sure the Amish are pissed that you’re gaying up their look.”
• An exchange between Oleg and Sophie, “Oleg, I think you crushed my seating arrangement.” / “I’d like to think so.” elicited such emphatic oh’s from the crowd that it sounded like they were reacting like normal human beings to any of the numerous rape jokes that’ve been uttered in past episodes.
• Lesbian jokes: “Of course she did, we’re lesbians, talking is most of what we do.”
• More lesbian jokes: “an embarrassment in the lesbian community is worse than not owning a dog.”
• Max makes the following joke and the live studio audiences acts like it is the Second Coming of Christ: “the right [breast] just started a Fleetwood Mac cover band. You know how I know? When I take my bra off it goes its own way.”
• There is a stereotypical Black female TSA agent working at the airport. That’s all I have to say about that.
• The writers tear into Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith, Tom Cruise, and Bruce Jenner in a way that actually feels cruel.
• Max utters the words “Oh my god I screwed a baby.” I’m just going to leave that line there for you to mull over.

I feel like I got most of that out of my system, so here are the gems, few and far between, that I took note of:

• In spite of my irritation that he puts up with them at all, I do enjoy Han dishing out what he receives [too much of]: “If you two quit the diner how will I ever replace you? Unless I hire literally anyone else.”
• I strongly dislike Joedth’s new girlfriend, but I did kind of enjoy her lines: “Oh, do girls eat now? Wow, Lena Dunham changed everything.”
• On the same note, Maeve’s accent is actually worse than her son’s, but this still amused me a fair bit: “Y’checked into america on Facebook y’bleedin’ idiot!”
• Props to the show for making me believe for a few short seconds that Max and Caroline might actually be leaving to go to Paris. Pretty impressive, actually.
• No other features, though I think it fair to present what may be the last item in the 2 Broke Girls Beefcake Menu for some time:

Sorry it’s so grainy.

I want to end by saying that while I think the character he played was just awful I really do wish Austin Falk all of the best. He is a real life existing person and as far as I can tell a pretty decent one. How can you hold anything against a guy who pinned this specific tweet on his page? Just adorable.

I, Evan Yeong, do solemnly swear that I will keep it together when reviewing this episode. This close to the end of Season 4 and it only makes sense that I remain cool, calm, and collected as I chronicle how 2 Broke Girls concludes its fourth year and prepares for its fifth. In retrospect, given how things have gone as of late, I was kind of a fool for not instituting the EVAN YEONG MADNESS WATCH I considered back in my first ever review of the show.

This week’s episode is the first in over a month without Nashit, a poor character portrayed by a very stand-up dude named Austin Falk. His tenure as Max’s love interest lasted all of five weeks, which doesn’t quite match up with reigning champion Deke [Eric Andre] who holds the title at eight episodes. Let’s all pour out a bit of our beverage of choice for poor Sebastian who was with us but for a single installment of the show. And no, I haven’t forgotten about Johnny, but he’s from a time before I was officially reviewing 2 Broke Girls when it was somehow worse than it is now-

-and before you remind me of the first line of this entire review you need to hold on just a sec, because this episode was actually pretty good! There were some terrible “jokes” as per usual but also some very funny ones! I’m actually in a good mood because of it!

This episode is actually an Oleg and Sophie episode, which leads me to wonder why I haven’t come up with a gross portmanteau-couple-name for the two of them yet. Soleg? Ophie? Both truly, truly terrible. The wedding is finally rearing its ugly head [ostensibly taking place in the season finale] and given that Sophie went through all the trouble of finding a maid of honour I suppose it’s high time that Oleg find a best man.

Given that the only two other male characters on the show are Earl and Han, it had to be one of them, and let’s be fair we all know it wasn’t going to be the former. Han throws Oleg a bachelor party and fun stuff happens there that I’ll mention below, as well as the revelation being made that the fry cook is an illegal immigrant of sorts [by which I mean he is absolutely an illegal immigrant]. That leads to this whole thing because if Sophie finds out that their marriage will result in his green card her mistrust in men may cause her to call it all off.

And it absolutely does result in that, for a time. I need to mention that Jonathan Kite acts incredibly well in the scenes where he’s uncomfortable and trying to tell Sophie the truth; he absolutely 100% sells it. Within the span of a few short minutes, however, Oleg manages to prove his love to his wife-to-be by planting his lips on, well-

Not the LGBT kiss anyone was expecting. Or wanted. Or needed.

Han and Oleg, literally no one’s OTP. It’s an expression of his devotion to Sophie, however, and accompanies his promise that he’ll marry anyone he has to in order to stay in the country and win her over. It’s sweet in only the way Oleg can be sweet, and honestly not a terrible lead-in to what I already promised up above, the inevitable wedding/season finale episode.

Elsewhere we have Max and Caroline opening up the airport branch of The High where not much happens. I mentioned my confusion in last week’s review as to why this was a terrible thing and it most definitely continues on to this week. Apparently working in an airport is a truly terrible fate that the characters of this show would only wish upon their worst enemies. I may have romanticized the whole idea of holding down a job in that sort of environment, though-

Even without having seen The Terminal it really never struck me as that bad a gig, but then again I did do a good portion of my traveling in a pre-9/11 world. Anyway, all that really happens there is that a cute pilot flirts with Caroline, and later on at the bachelor party she sends him a boob pic with her face in it. As Max states outright, “Girl! You stupid!”

I didn’t expect them to touch on the very relevant topic of privacy and personal/intimate images and their being [stolen and] shared online and all that, or even to have them track down the pilot in order to erase said picture from his phone. That being said, it ends with them finding out that her boob pic has been turned into a meme. There’s obviously a lot of very serious stuff to be said about this, but honestly I just found the idea of that meme existing at all to be very funny.

That’s really how it ends, though, everyone. Han and Oleg’s wedding is still on and Caroline becomes a meme. I meme you can make more of! Use this link and leave your own in the comments!

Next week I will of course be doing what I do every year and try to figure out what direction this show is headed, and what I think about that. This week I’m going to legitimately enjoy myself by listing all the parts I like in the Stray Observations below [there are lots of them!].

Current Total: $2,261.

New Total: $3,261. I don’t know how they made a cool one grand. I can’t explain it.

The Title Refers To: Okay, seriously though there are no references to grates anywhere in this episode. I’m very strongly of the opinion that this was supposed to be titled “And the Gate Expectations” in reference to their pastry restaurant in the airport but somewhere along the way someone at CBS royally screwed up.

Stray Observations:

• Resident large guys Big Doug and Sancho have been known to enjoy a few BLTs [Burgers, Lasagnas, and Tacos].
• “And we’re trying to get in shape.” / “Preferably a shape that doesn’t resemble a seasonal gourd.”
• I’m going to use this bullet to state that they poke fun at Max being a child and the object of men’s sexual attention, Oprah’s weight fluctuation, and the Malaysian Airlines tragedy last year. Not great.
• “If I took a run at you you’d go right through that wall like Wile E. Coyote.”
• Oleg’s brother Yushinko couldn’t be best man because he’s in jail. Which is too bad because Sophie engraved a ham for him.
• “No way, you know I was planning on going home and crying tonight.” Caroline, any excuse to get out of a party.
• “What do a Rubik’s Cube and a penis have in common? They more you play with it the harder it gets. [beat] A Rubik’s Cube is a popular 80s toy.”
• “What’s in that, ground glass?” Han feels the same way I do about bad vodka.
• “This party is worse than the communist party. And they killed half my family.”
• “[Sophie] has major trust issues since one day her father went out for perogies and [beat] came back without perogies.”
• “Max, I just did something I’ve never done.” / “Tell a story about someone else?”
• I wanted to capture the face Caroline said she made when taking her boob pic because it is hilarious.
• Also, Matthew Moy/Han is the MVP this episode. First of all there’s his tipsily smashing the glass he tries to give a toast with-

• -the subsequent line “I am bleeding. I repeat, I am bleeding.”
• And then his best man speech:

“Sophie. Oleg. What’s there to say about these two kids? Oleg is a bad cook. Sophie, quite loud. But somehow when they get together, magic.”

• “Oh no, what am I gonna do with all those pigeons I painted wedding white-“
• “Woo, sunglasses and Advil. Last night was mad real.”
• “My boob pic is gonna be hanging over me for the rest of my life.” / “Aw c’mon, your boob couldn’t hang over a pencil.”

Here we are at last, presented with nearly twenty-two full minutes of television to cap off the fourth season of 2 Broke Girls and set the stage for the fifth. As I’ve pointed out in the past few weeks leading up to this one there is a lot riding on season finales, so it really pains me to say that this one does not deliver.

In my review of last season’s finale I listed off the momentous events that closed off the show’s first two years, which are as follows:

• Season 1 –  they meet Martha Stewart, a gigantic leap forward when it comes to them opening their cupcake store
• Season 2 – the decision is made to open a new store in a hidden room adjacent to the rest of the diner [given their old location having a car in one wall]

I also noted the way that that particular season ended:

• Season 3 – Max passes a US History final and gets her GED

Which, let’s all be fair, is and was not the biggest deal. I mean, yes, it’s great that Max now has a high school diploma, but what does it mean for her and Caroline moving forward? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. This season’s finale does at least include both girls, but can unfortunately be summed up as:

• Season 4 – Max and Caroline remember that they have a dream of their own, ie. their cupcake shop

That’s right, it dawns on them that they once had a plan to start their own business, a plotline that can actually be traced back to the very first season. What’s really jarring about this epiphany is that they’ve been in possession of their very own cupcake shop with its new storefront from the beginning of Season 3 to the end of Season 4. To have that fact in mind and then hear Caroline say that they “haven’t abandoned it, [they] just haven’t paid attention to it in three months” only makes it that much weirder.

Even when looking back through the season any episodes that had to do with their business were directly connected to their new venture focused on apparel. The $10k loan that they take out doesn’t have anything to do with baked goods and everything to do with t-shirts. Then that was swiftly abandoned due to bad press and they began work at The High to do what they could to pay off the aforementioned loan.

Creator and executive producer Michael Patrick King returns to both direct and write this episode in the hopes of trying to put things back on track, and he really has his work cut out for him. On one hand he needs to bring the story arc of Sophie and Oleg’s marriage to a close in a satisfying manner, and on the other he needs to, as I keep saying, set things up for for the fifth season. King needs, needed, to leave us in a place where we’re counting down the days until we can find out what happens to Max and Caroline!

To skip over the wedding completely [some of it will make it into my Stray Observations I’m sure] it’s two airline hostesses who are the cause of Max’s realization, with one saying to the other:

“Bonnie, let’s admit it, we’re never going to go for our dream. [. . .] If we really wanted our own business we would’ve done it already. Just like Max and Caroline did.”

Which results in her rewarding them with coconut macadamia cake and rushing to the back to tell Caroline:

“We have our own business. The High isn’t our failure. We already have our very own failure- called max’s homemade cupcakes! And if we stay here we’ll be building someone else’s dream not ours.”

Having laid out exactly how it happened what I really want to get into is why it happened. Was it the writers’ plan all along to bring attention away from their cupcake shop so that they could have this sudden realization that they’ve been neglecting it? Why does it feel like it’s not just the characters who are backtracking but those in charge of the show’s narrative as well?

As someone who is basically locked into watching 2 Broke Girls until it’s one day pulled off the air I’m actually very invested in it being a good show. I do want to see Max and Caroline grow as characters and move in a particular direction and I’m disappointed that this season has been so centred on them losing their way. Or maybe, as someone stuck in a job he enjoys very little, I’m just making my own dissatisfaction with my current stage in life clearly apparent by projecting on these fictional characters. That being said just because their situation may be realistic and even relatable does not make it good television.

Having said all that, come back in the fall when I will be covering the fifth season of the show and however it unfolds. While this season has been a pretty shaky one I actually have some hope that the writers will be serving up something more cohesive given what Max tells her [only?] friend:

“Well, partner, after all we’ve been through this year, whatever comes next I kinda feel ready for it.”

Also, please feel free to make Caroline Boob Pic memes to pass the time between now and then!

Current Total: $3,261.

New Total: $89. Max and Caroline totally do what I predicted would happen two episodes ago and head off to Paris, France. Which explains why they’re back in the double digits when it comes to whatever this amount is supposed to represent.

The Title Refers To: The airport branch of The High and how it isn’t doing well. I’d really been hoping that this episode was going to be more Storage Wars-related.

Stray Observations:

• I’m going to get this out of the way early, but we double down on the sexual abuse jokes [“I thought family style service was what I had to do with my uncle.”] when Han acknowledges it in a jab back at Max [“I don’t know what your uncle saw in you.”].
• That doesn’t keep the audience from shrieking with laughter, however. They’re a lot more lively than usual, likely due to it being the last episode of the season.
• “Wow, business is slower than the third season of House of Cards.”
• Big Mary/John is back to talk about his sex life [surprise, surprise], this time sharing about his new Grindr account.
• One of the stewardesses is played by Caroline Rhea, who was one of the aunts on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. What a great show.
• Also their thing is high fiving and wow, it is too much.
• As someone who has travelled a fair bit Caroline’s list of their establishment’s many services really got me:

“Welcome to The High, the finest in high quality desserts. We also have yogurts, cappuccinos, lattes, coffee, herb teas, or smart waters. And did I mention we’re a Boingo hotspot!“

• Evidence they’ve been neglecting their cupcake shop: Earl has a grow op in the closet.
• Chestnut makes an appearance as the steed Oleg rides down the aisle!
• And has to be decked out in pink ribbons, much to his owner’s chagrin. “I guess there’s a reason ‘horse’ sounds so much like ‘whore'”.
• The waiter Caroline hired is named “Mohammed Mehdinejad” and keeps getting held up by the TSA. “This whole Middle East situation is just so inconvenient for me!” she says.
• Pop Culture Put-Downs: a new feature that I hope to continue into Season 5, this episode featured jokes at the expense of: the Pitt-Jolie children, Anne Hathaway on The Tonight Show, and some woman named Meredith Baxter-Birney.
• Max says “I’ve never been in coach” but we all know she’s flown on an actual private jet so don’t start with me about this it doesn’t make any sense-
• Come back on Friday for a special exclusive 2 Broke Girls-related interview! You don’t want to miss it!

Last Friday I was blessed with the opportunity to have a very lengthy conversation with actor Federico Dordei, who appeared in a number of episodes of 2 Broke Girls as Luis, the day waiter at the Williamsburg Diner. He initially left a comment on one of my reviews of the show and agreed to answer a few of my questions about what it was like to be a part of it. Given that we ended up talking for a full hour I’ve opted to split the interview up into two parts.

In this first segment of questions and answers Fed [I can call him that since we are friends now] reveals what his time on the show was like, as well as what ultimately ended up happening to both him and Luis. My questions and comments are in bold, with his responses as regular text.

Your character Luis is one of my all-time favourites on the show, and reading back on my review of the first episode he appeared in it’s pretty apparent how much I liked him. Now you appeared in nine episodes of 2 Broke Girls-

I actually shot ten episodes, not nine.

I was supposed to start out as a guest star for an arc of three episodes, then it was renewed to six and they finally brought me back for four more. During this time I got the assumption that I may become a regular due to numerous comments made by some of the executives, such as “This is your home now!”, “This is just the beginning!”, etc. [Creator and producer] Michael Patrick King loved me and the character I brought to life.

The first episode was great, too, the writing was sarcastic and very funny. It was a little bit exaggerated, but I felt like I could bring it to life and have a lot of fun with it. The next two episodes you saw, the writing was kind of off with Luis. Not that funny, I didn’t know what to do with it. I was worried the live audience wouldn’t laugh!

For the most part it seems like things were looking pretty good for both you and Luis.

Well, after the third episode I shot I was invited to the birthday of one of the show’s producers. I was drinking and partying with some of the writers, talking about the show, and said that I really loved the writing for Luis, but that the next two episodes were not as funny for that character. It was a simple fun chat between co-workers while enjoying ourselves. One of the writers, he went to Michael Patrick King telling him that I was complaining about lines. Took things out of context and made it look like I was talking shit.

What Michael Patrick King does, he calls me and rips me a new asshole. Got me on the phone and shredded me to pieces, asking how dare I talk shit, I should be lucky he gave me any lines at all. He went on and on. At the end of the conversation I explained that I wasn’t talking shit, that it was just an innocent and honest chat between party buds having fun! And that it was passed on to him out of context and that I felt utterly blessed to be part of the show. He said “Have you ever heard the Girls [Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs] complain about lines?” Of course I said “No,” ’cause I’m not a snitch… But if he was ever with us in the makeup room he would have known the answer to that [laughs].

I thought it was just a normal comment, but he said that writers are like babies; they’re very difficult and very sensitive, especially when their words on paper are criticized. The writer was very young, too. He said this can’t happen anymore. He said “Do you know why I’m calling you?” I said, “You’re firing me?” He told me, “Nope, I’m calling you because I want to keep you and for you to rectify this. I don’t want this to happen again.”

Now, I’m Italian! Before I was making lasagna for everyone (around 200 people) and treated every single person on Stage 21 as family. But Michael Patrick King told me to be a professional, that this wasn’t a family, it’s work!

I went back to set for the fourth episode and I kept to myself. I stayed away from Michael Patrick King and I tried being less overly friendly and more professional with the rest of the cast and crew. I was trying to give Michael Patrick King what he wanted. But even so he really changed towards me, too. He started being cold and mean, criticizing my acting and how I delivered my lines with a scary intensity that came out as anger, almost like if I didn’t do it right he’d fire me, or worse, kill me! [laughs] He would show me how to do it by imitating me, all angry, and yelling that I needed to be louder and more over the top.

Every time we perform in front of studio executives, every time we read a joke, the writers look at Michael Patrick King. If he laughs they laugh. If he doesn’t laugh they don’t laugh. He’s really a very intense and passionate person who keeps his employees on their toes, their shaking toes. [laughs] He talks in a direct, tough way, he doesn’t hesitate to yell  or to just dismiss you if he feels like it. Nonetheless, during this time I still loved him and justified his behaviour thinking that he was acting like a tough father figure or something, I still felt like it was my home.

With the third episode my rate doubled, so I went to Michael Patrick King and thanked him- “Hey, thank you. That’s a nice amount of money I’m getting paid.” He told me, “Don’t thank me, that’s the agent, that’s Hollywood.” I don’t know how it works. I’m Italian, just being polite.

The incident at the party aside, all signs still point to you becoming a regular on the show. What exactly happened for Luis to end up being dropped from 2 Broke Girls?

So there were about five more episodes that I shot after that, and I was very excited about them. I’m very critical of my own work but the audience loved it. But Michael Patrick King would keep cutting out my character. The scenes would work well but then he would edit me out and use the same writing and jokes in upcoming episodes. These would have been really big episodes for Luis.

Then all of a sudden he just stopped calling.

I remember when he was on the phone with me he told me, “Listen, I’m calling you because I want you to rectify this. If I didn’t want you I would’ve stopped using you on the show, I would use you less and less and then not at all.” But that’s exactly what he ended up doing.

The casting director called him and said “What happened to Luis?” They dropped him completely without any notice, nothing. It was pretty brutal because you work with someone for five months every single day…

I was phased out slowly without even letting me know. Honestly I’m still hurt by all this. Remember, I was convincing myself he was like a tough father figure, so the letdown was hard on many levels. Kat would say he had a crush on me and that’s why he treated me the way that he did [laughs].

I’m pretty bummed to hear how it happened, especially since I think the show would’ve really really benefited by keeping you around. 

At this point it’s pretty clear to me that Michael Patrick King has a very specific way of doing things. Were the other cast members more used to that than you were ?

Jennifer Coolidge [who plays Sophie] is a legend and one of the coolest actresses ever, and even she had some anxiety sometimes. She also found him intimidating! [laughs] She’s older than me and she’s been working for years, so her getting nervous around him says a lot!

The Girls are fine, they’re great. They can respond to him with tone because he can’t fire them. They’re the 2 Broke Girls! [laughs] They’re the only people with the cajones and guts to act with the same tone he has. 

Honestly, it sounds a like kind of a tense environment to work in.

Everyone wants to have a good, stress-free time on set. Really, the only people having fun are the girls and Jonathan Kite [who plays Oleg]. He’s amazing, the best in the world. Whenever the audience laughed he’d make a point to yell out and give credit to the writers. He goes over his lines when he’s off camera, he’s never gonna leave the show.

Garrett Morris [who plays Earl] is the best on so many levels, another bona fide legend. Sometimes he’d be justifiably offended when he only had one or two lines, but I used to share a lot of laughter with him, he’s a great joke teller. [laughs]

Garrett Morris is a former SNL cast member, and I’ve definitely noticed entire episodes when he won’t get more than a handful of lines.

That’s exactly right. He’s a regular and has complained to the writers more than once. Jennifer Coolidge on the other hand gets a lot of dialogue because the audience loves her so much.

Now I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but do you think her character is TOO over the top?

Honestly, yeah. I do think that Sophie is a bit much. . .

It’s not her, it’s Michael Patrick King. He’s always telling her to be BIGGER and louder. Every time we did a table read she was so fucking hysterical. Actually shooting it Michael Patrick King wants her to exaggerate everything, and he loves it!

At my first table read I played a more subtle kind of gay guy. He told me, “I can’t hear you, the person in the back can’t hear you!” In other multicamera shows they’re not shouting like this, this isn’t I Love Lucy. You can’t tell me this is how multicam works; 2 Broke Girls is the only show with this style that has these caricatures of characters. But he told me what he wanted and I always delivered.

Kat Dennings is a great actress, but even on 2 Broke Girls she just yells the lines and tilts her head. [laughs] She’s not like the character as a real person, as a human being. Super opposite of the character: straight edge, no drugs, no drinking. Nothing to do with the character she plays. She’s a great person and I’m very fond of her.

She told me, “Oh man, first season, every time I go home from shooting I’d have Michael in my head saying be louder, be louder.” Back with her boyfriend she yelled “I LOVE YOU” in his ear thinking she was whispering! [laughs]

Really I think she’s the best person on set. Her and Jen and Garrett. The whole crew is great, like a big family. But when Michael Patrick King enters the fun is over. I thought I was gonna be fired every episode, and eventually I was.

Stop by again on Friday for Part 2 when Federico shares even more about his experience being on the 2 Broke Girls set, as well as the future of the show as it continues to move forward without Luis!