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Director Nicholas Jasenovec's use of audio, lighting, and camera techniques contribute to the greater organic unity and balance in Broad City season two finale episode titled St. Marks.

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Balance in photography is observed when an image has subject areas that look balanced throughout the composition. It is achieved by shifting the frame and juxtaposing subjects within it so objects, tones, and colors are of equal visual weight. An image is balanced when subject areas command a viewer's attention equally.

There are two main techniques of balance: formal and informal. However, there are also other kinds of formal and informal techniques that photographers have been practicing to balance out lightness and heaviness, varying shapes, and even meanings behind a composition.

Below you'll find the five types of balance in photography to help you create more visually appealing and meaningful photographs.

Symmetrical Balance

Also called formal balance, symmetrical balance is the most common way to photograph an image. After all, it's natural for for people to place their main subjects right in the middle of the frame. Professionals and photography workshops often advise new photographers to avoid shooting their subjects front and center, but in the case of the photo above, it works perfectly in giving the main subject some visual emphasis and appeal.

In symmetrically balanced photos, both sides of the frame have equal weight and may even mirror each other. Subjects are intentionally centered to look perfectly symmetrical when split horizontally or vertically in half.

In the photo above, both the St. Charles church in Vienna and its mirror image on the pond are centered to create a symmetrical image. Meanwhile, the pillar-lined walkway below has balanced framing lines and borders that lead the eye to the middle and add visual appeal.

Finally, even though it's usually not advisable to shoot portraits with the person right in the middle of the frame, it can sometimes be a good compositional technique for red carpet candids and beauty close-ups, as seen in the photo below (right).

Asymmetrical Balance

Also known as informal balance, it is the most common compositional technique taught in photography and art workshops. Since it requires intentionally placing your subject off center, it's more difficult to achieve but gets easier with daily practice.

The rule of thirds puts asymmetrical balance to your advantage, as it suggests that the center of interest lies along the intersecting lines of an image that is divided vertically and horizontally by four lines. Other ways to create asymmetrical balance within the composition is by balancing out your main subject with another, less important subject that contrasts with the former in terms of size, color, or general appearance.

Take the image of the window and bike above. Not only are the subjects placed on the left and right side of the frame, they compliment each other by varying in size, thus creating balance in both size and subject placement.

In the landscape photo above left, the horizon and the setting sun are placed along the lines observed by the rule of thirds, and the brighter areas of the sky and water are balanced by the darker area of the stones in the foreground.

In the photo on the left, the differently sized subjects (bigger silhouetted bike and smaller hot air balloons) and the contrasting tones between the upper and bottom part of the frame create asymmetrical balance within the composition.

Color Balance

Another interesting way to create asymmetrical balance is by using colors. As you can imagine, a photo with too many vibrant colors, such as reds and oranges, may make an image look overwhelming. Color balance can be achieved by balancing out a small area of vibrant color with a larger area of neutral or more pastel colors, and vice versa.

In the image above, the rainbow-colored abacus beads would have been too heavy on the eyes if it were placed on a colored surface instead of a plain, white surface. Both images below were placed off center and are not balanced out by a second subject, but are balanced out by more neutral and less striking colors around them.

Tonal Balance

This kind of asymmetrical balance is best observed in monochromatic or black and white images where different tones are easily distinguishable. In this case, tonal balance is seen in terms of contrast between lighter and darker areas within an image.

Like bright colors, darker areas are "heavier" on the eyes and are best balanced out by bigger, lighter areas. These are observed in the photos below, where the foregrounds are darker and are in harmony with the lighter backgrounds. The fact that the foreground subjects also observe the rule of thirds adds even more visual appeal to the images.

Conceptual Balance

Conceptual balance is the more philosophical type of asymmetrical balance where two subjects complement each other and are different beyond size, shape and form. In many cases, conceptual balance is achieved in an image where there are two contrasting textures or meanings behind its subjects. That said, it is obviously harder to compose a conceptually balanced image as it usually takes more than just a tilt of the frame.

In the photo above, the two subjects (an old building and a high-rise glass building) are placed on the left and right sides of the frame. In addition to asymmetrical, color, and tonal balance, conceptual balance is achieved as the buildings showcase the effect of modernization and industrialization.

The same goes for the photo of the two kinds of windmills below. On the right, the photo of the denim pants shows color balance as well as conceptual balance, by contrast in textures between the distressed denim and the smoother, less textured surface around it.

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What is Balance in Photography? - 42 West, the Adorama Learning Center

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Balance in photography is observed when an image has subject areas that look balanced throughout the composition. It is achieved by shifting the frame and juxtaposing subjects within it so objects, tones, and colors are of equal visual weight. An image is balanced when subject areas command a viewer's attention equally.

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Cult favorite web series "Broad City" burst from online obscurity last week. It got picked up by Comedy Central, with current queen of television comedy Amy Poehler (who has appeared in one episode) onboard as executive producer.

The New York-set series stars Upright Citizens Brigade alumnae Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson as two broke 20-somethings navigating the world of sex, drugs, relationships and Lil Wayne concerts around the city. So, naturally, it immediately drew comparisons to HBO's critically acclaimed "Girls," which also features young females in New York City.

The shows aren't really that similar: "Broad City" is an outlandish and raunchy basic-cable comedy; "Girls" is a generational dramedy with moments of nudity (thanks, premium cable).

Here are five things "Broad City" offers that you won't find on "Girls."

The DIY aesthetic

"Girls" felt like a gilded baby when it arrived on the air in 2012: Creator Lena Dunham already had a movie under her belt, and she populated the show with actors who were the children of famous artists or journalists (NBC anchor Brian Williams, playwright David Mamet, Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke). Producer Judd Apatow got onboard, giving the show a slickly produced, showbiz feel.

"Broad City" is more of a grassroots effort churned out from the salt mines of Internet videos. Jacobson and Glazer met at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater and in 2009 started posting extremely low-budget webisodes.

"With the show, it just felt like a bigger crew," Jacobson told comedy Web site Splitsider, "but that we were still kinda stealing shots, which is real fun."

Absurdity

"Girls" hews close to the bone of the current Brooklyn scene, with all its hordes of scruffy freelancers posting up in coffee shops, warehouse parties and so many crisscrossing sexual streams you'd need a Google spreadsheet to keep track. "Broad City" offers more offbeat adventures, as seen in this classic Webisode "I Heart New York," where the two race across a busy New York neighborhood with help from Poehler, only to have her felled by an assault of loose oranges.

Raunch

Dunham has gotten us used to seeing her naked body in a casual way throughout three seasons of "Girls." On "Broad City," we're treated to a different kind of raunch. Let's just say there is a lot of use of vibrators (both in the online and TV versions). And toilet humor, too, like in this clip of the two discussing lunch while on the throne:

Individuals, not archetypes

Sure, Abbi is the more introverted character, and Ilana is the more outgoing one, but other than that, they're not that easy to pin down. Too often female characters get penned into character archetypes: there's the wild one (Jessa, from "Girls"), the naive one (Shoshanna) or the pretty one (Marnie). Ilana and Abbi are more unpredictable - in one episode they might be tapdancing in the park, in another they might be rebuffing a catcaller on the street, but wherever they are, they act like fully actualized human characters.

Hustling

Abbi and Ilana need money to get to the Lil Wayne concert (a scenario we can all sympathize with), so they get creative. Ilana steals office supplies from her work and returns them to an Office Depot-type store, then trades the gift card for a bag of weed. They go to the park and drum when they need extra cash, and get desperate enough that they even solicit themselves to clean a stranger's (Fred Armisen) apartment in their underwear for money.

The protagonists of "Girls" are, by design, not hustlers. They bask in the expanded aura of their parents' benevolence, and can never ditch the yoke of entitlement that makes them act like they deserve better, without ever really working for it. Watching Dunham's Hannah character moan about how she's broke can get old, but watching the "Broad City" girls hit the streets and hustle is a refreshing depiction of 20-somethings trying anything they can to hold onto the bucking bronco of New York City.

Catch the second episode of the season Wednesday at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.

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5 things 'Broad City' offers that 'Girls' doesn't

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Cult favorite web series "Broad City" burst from online obscurity last week. It got picked up by Comedy Central, with current queen of television comedy Amy Poehler (who has appeared in one episode) onboard as executive producer.

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On last night's season finale of Broad City, Abbi takes Ilana out for a night on St. Mark's Place to celebrate her birthday. Filmed on location between 2nd and 3rd Ave, the episode is bursting with all the tattoo joints, bubble tea, glow sticks, and disgusting public intoxication you'd expect from the iconic East Village thoroughfare.

Intrigued? Here's how to follow in Abbi and Ilana's footsteps.

1. E Smoke Shop - 23 3rd Ave

Abbi and Ilana start their evening by turning onto the north side of St. Mark's from 3rd Ave.

2. Payapa King - 3 St. Mark's Place

A creepy dude tells them to smile in front of Papaya King.

3. Udon West - 11 St. Mark's Place

They pass a drunk girl peeing in front of Udon West.

4. Kulture - 19-23 St. Mark's Place

Ilana and Abbi give a dollar to a homeless woman outside this storefront.

5. Search & Destroy - 25 St. Mark's Place

They're harassed on the stoop by "runaway teens."

6. Kenka - 25 St. Mark's Place

They eat dinner (or try to) at the Japanese restaurant right next door.

7. Bull McCabe's - 29 St. Mark's Place

Ilana overhears a "business guido" tearfully call up his ex.

8. Wig Store - 31 St. Mark's Place

Abbi and Ilana play dress up with novelty tees and funeral-worthy wigs.

9. CoCo Fresh Tea & Juice and Mark Burger - 33 St. Mark's Place

When Abbi's gift for Ilana is stolen by one of the so-called runaway teens - who turns out to be a spoiled thirtysomething named Timothy - they give chase. TV editing magic shows them running after him along the south side of St. Mark's without actually crossing the street, but by the time Abbi has a run-in with a taxi, they're back on the north side.

10. St. Mark's Market - 21 St. Mark's Place

They follow Timothy into this grocery store.

11. Pizza - 36 St. Mark's Place

They end their night triumphant - with Abbi's gift for Ilana, that blanket, back in their possession - and celebrate with a slice.
All images via Comedy Central and Google Street View Molly Fitzpatrick is senior editor of Fusion's Pop & Culture section. Her interests include movies about movies, TV shows about TV shows, and movies about TV shows, but not so much TV shows about movies.

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Take the 'Broad City' walking tour of St. Mark's Place on Google Street View

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On last night's season finale of Broad City, Abbi takes Ilana out for a night on St. Mark's Place to celebrate her birthday. Filmed on location between 2nd and 3rd Ave, the episode is bursting with all the tattoo joints, bubble tea, glow sticks, and disgusting public intoxication you'd expect from the iconic East Village thoroughfare.

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Broad City often captures both Abbi and Ilana on camera, hence the use of a two-shot. Having two protagonists contributes to the overall balance of each frame and creates a pleasurable visual.

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In the restaurant, Abbi and Ilana encounter two old "friends," who they really wish they hadn't seen. The balance of the scene shifts when they see the other two people-- the girls get quiet and the conversation is dominated by the couple. Still, two-shots are used to keep the visuals appealing.

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Broad City is maybe the best and realest show taking place in NYC right now, but to make it even realer we mapped out all of the places that Abbi and Ilana set foot in during Season 2 (or at least all the ones you can actually visit). And, while we have no idea if there really is a superlative stash of knockoff bags hiding below a manhole on Doyers St, now you at least know where to look: check out the map below and click on the spots to reveal where each scene was shot.

Or just scroll down and read it all -- you've got more options than Jaime at 42 Squirts.

Soulstice

Pretty much every episode
The high-end gym (the name parodies popular athletic haunts SoulCycle and Equinox) where Abbi is a cleaner/aspiring trainer makes its way into almost every episode. Soulstice isn't actually real, but the scenes are shot at Chalk Gyms in North Williamsburg.
Address: 193 N 9th St

Bleecker St subway station

Episode 1: In Heat
Abbi and Ilana board a 6 train overcrowded with a motley cast of characters (clip above), including a man trimming his toenails, a mother cutting her son's hair, and an elderly woman who addresses Abbi as "Val," foreshadowing the appearance of Abbi's boozed-up alter ego in Episode 5: "Hashtag FOMO." Oh also: they get off at the Grand Central stop.

Episode 1: In Heat
Abbi and Ilana go inside just to escape the heat. Ilana tries on shorts, despite the fact that she's not wearing underwear, while telling Abbi, in highly graphic detail, about Colin Farrell's sex tape. Abbi buys a pair of pants because they're stuck to her sweaty body.
Address: 478 Broadway

Episode 1: In Heat
Ilana has dinner with a group of Lincoln's friends without realizing it's his birthday. While Ilana's in the bathroom, we finally find out where they met: "at a Footlocker in Times Square," Lincoln tells the group. "She was just hanging out. She wasn't buying anything. She was just chillin'." Sadly, Heartwood is closed now, but you can go to the spot in its place, Prova, and get uni pizza.
Address: 184 8th Ave

Bed Bath & Beyond

Episode 1: In Heat
Ilana accompanies Abbi on her search for an air conditioner. Abbi shares elaborate personal handshakes with the employees, one of whom has a cutting board "with her name on it" tucked away. Ilana's strategy for finding a taxi -- "I'll look for a cab on the side streets. You take the avenue." -- backfires when the air conditioner, which they've laid to rest on the Northeast corner of 18th St and Sixth Ave, is stolen.
Address: 620 6th Ave

Union Square East

Episode 1: In Heat
After losing Abbi's newly purchased air conditioner, the pair retires to a park bench where they cradle 10lb bags of ice and try to crowdsource a used AC for "free to cheap" on Facebook.

Shamden Hall, NYU

Episode 1: In Heat
Pretending to be RAs conducting a "spontaneous room raid," the pair sneaks into Ilana's old dorm room to retrieve the air conditioner she left behind when she graduated. They decide to teach the three guys who presumably live there about " the dangers of ripping underage bongs" using the pot Ilana had stored in the wall "indefinitely in case of emergency." Which is, frankly, just smart planning. Abbi makes out with one of the guys who turns out to be a senior... in high school. The dorm is fake, but the exterior of the building is actually Baruch College.
Address: 151 E 25th St

Episode 2: Mochalatta Chills
The gals complain about the theater's sound quality in order to get free tickets, sneak into several different movies, and repeat the cycle.
Address: 210 E 86 St

Episode 2: Mochalatta Chills
Ilana takes Abbi out to a "Halliburton fat cat lunch," complete with a "dirty-ass martini." The meal is made possible thanks to the $400 Ilana's newly hired unpaid interns have made for her at Deals, Deals, Deals -- the company where she somehow manages to keep a job without ever doing any work. The exterior of the restaurant is filmed at Revel in the Meatpacking District.
Address: 10 Little W 12th St

Lincoln's Office

Episode 3: Wisdom Teeth
Lincoln removes Abbi's wisdom teeth. Ilana accompanies her to the surgery, assuming the role of "Mommy Lani" by calming Abbi's nerves and ensuring that she holds on tight to Bingo Bronson, the stuffed doll she got her just for the occasion. The exterior of the building is filmed at the office of Drs. Lawrence and David Kessler in North Williamsburg. BYO Bingo Bronson.
Address: 183 N 6th St

42 Squirts

Episode 3: Wisdom Teeth
After Abbi's surgery, "Mommy Lani" orders Jaime to go to fro-yo shop 42 Squirts and "get me a real Abbi flavor. You'll know it when you see it." Jaime is overwhelmed by the shop's infinite array of oddball offerings -- like Sriracha, Bananarama Dingdong, Nicorette, Sizzurp, Patchouli, and Surf and Turf -- and suffers a minor mental breakdown while trying to "capture the complexity of this beautiful human being (Abbi) in one single flavor." He's still flummoxed hours later when an employee asks him to leave: "Sir, we're closing. Just pick any flavor," she implores him. "They're all chemicals." The scenes are shot at 16 Handles in North Williamsburg, and unfortunately they don't have Bananarama Dingdong. We'd order that one, though, if they did.
Address: 139 N 7th St

Mural on Gowanus E-waste Warehouse

Episode 3: Wisdom Teeth
High on a double dose of post-surgery Vicodin, plus, what is according to Ilana, "the strongest form of weed possible," Abbi frolics through Gowanus while holding hands with a giant imaginary Bingo Bronson. She stops to gape at a trippy mural by graffiti artists The Wallnuts Crew that adorns the front of a building used by the Lower East Side Ecology Center as a drop-off point for reusable and recyclable electronics.
Address: 469 President St (the mural is on the Nevins side, though)

Carroll Deli & Grocery

Episode 3: Wisdom Teeth
Abbi dances and downs a Yoo-hoo while Bingo Bronson cheers, "chug, chug, chug, chug, chug." Later in the episode, while searching for Abbi, Ilana goes inside the deli and finds a clue: the second Yoo-hoo bottle Abbi left smashed on the floor.
Address: 142 Carroll St

Carroll Street Bridge

Episode 3: Wisdom Teeth
Abbi skips over the bridge, still holding hands with Bingo Bronson.
Address: Carroll St between Bond and Nevins

Gowanus Whole Foods

Episode 3: Wisdom Teeth
When Abbi and Bingo Bronson arrive in the parking lot, the stuffed doll dubs Whole Foods "the most magical place in the whole world," noting that "the neighborhood's really changed." He then convinces Abbi to stock up on granola, manuka honey, and probiotics, costing her a total of $1,487.56 on her new credit card. "You bought it because you thought you needed more than one credit card to be an adult," he beguiles her. "Now's your chance to use it!"
Address: 214 3rd St

Rich Nails

Episode 4: Knockoffs
The girls meet up with Ilana's mother, Bobbi, to get their "nails did." Bobbi decides on this particular salon because "Yelp said someone got a staph infection in this place. It's so cheap now!" While we couldn't find any reports confirming that Rich Nails (where the scene was shot) harbored any of the sometimes-deadly bacteria, its real-life Yelp reputation doesn't make us feel much better.
Address: 199 Hester St

Mott St between Canal and Bayard

Episode 4: Knockoffs
Ilana accompanies her mother to Chinatown on a mission to procure the best in counterfeit handbags. It's clear that Bobbi's obsession runs deep: in Chinese, she berates the street vendor for offering her an inferior product, asserting she's not a "tri-state area dirtbag" unable to tell the difference between a cross stitch and a sailmakers stitch.

The Manhole with the good bags in it

Episode 4: Knockoffs
Bobbi and Ilana are blindfolded by the Mott St handbag vendors and transported, in the back of a van, to a manhole on Doyers St just steps away from Nom Wah Tea Parlor. Beneath the manhole are the bags Bobbi has been lusting after.
Address: Doyers St between Bowery and Pell, close to 13 Doyers St

Episode 4: Knockoffs
Abbi heads to the legendary West Village sex shop to replace the dildo she used to peg Jeremy, which she accidentally broke by putting it into the dishwasher. Ilana's always-annoyed co-worker Nicole is there attempting to return a pair of nipple clamps that aren't tight enough.
Address: 192 7th Ave

The Back Room

Episode 5: Hashtag FOMO
After they make an appearance at four other parties, Abbi leads Ilana down a dark Lower East Side alleyway to speakeasy-style bar The Back Room, where a group of senior citizens raise their glasses, greeting Abbi as "Val." Abbi soon reappears, clad in a tuxedo jacket, black fedora, nylons, and heels, belting out "Get Happy" a la Judy Garland in Summer Stock. It dawns on Ilana that whenever Abbi drinks pretty much all of the drinks ever, she transforms into "Val," a brassy character who downs martinis, speaks in 1920s slang, blows smoke rings, is an ace at the pool table, and swallows her own nose ring because she loves diamonds. When the bartender explains that Val has been coming around for three years, Ilana's FOMO goes "through the damn roof." Ours too.
Address: 102 Norfolk St

Star on 18 Diner Cafe

Episode 5: Hashtag FOMO
Abbi and Ilana try to revive themselves with burgers and milkshakes at the iconic Chelsea diner. Abbi has zero recollection of her appearance as "Val" the night before. In fact, she has no idea who "Val" is.
Address: 128 10th Ave

Episode 6: The Matrix
The gals engage in a fantasy drum duet (Abbi is "Razor Burnz," Ilana is "Pussy M.D.") and are asked to leave by an employee (TV on the Radio's Kyp Malone), who tells them he's a producer in need of two drummers just to get them to stop banging.
Address: 330 Wythe Ave

Prospect Park

Episode 6: The Matrix
Disgusted by their addiction to technology, the gals decide to unplug by rollerblading in Prospect Park sans cell phones. Abbi falls into a ditch, spraining her ankle, and Ilana decides the best course of action is to locate her brother who's preparing for the nuptials of his dog at one of the park's gazebos. Ilana employs her "nature skills" -- smoking leaves, kneading dog poop, and making out with a tree -- eventually finding her way to the dog wedding after coming across a map. Abbi arrives later on a stretcher, just in time to watch as a veterinarian minister (Janeane Garofalo) performs the union of Eliot's yarmulke-clad terrier Atticus to Poppi, a chihuahua dressed in Vera Wang.

New York Harbor

Episode 7: Citizen Ship
In honor of Jaime's upcoming naturalization as a US citizen, Abbi sneaks him, Ilana, and Lincoln onto a boat where her roommate Melody's law firm is hosting a highly exclusive party. Everyone else on board dons pastel plaids and belts embroidered with lobsters, marks the passage of time in quarters, and lives in Murray Hill but is moving to Williamsburg. Bevers, Abbi, and Ilana get locked in the liquor cabinet while trying to steal booze, Jamie marvels at the boat's superlative view of the Statue of Liberty, and Bevers botches his proposal to Melody, instead telling the assembled crowd that Abbi is transitioning to becoming a man. If you want to cruise the harbor and hopefully have boat sex (like Ilana and Lincoln), there're tons of options -- here's one.

United States District Court, Brooklyn

Episode 7: Citizen Ship
Abbi, Ilana, and Lincoln attend Jaime's naturalization ceremony the morning after the boat party. They're still in their red, white, and blue garb from the night before, though they're now a little disheveled and Lincoln is hurting so bad he "can't focus on a fixed point." Jaime dons American flag-patterned contacts.
Address: 225 Cadman Plaza E

Episode 8: Kirk Steele
Abbi applies for a job putting wristbands on bar patrons and when she presents the manager with a resume instead of a headshot, he tells her she just isn't "wristband material." She heads outside the bar where a line of model-types (including a shirtless guy who looks like one of the dudes standing outside Hollister in Soho), is waiting to interview, headshots in hand.
Address: 151 8th Ave, #1

Stumptown Coffee Roasters

Episode 8: Kirk Steele
Ilana teaches Oliver, her wealthy babysitting charge, about the "Four Rs": reduce, reuse, recycle, Rihanna. She insists their drinks be served in used cups, even though the grossed-out barista has made it clear that's a health code violation. Abbi joins and Ilana reveals her latest discovery: Trey, Abbi's boss at Soulstice, was once an adult film actor. Everyone in the cafe is watching porn.
Address: 30 W 8th St

Beacon's Closet

Episode 8: Kirk Steele
After breaking a mirror at Soulstice, Abbi tries to sell her clothes to Beacon's Closet in order to make the $700 she needs to replace it. The whiney, fuchsia-lipsticked employee working the counter offers her a measly $20 in cash. She has better luck -- to the tune of $903 -- when she returns with a mountain of last-season Prada and other designer wares that Oliver's mother has handed off to Ilana, thinking they're going straight to a homeless shelter. The scheme is 100% Oliver's.
Address: 74 Guernsey St

Union Square West

Episode 8: Kirk Steele
After a disappointing initial trip to Beacon's Closet, Abbi tries to the raise the remaining $680 she needs to replace the broken Soulstice mirror by selling her art in Union Square. However, she fails to sell a single drawing from her "Famous Favorites" series in which she portrays what she imagines to be the favorite foods of various celebrities. (Ron Howard's is a shrimp cocktail, Bruce Springsteen's a tomato, and Nicki Minaj's a lollipop).

The National Arts Club

Episode 9: Coat Check
Ilana and Abbi work the coat check at a charity event. While Ilana is off making out with an attractive and mysterious female party guest (Alia Shawkat), Abbi struggles to deal with the mess Ilana created when she put all of the coat-check tickets in the tip jar. Abbi is starstruck when Kelly Ripa comes to retrieve her coat and mortified when she realizes it's gone missing.
Address: 15 Gramercy Park S

The High Line

Episode 9: Coat Check
The gals stroll and then snag a pair of lounge chairs as Abbi figures out how to locate Kelly Ripa's coat. "Because you're such a bobo," she tells Ilana, "I have the opportunity of a lifetime to find and return Kelly Ripa's coat to her home. I mean she's America's sweetheart. I just really feel like we hit it off." All Abbi has to do is find the person who took the coat and then she "can deliver it to Kelly's beautiful toned arms."

McCarren Park

Episode 9: Coat Check
Ilana takes Abbi to McCarren Park to introduce her to Adele, the party guest from the National Arts Club she thinks she might be in love with. As Adele walks toward them, Ilana beams, remarking "I don't know what it is about this girl!" When Abbi hugs Ilana goodbye a few moments later, she whispers in Ilana's ear: "Dude, she looks exactly like you. So..." Ilana looks at Adele, thoroughly weirded out.

St. Mark's Place

Episode 10: St. Mark's
On Ilana's 23rd birthday, the gals start off on Third Ave and continue East, encountering the typical array of St. Mark's Place weirdos: the "tree man," the "parrot dude," the girls who can't walk in their heels, the couple aggressively making out, and the guy dancing down the sidewalk twirling glow sticks while chanting "sex, sex, sex, sex, sex."

The Meat Sack

Episode 10: St. Mark's
Abbi makes a reservation for Ilana's birthday under the name "Lil Wayne" at a dumpling restaurant Ilana refers to as "The Meat Sack." The scene, however, is shot at Kenka, an authentic izakaya establishment the Village Voice once referred to as "an edible amusement park of the fermented, fried, and freaky." (The menu doesn't shy away from delicacies like turkey testicles, bull penis, and maggot fried rice.)
Address: 25 St. Mark's Pl

St. Mark's Market

Episode 10: St. Mark's
A hoodie-wearing "runaway teen" -- who later turns out to be a 34-year-old grad-school dropout -- steals Abbi's purse and escapes into the nearest grocery store. Abbi and Ilana chase him through the aisles and down an alley, all the way to the townhouse where he lives with his wealthy, wine-guzzling psychiatrist mother (Patricia Clarkson).
Address: 21 St. Mark's Pl

2 Bros. Pizza

Episode 10: St. Mark's
After reclaiming Abbi's stolen purse, the gals pop a squat by the 2 Bros. storefront ( there were two, but there's only one left on St. Mark's now) to enjoy a slice. Since Ilana's birthday dinner at Kenka ("The Meat Sack") didn't go as planned, this greasy goodness is the first thing they've eaten all night: "Mmmmmmmmmm. I love pizza, dude," Abbi moans. "Me too," Ilana retorts. "It's like a squirrel's sleeping bag unzipped."
Address: 32 St. Mark's Pl
Sign up here for our daily NYC email and be the first to get all the food/drink/fun New York has to offer. Nina Stoller-Lindsey is a Brooklyn-based writer who's covered arts and culture for Time Out New York and New York Magazine. Reach out to her on Twitter or through her website with speakeasy endorsements or to debate the merits of growing up in New York City.

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Everywhere You Can ACTUALLY Go From Broad City's Season 2, Mapped

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Broad City is maybe the best and realest show taking place in NYC right now, but to make it even realer we mapped out all of the places from the show that you can actually go to in the city. Yas, Queen!

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Iridescent lighting is used in the wig shop to give it a more authentic feeling, but it's still easy to see the girls' expressions.

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From left, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, Allison Williams and Zosia Mamet of "Girls." Credit... Mark Schafer/HBO

Our critics look at the impact of the HBO show on television as it enters its sixth and final season.

From left, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, Allison Williams and Zosia Mamet of "Girls." Credit... Mark Schafer/HBO

When "Girls" had its premiere on HBO in 2012, it was an instant lightning rod. A dramedy about four 20-something women searching for careers and companionship in New York, it was praised for its sexually frank, wryly satirical look at millennial angst, chastised for its lack of diversity, and dissected in an endless stream of essays and social media posts thanks to its explorations of gender politics and post-collegiate social panic.

"Girls," "Veep," "Scandal," "Bunheads" and "The Mindy Project" debuted within months of one another, all centered on complicated women whose problems are not designed to seem adorable. Though "Girls," created by Lena Dunham, who also stars as the would-be writer Hannah Horvath, is not a ratings powerhouse, it has a devoted, outspoken following and helped usher in an impressive new generation of idiosyncratic voices on television.

At the start of its sixth and final season, on Feb. 12, as Hannah gets a big break as a writer, Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) embarks on a new job, Marnie (Allison Williams) endures a messy divorce, and Jessa (Jemima Kirke) holes up with Adam (Adam Driver), "Girls" hasn't lost its attention-grabbing ways. Six of our critics look at the impact that "Girls" made (and did not make) on TV.

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According to Hollywood, women can have completely satisfying sexual experiences without ever taking off their bras, and manage to reach euphoric orgasms within minutes. "Girls" never bothered with any of these tropes. From the show's first episode, the sex was sweaty, it was weird, it was jiggly, it was unflattering. Which is to say: It was realistic.

The show's women had sex for the messy fun of it, for validation, even when it was fleeting, and occasionally out of obligation. Questionable moments - of which there were oh so many - were cured with humor before they turned tragic and bitter. And there were few cautionary tales. "Girls" could have been a BuzzFeed listicle of "Awkward Sex Encounters You'll Have in Your 20s."

In Season 5, when Adam (Adam Driver) and Jessa (Jemima Kirke) finally acknowledge their slow-burning chemistry and succumb to the desire to have sex, there is nothing cinematic about it. There is no montage of them reuniting in the rain, or passionate kiss set to a Twenty One Pilots song. Instead, the camera cuts to them straddling on a creaky couch, negotiating bad backs and the limited space. The payoff comes from seeing two abrasive characters in a rare display of tenderness. When Ray and Shoshanna, played by Alex Karpovsky and Zosia Mamet, are staring down the end of their romance, they find themselves having sex. Shoshanna's face, looking extremely uncomfortable, is closest to the camera, while Ray's unaware and blissful one hovers over her. The scene telegraphs something profound about the way women endure, how they swallow their needs to service others, especially men.

Perhaps Marnie (Allison Williams) has the most dramatic arc. Early on, her facial expressions during sex are shaded with shock, the punch line to an unspoken joke about how awful the whole experience seems. She often watches her partner to figure out her reaction, instead of concentrating on deriving any pleasure for herself. But a few seasons later, she comes into her own with her musician boyfriend, Desi (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), as he kneels, face buried in her behind. The look on her face is no longer confused nor uneasy. It is pure bliss.

But the best moments are the ones when Hannah (Lena Dunham) unabashedly reveals the deepest veins of her pathologies. Once she takes on the role of an extremely underage child while having sex with Adam; another time she lifts a $100 bill from him and uses it to buy pizza.

The show didn't make the sex easy to watch because it isn't easy for women to figure themselves out as sexual beings, to have autonomy and agency, to determine how they want to wield their femininity and sexuality. But "Girls" never tried to be easy.

JENNA WORTHAM

It was around the third or maybe the 13th time Lena Dunham whipped off her bra in "Girls" that I realized she was not only a writer, director, performer as well as a millennial touchstone, sore spot and fetish, but also a body artist. Since the start of that show, she has made one woman's body in all its glorious, uncomfortably chaotic excess both the subject and object of her attention and ours. Much of the history of Western art has been a history of men creating images of women, especially white and young; Ms. Dunham is doing her part to recast that image, its production and consumption.

Each time Ms. Dunham's character, Hannah, slurps spaghetti or strips on camera is an assertion that this particular woman engaged in this specific action - eating, talking or having sex - is worth attention. In this, she is redefining both female beauty and a woman's value. Women come in all sizes, shapes and colors, but you wouldn't know it from much fine art or pop culture, which have long venerated certain types of women while relegating others - like the black and brown - to the margins or invisibility. The world is crowded with unseen, underrepresented women, including the fat, hairy, wrinkled, disabled, scarred, menstruating, menopausal and nonstraight.

Ms. Dunham has unsurprisingly been criticized for her insistent self-display, sometimes fairly, at other times misguidedly and cruelly. John Berger, in his book "Ways of Seeing," nicely articulates the more hypocritical aspects of some of these attacks: "You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting 'Vanity,' thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure." Mr. Berger understood - as does Ms. Dunham - that the function of the mirror was "to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight." A sight conceptualized and viewed and controlled by men.

This is changing oh-so slowly, with performers like Ms. Dunham, Mindy Kaling, Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy and Amy Schumer, among others, challenging norms of female beauty, desirability, significance and consequence. They've used humor to demolish old ways of seeing, dismantling, joke by joke, ideas about a woman's to-be-looked-at-ness. In some ways, they have mainstreamed the assaults on representation that are also the domain of performance artists like Karen Finley, who famously smeared chocolate on her nude body to symbolize, as she explained, how women are treated like dirt.

Dirtiness, untidiness and sloppiness are radical gestures, especially for women, who are consistently instructed to pluck, shave, diet and douche away the mess. Ms. Dunham knows this, and there's nothing that I love more about "Girls" than its insistence on Hannah's slurping and blabbing, her inconsideration and periodic cruelty, her neediness and narcissism. There's a sort of privilege at work here; Ms. Dunham's whiteness has allowed her the kind of access and indulgence rarely accorded women of color. At the same time, Hannah is finally a rebuke to universal ideas about women. Hannah is a woman, not all women. Hers is a female body, not the female body.

MANOHLA DARGIS

"I don't want to freak you out, but I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least, a voice of a generation."

So declares Lena Dunham's Hannah in the first episode of "Girls," in 2012. Looking back, that wry prophecy was right and wrong: "Girls" has stood out for the fanfare around its millennial feminist voice, as well as for the pushback over how little the show represents the lives of the women of color who live in the same Brooklyn neighborhoods where the show is set.

After a few episodes, Dodai Stewart in Jezebel wrote, " Why We Need to Keep Talking About the White Girls on 'Girls'"; Jenna Wortham (of The New York Times) asked in the Hairpin, " Where (My) Girls At?"; and I wrote a piece for The Nation on how the show's friendship segregation spoke to a bigger racial problem in America. In contrast, Ms. Dunham's defenders maintained that she was being held to a higher diversity standard than her peers or predecessors. As Rebecca Traister wrote in The New Republic, "what's unfair is that related critiques seem not to be applied with nearly as much zeal to the overwhelmingly white (and far more male) Sunday morning news programs, CBS's prime-time lineup, the opinion pages of The New York Times or to, say, Congress."

I always thought that conversations around race and "Girls" revealed a new facet of millennial feminism: the ways in which digital media elevated the voices of women of color, who traditionally did not have the same platforms as their white counterparts. Social media enabled wider audiences to engage in debates about racism and feminism that had typically taken place offline and too often only among academics and activists.

Ms. Dunham seems to have addressed diversity concerns by doubling down and at times satirizing the identity politics the show was accused of ignoring. In Season 2, Hannah dates Sandy (Donald Glover), a black Republican with whom she breaks up because she is both too racially progressive and racially myopic for him. By Season 4, she leaves for the Iowa Writers' Workshop and ends up in a cohort far more multiracial than any dive bar or art gallery that she frequents back home. In the new season, her initial love interest is a surf instructor played by Riz Ahmed, a British actor of Pakistani descent. Recently, Ms. Dunham has expressed regret about the show's lack of diversity. "I wouldn't do another show that starred four white girls," she said in Nylon magazine.

Perhaps, in part, because of the "Girls" controversy, Comedy Central's "Broad City," TBS's "Search Party" and other hipster millennial shows set in New York better reflect its diversity. Netflix's "Master of None," in which Aziz Ansari plays Dev, an Indian-American character who has a white girlfriend, Rachel (Noël Wells), and is best friends with the Taiwanese-American Brian (Kelvin Yu) and the African-American Denise (Lena Waithe), best enlarges our sense of diversity. It underscores that for the most racially diverse generation in American history, there are many millennial voices to which we should be listening.

SALAMISHAH TILLET

"Girls" doesn't have a laugh track. To watch it alone, as I've always done, is to laugh when no one else is, to laugh when you're not sure you should. Laughing alone might feel weird, but it's right and cathartic, too. The comedy stings - the characters, sometimes you. And because the show is, on top of everything else, a study in emotional bruising and recrimination, it can be hard to remember you laughed and easy to recall the sting.

This is a long way of saying that "Girls," fundamentally, is a comedy - of the body, of relationships, of working, of entitlement, of generational funk. At its best, it's a satire of a lot of those things, too. But for any number of reasons - it's also a chillingly good drama, it's a show by and about women, and we're still ( still) weirded out by funny women - we might overlook the strength of its humor.

There's an episode from the first season - "All Adventurous Women Do" - that opens with Marnie reacting to her boyfriend Charlie's new haircut. (He's almost bald.) She tells him she hates it. He says he did it to support a co-worker with cancer. And rather than say, "Babe, I'm sorry - that's terrible," she reroutes her anger: Thanks for making me look insensitive. Then Hannah emerges from the bathroom with black eyeliner, black jacket and fishnets. She resembles what happened to Olivia Newton-John at the end of "Grease," but goth. Hannah and Charlie insult each other ("You look like you're gonna go put a hex on some popular girls.") while Marnie is left to whine from selfish island: "You look scary, too."

The rhythms of that scene riff on the recipe for a traditional sitcom. It's set at the kitchen table in the apartment Hannah and Marnie share. They're Monica and Rachel but without the standard Etch A Sketch approach to half-hour relationships. The little put-downs and brush-offs really hurt. They mount and accrue. The gags are distinct from the insecurities they feed on.

But it's the scope of the comedy that takes it beyond a show merely of the white and the spoiled: It's about being white and spoiled and self-concerned. And in demanding a dignity for its competing narcissists, "Girls" practices a kind of humor that's mostly gone from our movies and yet still feels fresh for episodic television. It recalls the prickly humanity of the director Paul Mazursky. His movies made comedy out of survival - surviving divorce ( "An Unmarried Woman," 1978), homelessness and rich people ( "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," 1986), even the Holocaust ( "Enemies: A Love Story," 1989). Every once in a while, his tart delicacy will show up in the work of Alexander Payne and especially Nicole Holofcener. And the version that "Girls" practices shows up everywhere from "Orange Is the New Black" to "Insecure."

Lena Dunham, who developed "Girls" with Jenni Konner, hasn't made a movie since her first, "Tiny Furniture," in 2010. But "Girls" is a show after Mr. Mazursky's heart: a comedy that trusts you to distinguish the people for the jokes.

WESLEY MORRIS

In the final season of "Girls," Hannah (Lena Dunham) tells a magazine editor about what she considers to be one of her strengths. "I have a strong opinion about everything," she says, "even topics I'm not informed on."

This is only fitting for the protagonist of the show that may have achieved the highest opinions-generated-to-viewers-attracted ratio on television, a statistic the collection you are reading proudly adds to. The hot-takers of the world have weighed in on, in part: its diversity, or lack thereof; its generational representativeness, or lack thereof; its characters' entitlement; its treatment of nudity, consent and highly specific sexual acts.

"Girls" is both the ultimate obsession of think-piece culture and its most astute chronicler. It is a series about precisely the sort of young, wired, highly educated people who would have strong feelings about "Girls." (Shoshanna, I suspect, watches religiously; Jessa refuses to; Ray has seen one episode and hates it, especially the Ray character.)

Above all, it's the coming-of-age of a writer scrabbling for exposure in the era of oversharing, confession and comments sections. We first meet Hannah fussing over her Twitter account, which has 26 followers. She freelances an online piece about doing cocaine and lands a doomed deal for an e-book of personal essays. She writes sponsored content, opines about the feminist blog Jezebel and does standup storytelling for the Moth. The final season opens with her turning a personal heartbreak from last season into a "Modern Love" column in The New York Times.

In the final season's brilliant third episode, Hannah encounters an author (Matthew Rhys) after she writes about allegations that he's a sexual predator. It's a messy, uncomfortable confrontation - there will be think pieces! - but they also bond over their love of the provocateur supreme Philip Roth. "I know I'm not supposed to like him, because he's a misogynist and demeans women, but I can't help it," she says.

As with Mr. Roth, controversy has raised the profile of "Girls" but sometimes overshadows its craft. Hannah's signature line in the pilot - "I think that I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least, a voice of a generation." - has been so overread as a mission statement (says who!) that it gets short shrift for being a funny, self-deflating joke.

But attention is fuel, for "Girls" and for its flawed protagonist. Bildungsromans about writers tend to end with them resolving to write their own stories - James Joyce's Stephen Dedalus, say, going to forge "the uncreated conscience of my race." Maybe that's where Hannah's story is headed. But it might be more fitting if it ends with her sitting on her bed, opening her laptop and writing a think piece about "Girls."

JAMES PONIEWOZIK

For what I hope is the last time: Hannah Horvath was never Lena Dunham. Hannah was never going to be a voice of anything but her own confusion, which was part of a joke that a great many critics seemed determined not to get. She has always been too self-involved and insufficiently self-aware to turn her life into art. That is the major difference between her and her creator.

Ms. Dunham didn't invent the idea of mining personal experience for humor and pathos. But she did bring some of the confessionalism of the literary memoir and the ground-level emotional naturalism of mumblecore cinema into serial television.

Ms. Dunham's Judd Apatow-assisted transit from the indie-film world to HBO proved to be a watershed moment in the blurring of old boundaries. The idea that you could go out and make TV the way generations of young people had made movies or scribbled coming-of-age novels seemed dubious as recently as 2010. The barriers to entry were too high, the corporate culture too entrenched, the medium too square. "Girls" had an improvisatory, low-rent, do-it-yourself feel that was at least as striking - and to some as disconcerting - as its frank sexuality. It felt loose, candid and personal in a way that few scripted series had before.

Hannah Horvath may or may not have been someone like you, but Ms. Dunham had done something you might also be able to try. That was the message that "Girls" sent out to the strivers, navel-gazers and exhibitionists of the world, who suddenly saw a route from the writers' group or the improv troupe onto the screen.

The children of "Girls" - or rather its younger siblings, its frenemies and mini-me's, its wannabes and better-thans - are almost too numerous to count. A modest roster would have to include the post-collegiate New York Bohemian comedies "Broad City," "High Maintenance" and "Search Party"; essays in self-criticism like "Insecure" and "Fleabag"; portraits of creative struggle and malaise like "Atlanta" and "BoJack Horseman. " Of course all of these shows are unique, and their authors might argue with my attribution of influence. But that's part of my point. Thanks to "Girls," a generation has found a lot more voices.

A.O. SCOTT

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6 Ways 'Girls' Changed Television. Or Didn't. (Published 2017)

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Our critics look at the impact of the HBO show on television as it enters its sixth and final season. From left, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham, Allison Williams and Zosia Mamet of "Girls." Credit... Mark Schafer/HBO When "Girls" had its premiere on HBO in 2012, it was an instant lightning rod.

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In keeping tradition with the season-one finale, last night's Broad City season-two closer was dedicated to a birthday celebration gone awry. As Ilana turns 23, she and Abbi head to the East Village's most obvious freak show, St. Mark's Place, where they show no signs of being fazed by business guidos, street urinators, parrot dudes, drunken bachelorettes, and unaccompanied children on scooters. But it's their empathy for the homeless that ends up biting them in the ass, climaxing in a chase scene and a subsequent rumination on New York's class divide - the show's go-to target in recent weeks.

Maybe it was the plethora of uninterrupted shots, or the presence of inexplicably bizarre strangers in the girls' path, or the fact that the humor was a little more existential and surreal this week, but I got major Louie vibes from "St. Mark's." For a show that usually moves so fast, this week's episode felt slowed down despite the fact that much of the episode takes place in real time (or something like it). It perfectly suited the more serious tone: Ilana can't stop talking about death throughout the episode. "New York Jews wake up every day just thinking about when they're gonna die," she tells Abbi as they make their way to the dumpling house.

Later, in one of Broad City's best (semi-) serious scenes to date, Ilana and Abbi discuss their elaborate funeral plans - a Six Flags after-party for Abbi, all of Ilana's conquests circle-jerking to RuPaul's "Supermodel" - and which one of them will die first. Between the death talk and all the New York City jokes, I saw Broad City as working in a comedy tradition last night instead of boldly making its own path. Its subversive humor was still there, but there was a tip of the hat to people like Louie or Jerry or Woody in "St. Mark's." At times it felt a little too safe or simply like another series altogether, but then a dude would perform an anti-capitalism jack-off monologue in the middle of a busy restaurant, or the girls would have an action-movie chase scene where Abbi screams obscenities about ripping dicks off, or there'd be a riff on the value of Beanie Babies.

While "St. Mark's" was neither the funniest nor the most subversive episode of season two, it covered a lot of serious ground regarding the broads (i.e., the Abbi/Ilana bond) and the city. It felt distinctly like a season finale, with the girls staring down more responsible futures as they eat $1 pizza from 2 Bros. I have to wonder how non-New Yorkers are faring with references like 2 Bros or Ilana casually mentioning that she doesn't have a dining-room table, or the fact that Ilana's first thought after escaping Patricia Clarkson's dinner party breakdown is, "I wonder if they own or rent." As a New Yorker, these nods bring extra legitimacy to Abbi and Ilana's portrayal of the struggle to make it here. I just wish all fans of the show could fully appreciate the inside nods to city life.

In one of the episode's first scenes, Abbi and Ilana encounter a street punk named Timothy (played by Leo Fitzpatrick from Kids), who gives them shit about not giving money to every homeless person on St. Mark's, including himself. They soon put Timothy out of their minds as they prepare to gorge on dumplings and classy $13 wine. With the reservation under Lil Wayne's name, the celebration starts jubilant before Abbi and Ilana are seated next to the Worst People Ever. You know, those temporary friends you had when you first moved to a big city, or the folks you know from college but make a point not to see more than twice a year at a large group function where you can easily escape them. Allie (played by SNL 's Aidy Bryant, in an impeccable nagging-girlfriend role) and Chris (Conner O'Malley) are those people for Abbi and Ilana. Turns out they only hang out with each other obsessively because everyone else they know sucks.

This recap would run ~2,000 words if I launched into all the things wrong with Allie and Chris, so I'll just say this: Creatives can be the worst about their social group supporting their work. The two are unable to sense that Abbi and Ilana have ghosted them, even after the girls offer up the weakest excuse ever regarding Facebook invites: The interface is too confusing. The scenario quickly becomes too much for Ilana, who throws a full glass of red wine on Abbi's white dress just to have an excuse to leave. They chug and roll out to the wig store, where Ilana - in peak Ilana mode - nabs a "Female Body Inspector" shirt and wild synthetic mane, and puts them both on immediately.

Timothy reemerges and makes off with Abbi's present for Ilana. The chase scene ensues, at which point Abbi fails at parkour once again. They follow him into a fancy townhouse, where Clarkson's character is hosting a judgmental crew of richies for dinner. It turns out Timothy is her 34-year-old, rich, unemployed fuck-up of a son, who gets into trouble out of boredom. Again, what a New York reference.

Clarkson's scene is tense and lingering; she calls her son a dud and a loser with frightening vehemence, while he reveals her clichéd addictions to pain pills and wine (which she later laughs off to her guests). This scene in particular - with these strangers acting inappropriate to surreal heights - felt so Louie. Soon it's over, and perhaps, like Louie, these characters will float back into Broad City down the line. For now, Broad City ends its transcendent second season on a high note: Abbi, Ilana, pizza, "the most powerful and beautiful blanket since the AIDS quilt," and the dream of eventually going off anti-depressants, all under those big city lights.
Quotes:
"You girls are so pretty, you should smile." -rando dude on the street, to Abbi and Ilana

"I also want everyone I've ever hooked up with to just jack off together. That might bring me back to life." -Ilana

"I'm sorry your son sucks so hard." -Ilana to Patricia Clarkson's character

"I'm a tree, dammit. I was here first, car." -tree man

"I finally masturbated above the covers, without my eyes being closed. That was a really big journal entry." -Abbi

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In keeping tradition with the season-one finale, last night's Broad City season-two closer was dedicated to a birthday celebration gone awry. As Ilana turns 23, she and Abbi head to the East Village's most obvious freak show, St. Mark's Place, where they show no signs of being fazed by business guidos, street urinators, parrot dudes, drunken bachelorettes, and unaccompanied children on scooters.

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"Broad City" St. Mark's (TV Episode 2015) - IMDb

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Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec. With Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer, Patricia Clarkson, Leo Fitzpatrick. A runaway teen disrupts the girls' celebration of Ilana's 23rd birthday by leading them on a chase.

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Walk down any street in Manhattan at night and you'll glow with the ambient light from restaurants and bodegas that line every block. St. Mark's director Jasenovec captures this environment perfectly and doesn't overdo it. We can see every thing we need and not much else.

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Reviewing Broad City has been a challenge if only because I'm running out of ways to say how much I love Abbi and Ilana's friendship. Their dynamic is what sold Comedy Central on the series, earned a rabid following, and solidified the show's singular voice. For all the endearing secondary characters and spot-on New York City backdrops, the reason why people continue to love Broad City is Abbi and Ilana as a pair. Their bond informs just about every scene on the show, and so it has become more and more difficult to keep myself from spinning off about their friendship on a weekly basis.

Luckily, "St. Mark's" is the best episode in recent memory to help me articulate what I love specifically about how Broad City approaches friendship-not to mention something it does better than just about any other comedy in the game. Unlike almost all other televised friendships-especially those between women-Abbi and Ilana's bond doesn't depend on conflict to be interesting. Why should it? Offscreen and on, Abbi and Ilana are at their best when they're inspiring the other to be the baddest bitch she can be.

As a visibly enthusiastic Jon Stewart recently told Glazer and Jacobson when they were on The Daily Show, one of the most distinct things about Broad City is that it's a comedy that prioritizes joy, and there's no better example than how it treats its central friendship. The biggest fight Abbi and Ilana have ever had was over Abbi making out with another girl, and it was still barely big enough to be considered a speed bump along the way. It's impressive even just on a technical level for a comedy to consistently work without leaning on the characters clashing. Broad City has emerged as one of the strongest comedies on television while rarely going to the same well as any of the others. There are rarely any wacky misunderstandings or passive aggressive mixed signals, and most crucially, Abbi and Ilana never compete. Women are so often pitted against each other that the absence of competition is at first startling, and then such a relief. It's hard to say whether Glazer and Jacobson made the conscious choice to keep their characters from fighting or if that effortless dynamic came naturally from their own friendship, but either way, Broad City 's innate joy is what sets it apart.

So even though I'm not sure I would have loved "St. Mark's Place" quite as much if it had aired elsewhere in the season, it shines as a finale. For one, focusing on their plans for Ilana's birthday is a perfectly nostalgic echo of Abbi's fancy birthday dinner from last season's finale. Ilana turning 23 is different than Abbi turning 26, though, and so her birthday episode is appropriately adjusted to include wigs, brief sympathy for a "business Guido," and wondering whether she could get all the people she's hooked up with to come to her funeral for one last circle jerk ("that might bring me back to life, seriously!").

"St. Mark's Place" also adds even more fringe characters to Broad City's bizarre New York City. This second season has done a remarkable job of fleshing out secondary characters, between Jaime's quests for frozen yogurt and citizenship, Ilana's doppelgänger mother, Jeremy's custom dildo, Trey's secret past as Kirk Steele (Man on a Mission, A Cum Mission), and even Bevers' attempts to class it up for his girlfriend. To close out season two, "St. Mark's Place" calls in a final set of flawlessly cast cameos.

's Aidy Bryant and Late Night with Seth Meyers writer Conor O'Malley (a real life couple!) crash Ilana's birthday dinner as Those People you are always dodging, whether on Facebook or at a black box theater for a horrifying one-man show. As they chatter on about nothing in particular in voices set to the frequency of fingernails scraping a chalkboard, Abbi and Ilana exchange panicked looks and finally ditch them with a desperate waste of $30 wine. contestant Jiggly Caliente sells Ilana a wig. Then, a whiny "runaway teen" ( Kids' Leo Fitzpatrick) steals Abbi's bag and leads them on a wild chase through St. Mark's, only to end up at a gorgeous townhouse where he has been living for over 30 years. Patricia Clarkson rips into the part of his depressed and fed-up mother, and while her rage is jarring, there is maybe nothing better in this world than the absolute venom Clarkson spits when calling out her son's "loser, loser, loser, loser, loser, loser, loser, loser life ( loser)." Glazer and Jacobson's script is good, but Clarkson's ferocious commitment to this bit is just spectacular.

Still, even a man on stilts dressed as a tree can't distract from the fact that the most satisfying parts of "St. Marks" happen while just wandering around with Abbi and Ilana, weaving in between trashed girls and trash men without missing a step. So much of this episode is just listening to Abbi and Ilana ramble on about everything from funerals to Beanie Babies. Director Nicholas Jasenovec emphasizes Abbi and Ilana's easy rapport with several long takes in which the camera matches their pace. We follow them down St. Mark's, eavesdropping as they riff on what every age means before turning around to flip off a street harasser in a gruesome approximation of the smiles he requested. We race alongside them down the crowded street, through cramped bodega aisles and startled kitchens, and finally to an alleyway that stops at least Abbi in her tracks. (Where did your parkour expertise go, lady?) Later, after the night has completely unraveled and they can't be bothered to find a restaurant, we sit with them on a stoop outside a greasy pizza place and hear about their past accomplishments and future dreams. Glazer, Jacobson, and their script draws on years of friendship and acting together to make these uninterrupted, scripted takes feel natural. Debriefing over curb pizza isn't a huge moment to end a season on, but for Broad City, it's exactly right.
Stray observations:

If you haven't sent the GIF of our broads lifting up smiles with their middle fingers to at least a dozen people by now, I don't have much more to say to you. But I'll try:

Going off what I said last week about the show casually being progressive: Ilana saying she hopes next year involves decreasing her anti-depressant dosage. When was the last time a comedy dropped something like that without making it a dumb punchline?

I couldn't even wrap my head around Ilana's birthday blanket when it was trailing on a New York City street, what's the point of saving it at all!

It helped to film on the actual street, but the show also did an awesome job recreating the gloriously tacky mess that is St. Marks.

"You tell me, Ma, you're the psychiatrist. Or do I need to make an appointment?" "Maybe you should. But you can't afford me, because you don't work." Seriously, where can I learn how to growl like Patricia Clarkson?!

"You wrote your will on a napkin?" "I made copies, obviously."

"22 was pretty great for me. I mean, that was the year I met you."

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Reviewing Broad City has been a challenge if only because I'm running out of ways to say how much I love Abbi and Ilana's friendship. Their dynamic is what sold Comedy Central on the series, earned a rabid following, and solidified the show's singular voice.

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I'm the kind of Jew who goes to queer feminist seders. I've never been to Israel, though as a teen I contemplated doing Birthright . I was born in Ukraine and raised in San Francisco. But New York has always been my Jewish capital. It's where I've conducted archival research on Jewish culture, overheard casual conversations in Yiddish, and tasted the best smoked sturgeon.

So spoke to me. Maybe not all of me, but some parts of my identity as a queer diaspora Jew. The Comedy Central show that ran from 2014 to 2019 made many viewers feel seen. The thinkpieces commemorating the end of its five-year run have praised it for being unapologetically . When it came to Jewishness, the show was irreverent, parodic, and proudly crude. Nothing seemed to be off the table. There was Abbi and Ilana's conversation about pegging, which took place at Ilana's grandmother's shiva, and Ilana's fetishization of a Holocaust survivor's past for her grad school essay.

Along with cultivating an iconoclastic attitude, the show subverted more insidious expectations surrounding Jewish American identity, including Jewish women's self-presentation, sexuality and politics. It's been especially effective in deconstructing the JAP (Jewish American Princess) stereotype, which associated Jewish womanhood with materialistic, middle-class femininity. It has also questioned American Jews' attachment to Israel and specifically, the practice of pilgrimaging there during young adulthood.

But also reproduced problems that have long characterized sitcoms with Jewish leads, such as , and, more recently, . Like these other shows, failed to include Jews of color and question the class-based entitlements of its main characters. In addition to participating in the enduring whitewashing of Jews on TV, the show also left a checkered record of portraying members of other marginalized groups, at times, falling back on racist clich é s without subjecting them to the kind of smart, critical satire it reserved for Jewishness.

Fashion and the JAP Stereotype

The fabulous costuming on is still undeniable. Fanny packs, mesh tops, 80's tracksuits, and tuxedos cleverly developed characters and story, and the series got a lot of recognition for its (including a piece by Sara Bernstein in this publication ). What critics have regularly overlooked is how the show's choices reference and explode the lingering concept of the JAP. Traditionally, the JAP is high-maintenance, bratty and frigid. She's also uniquely American. But, as Jaime Lauren Keiles argues, "[t]he JAP is neither Jewish nor American alone ." Rather, it's a Jewish-American trope that emerged with the group's coming into whiteness and middle-classness. Its legacy has been the construction of the Jewish-American woman as obsessed with "grooming, trepidatious trendiness, and comfort," and confined within "subsets of mainstream fashion trends," such as luxury athletic wear or premium denim. These trends normally reinforced, in one way or another, heteronormative white womanhood.

doesn't ignore this stereotype but satirizes it. For example, the JAP's love of "safe" fashion and comfort consumerism shows up in a bunch of Abbi's habits. She buys a piece of luggage on Drew Barrymore's recommendation. She also worships Oprah, whose annual "favorite things" is the epitome of a luxury wishlist. The show doesn't merely include these details but exaggerates them to the point of absurdity. Abbi is so attached to her Drew Barrymore carry-on that she panics when she has to check it and then breathes a sigh of relief when she's reunited with it, even though this also means the premature end of her travels. Her worship of Oprah is so intense that she has a "tramp stamp" of the mogul's face.

Abbi's comically frequent trips to Bed, Bath & Beyond are also worth considering for how they challenge the "naturalness" of Jewish white privilege suggested by the JAP figure. BB&B is a store that's associated with home comforts. It's also Abbi's happy place, a place that makes her ridiculously happy. There, she doesn't just acquire home goods but allows herself small indulgences in the era of millenial downward mobility . Millennials are regularly shamed for being in debt and failing to acquire property while allowing themselves such "extravagances" as avocado toast and artisanal coffee drinks. For Abbi, who spends much of the series cleaning toilets for a living, pilgrimages to BB&Beyond are less evocative of the JAP preference for creature comforts than minor compensations for professional stagnation.

Clothing and Fluid Identity

It's Ilana who ends up presenting the strongest visual challenges to the JAP stereotype with her clothes. She confidently dons clothes that are unprofessional, "unflattering" and even abject. She wears a cropped "dog hoodie" to a cubicle job and, after being criticized by her boss, covers her exposed midriff with lipstick as a way of appearing office-ready. The result is that her stomach looks like it's covered in blood. And who can forget the "period pants" she wears to the airport to distract from the stash of weed in her vagina. As Sara T. Bernstein , Ilana's fashion is a mechanism for engaging in ironic play and flipping off norms. While the JAP dresses to sexually manipulate men, Ilana often wears clothes that are sexy and "overtly sloppy"; such as when mixing an exposed bra and bare midriff with men's underwear and a military belt , all in the same outfit.

Abbi is the more "basic" of the two but she also makes choices that are subtly subversive and body-positive. On multiple occasions, she wears an Hervé Léger bandage dress knockoff. It's a dress that makes it look like one's body is wrapped in elastic bandages, but it's body conscious and therefore "sexy." About a decade ago, almost every celeb, from Kim K. to T Swift , wore one. The unforgiving garment was associated with skinniness and heterosexual femininity, with its executive Patrick Couderc declaring it was not intended for fat women or lesbians . Abbi doesn't conform to the narrow beauty standards propagated by the brand but she wears the knockoff on numerous occasions because she clearly likes how it fits her. The dress even reappears in the last five minutes of the series, when Abbi passes it on to Ilana before indefinitely leaving New York for Boulder. The idea of either woman wearing the dress is provocative given their "non-Hollywood" body types and sexual fluidities.

Challenging Racialized Heteronormativity

Sexually non-normative and experimental, Abbi and Ilana resist community pressures to engage in female-male, Jewish-on-Jewish unions. Even intermarriage has long been framed a problem for "Jewish continuity," an especially urgent one for diaspora Jews. Incidentally, Steven M. Cohen, a prominent sociologist associated with this view was recently accused of sexual harassment, which led public intellectuals to highlight the misogyny inherent in an agenda based on having Jewish women bear Jewish babies. The JAP stereotype aligns neatly with such calls for racial continuity. The JAP must follow a "predetermined path into the flames of female Jewish life" which includes marriage, suburbs and procreation.

Ilana and Abbi show little interest in these ideals and embrace their sexualities for pleasure and adventure. Abbi explores her sexuality by pegging a male partner and has a relationship with a queer woman when she decides to question her de facto straightness. Ilana, openly queer from the jump, has sex with diverse partners and participates in open relationships. Even her emotional attachment to long-term lover Lincoln doesn't prevent her from breaking up with him when she realizes that his family plans are incompatible with her identity as "a polyamorous queen."

New York as Home

A more biting critique of heteronormativity and the pressure to reproduce occurs in the episode "Jews on a Plane," during which Abbi and Ilana attempt to take a Birthright-like trip to Israel. On the flight, they learn that the free journey is also a matchmaking scheme, designed to bring young Jewish men and women together. One new couple even gets engaged before the plane lands. Predictably, Abbi and Ilana refuse to cooperate, fighting to sit with each other instead of potential Jewish mates. Rather than getting serious with a Jewish boy, Ilana hooks up with the trip leader in the airplane bathroom, thus reaching her goal of joining "the mohel-high club."

But more significantly still, the episode makes a strong anti-Zionist statement by rejecting the notion that diaspora Jews must travel to their so-called ancestral homeland to experience personal fulfillment and establish allegiance to the state. Abbi embarks on the trip with the clich é longing "for a spiritual experience," hoping, as she says, "to find myself on this trip." That discovery never happens, as the friends don't even get to leave the airport in Israel. In their attempt to steal tampons from first class, the women are apprehended under suspicion of terrorism. After being questioned by Israeli agents, they're sent back to the US.

Rather than express dismay at their aborted journey, Abbi and Ilana share excitement about their return to New York, where they can get falafel that's "even better than the real deal." This poke at the association between Israel, cultural authenticity and spiritual homecoming adds to the episode's sunny vision of two diaspora Jews' failure to "return" to the "homeland." On , New York-in all its beauty and grubbiness-is home. Ilana's "NYC" mesh crop top, worn over a visible turquoise bra, is her closest declaration of geographical allegiance. In his novel Absurdistan , Gary Shteyngart has his protagonist announce "Israel isn't really my country. New York is." Ilana could easily say the same thing. In fact, the final season is, in many ways, a love letter to New York, taking the characters through all the boroughs, and, implicitly encouraging viewers to embrace urban citizenship over nationalism.

Whitewashing Jewishness

For all its norm-bending, hasn't avoided some crucial pitfalls. For instance, Kyla Wazana Tompkins and Rebecca Wanzo note that with Abbi's employment as a gym cleaner, the show reinforces "the idea that specific types of people shouldn't live like this," such as middle-class white Jewish girls. We, as audience members, are expected to laugh at her, as the "the joke seems to turn on her constant disappointment, but also on the abjection in her cleaning toilets." Abbi's disappointment reaches its climax when Maria, a Latinx woman gets promoted to trainer. But the show doesn't call into question Abbi's feelings of being unfairly overlooked.

Cultural appropriation has also been a recurring issue for the show. Ilana's "Latina" earrings, which, at one point, she dons before masturbating, are a bad choice, because she's not Latinx and because "becoming" Latina for the purpose of self-arousal relies on the racist assumption that Latinx people are inherently sexual. As Bernstein notes, " the association between Latina women and sexual appetite has a very troubling, colonizing history " and a supposedly-woke white woman playing at being Latina is an example of hipster racism . Thankfully, the show takes responsibility for this particular mistake in a later episode. In "Rat Pack," Jaime, Ilana's Latinx roommate, confronts her about the earrings saying "It's almost like you're stealing the [Latina] identity from people who fought hard against colonial structures." In the final season, we see Ilana proudly sporting the same style of earrings but with the word "Jewess." Though a gift from Lincoln, the earrings, as worn by Ilana, represent an attempt to correct appropriative behavior, although the act still doesn't go beyond a surface display of "progress."

Other fashion statements are also problematic. In "Working Girls" Ilana buys a white "power suit" in order to again look more professional in the workplace; this is a provocative and funny pun until the suit causes her to imagine enslaving her workers. The scene, which features people of color working to "Swing Low Sweet Chariot," uses images of a traumatic past, not Ilana's, to present an edgy visual gag. The joke is about Ilana's misguided efforts, but as Bernstein and Yohana Desta suggest, it's also cheap, as well as potentially triggering to black American viewers.

"Knockoffs" is another episode where self-directed humor also comes at the expense of a marginalized group. Ilana's mother attempts to purchase fake designer bags in Chinatown, a situation that plays on the stereotype of Jewish miserliness and materialism. However, Asians do not go unscathed in the episode. As Tompkins and Wanzo assert "the way that nonwhites literally lead the white Jewish characters into the sewer" in search of the knockoffs is not good optics, particularly for a show that only presents one-dimensional Asian American characters.

Perhaps 's biggest missed opportunity is to show that Jewishness isn't synonymous with whiteness. Granted, the sitcom uses biographical material, and Abbi and Ilana are white, but given its array of supporting characters, it could've introduced Jews of other racial categories. We never see, for instance, female or non-binary figures who live at the intersection of Jewishness and blackness. To offer this representation would be to interrogate what differentiates Abbi and Ilana's experiences due to their relative positions of privilege.

is an important show for both its advancements and its missteps. While the series flips some tired scripts, regarding Jewish gender identity and geopolitical allegiance, it also reproduces harmful and avoidable tropes affecting multiple marginalized groups. So while I'm grateful that the show helped me feel more seen, I wish that it had worked harder to do the same for others.

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Remembering Broad City and Its Defiant, Problematic Jewishness

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Read Next I'm the kind of Jew who goes to queer feminist seders. I've never been to Israel, though as a teen I contemplated doing Birthright . I was born in Ukraine and raised in San Francisco. But New York has always been my Jewish capital.

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One interesting thing I realized in this scene is that the girls barge into Timothy's mother's dinner party. Yet, this appears to be the living room. The purpose of the scene is to get the reactions from the other adults, but I believe this could have been conveyed simply by having the people sit in the room, perhaps drinking wine. The presence of the table changes the scene too much.

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Abbi and Ilana's innate response to the man who approaches them and tells them to smile.

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Abbi and Ilana's innate response to the man who approaches them and tells them to smile.