DVD/TV Series Review: 2 Broke Girls Season 1

 

2 Broke Girls is a very funny sitcom starring Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs that aired for six seasons from 2012 to 2017. The 24-episode first season aired during the 2012/2013 TV season. The premise of the series is that a former New York City socialite named Caroline Channing (played by Beth Behrs) ends up without any money after her father is busted running a Bernie Madoff-like Ponzi scheme, and the family's money is frozen by the government. She ends up working as a waitress at a diner in Brooklyn, where a waitress named Max Black (played by Kat Dennings) also sells her homemade cupcakes on the side.. Max takes pity on Caroline and lets Caroline move into her apartment, and Caroline hatches a plan to make enough money to start a cupcake business. 

While the show is very funny, it is definitely an adult comedy that can get quite raunchy. They really pushed the envelope with sexual innuendo and jokes about drug use, and it is, quite frankly, amazing what they were able to get away with on network TV. Honestly, had the show started a few years later as the "me too" movement got started, some of the jokes, especially those involving Oleg, the cook in the diner (played hilariously by Jonathan Kite), probably never would have been cleared. The other series regulars in season one included original SNL cast member Garrett Morris as Earl, the cashier at the diner, Matthew Moy as Han, the vertically challenged owner of the diner, and later in the season, Jennifer Coolidge (best known for playing Stifler's mom in American Pie, and her role in Legally Blonde) as Sophie, the upstairs neighbor of Max and Caroline.

The first season's main theme is the various ways that Max and Caroline attempt to earn money for the cupcake business. At the end of each episode, there is a running balance that goes up or down as they earn or spend the cupcake money throughout the episode. The acting in the show is excellent. Both Dennings and Behrs, as co-leads, play their roles as sarcastic, jaded, trust very few and see where life takes you kind of person, and stuck-up but recently humbled ex-socialite very well. The show is no-holds-barred on the jokes and will make fun of anything.

The DVD set is a three-disc set. The extras include a short making-of/behind-the-scenes featurette and an alternate jokes reel. What was included is good but not extensive. Overall, it is a comedy that will not appeal to everyone, so know that going in, if you get offended by raunchier jokes, you definitely will want to skip this. Also, it is recorded in front of an audience and buffered by a laugh track for the on-location scenes. If you hate those kinds of sitcoms, then you will definitely want to skip this, too. But, if those things do not bother you, it is definitely worth checking out.