Broad City 4.6 Recap: Coming to Terms With Getting Older And Overcoming Sexual Hang Ups

It might be topping 90˚ here in Southern California where I am, but in the world of Broad City it’s still winter.  It’s unbearably cold in Abbi’s apartment so she and Ilana are insulating the windows with saran wrap and wearing plenty of layers to keep warm. As Abbi turns around, Ilana notices a gray hair on her friend. Both react to the hair very differently. To Abbi, the gray hair only reminds her of a life squandered and a lack of accomplishments at this point in her life. She was hoping to have a MacArthur genius grant or at least posting pictures of acai bowls on Instagram.
On the other hand, Ilana feels the gray hair is magical and empowering and should be something to embrace. Bevers, Abbi’s roommate, agrees and adds that like Dame Judi Dench and Stacy London from What Not to Wear, Abbi is ascending. Regardless of who is right, Abbi is inspired to table outside The Met to sell her hand-made artisanal cards to raise enough money to buy a space heater.

While setting up her table, Abbi and Ilana meet one of the regular vendors named Margo (Jane Curtin). As if she wasn’t self-conscious about growing old already, Abbi catches a glimpse of a possible future in Margo. They have so many things in common, from using the same thermos, Tupperware, and granny cart, to attending the same college. As the day progresses, Abbi experiences a gradual transformation into an actual witch. First, she started off with the gray hair, and then grows a hunchback when Margo places a scarf in her jacket to keep her warm. She even gets a mole on her nose which is actually a misplaced lentil bean from her lunch.
At least sales aren’t too bad for Abbi. One of her customers is a dermatologist who can help Abbi’s aging issues with such treatments as Botox, fillers, and bat feces. Whatever the dermatologist is using works well, as she looks almost 30 years younger than she really is. Abbi shrugs it off at first but changes her mind when she has a chance encounter with her former neighbor and ex-boyfriend Jeremy. It hurts to see that he’s moved on with someone else and is doing well. Instead of buying her space heater, Abbi takes her earnings of the day and goes to see the dermatologist. While halfway into her Botox procedure, Abbi realizes that she was just caught up with all the events of the day and that she likes the way she looks.

Meanwhile, it’s no secret that Ilana has been having performance issues in the bedroom so far this season. Her inability to climax has affected her so much that she’s been turning any remark she has into sexual innuendo hoping it can stimulate her. To help deal with her problems, she goes sees a therapist. She finds the root of her dysfunction was the election of Donald Trump as President. Ilana’s not the only one to be affected since orgasms have been down 140% since Trump as elected. In order to overcome her inability to come, she taps into the energy of inspiring and great women from Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton to Sally Ride and Serena Williams.
Abbi and Ilana meet up at The Met and receive an invitation to a secret gathering out at Central Park. The gathering is a witch meet up to celebrate the winter solstice. Among those celebrating are Margo and Ilana’s therapist, Betty. Before she joins in, Abbi runs back to the dermatologist and brings her to the spiritual get-together of womanhood.
This was the same episode that was shown during SDCC, and it was better this time around, as the season so far provides more context to Abbi and Ilana’s situations. Abbi is especially down and on hard times since she just lost her job two episodes before. A lot of Ilana’s personality is associated with her sexuality and she has been off this season. It could have been due to still being hung up on her ex, Lincoln, or the side effects to her medications. At least she’s been able to fix her issues in this episode and I look forward to see how this affects her in future episodes.
This episode also embraces our heroines’ witchiness, and why not. All a witch is, really, is a strong woman and a coven is a gathering of witches where they can support each other and perform spells in tandem to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. A witch serves as a good symbol of female empowerment.
Other interesting episode notes:

• The episode did not hold back on the creators’ feelings on the current president as his name is bleeped out like a curse word and he’s referred to as a “human skin tag” and a “sexual assault bragging steak salesman”.
• There were already clues that Margo was a witch as she has a wand that works magic, because it has weed, and she has the supernatural ability to teleport across great distances

Broad City airs Wednesdays at 10:30 pm on Comedy Central.