By John Pluntze
Arguably no new show on any of the major networks in recent memory has caused more immediate furor than CBS' Emmy-nominated "2 Broke Girls," which debuted last Fall and which remains for CBS one of its most popular series right now (earlier this year, it was voted "Favorite New TV Comedy" at the People's Choice Awards) -- even if its detractors still seem to be every bit as entrenched in their position about this controversial series as the show's supporters are in theirs ... a series that often conjures up comparisons in my mind, anyway, to some of Kevin Smith's better comedies ("Chasing Amy," "Clerks 1 & 2," "Zack & Miri Make a Porno"), as well as to some of the terrifically-salty dialogue that Susannah Grant adroitly wrote for the Oscar-winning "Erin Brockovich."
I think perhaps the best way, though, to inspire people to check out this sometimes extremely inspired, daring and hilarious sitcom is simply to pick out some of the many endlessly-quotable exchanges that took place during season 1, since the show's humor is as much dialogue-driven as anything else (incidentally, season 2 starts next Monday, September 24, at 7 p.m.).
The show's basic premise, as many of you may know by now, is that a once-extremely privileged, 20-something blonde socialite-heiress from Manhattan, Caroline Wesbox Channing, who's played by relative newcomer Beth Behrs ("American Pie Presents: The Book Of Love," "Serial Buddies"), finds herself living, albeit quite reluctantly, in the comparatively lower-class, melting-pot neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn with a street-smart, cynical, Brooklyn-born brunette, Max Black, played by veteran comedic actress Kat Dennings ("Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist," "The House Bunny," "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Thor"), who seldom, if ever, self-censors herself -- two women who, on the surface at least, could not be more different ... save for the fact that both of them work at a diner that's owned and operated by a short Korean man, Han Lee (Matthew Moy), that's serviced by a 75-year-old black cashier, Earl (1970s-era "Saturday Night Live" veteran Garrett Morris) and an unceasingly-obnoxious and overtly sex-obsessed Ukrainian born cook, Oleg (Jonathan Kite), and that's often frequented by a busty, tall, 40-something Poland-born Sophie's Choice house-cleaning business owner whom the two young waitresses sometimes work part-time for, Sophie Kerchinsky, who's played to comic perfection by veteran character actress Jennifer Coolidge (the MILF in the "American Pie" movies, "Legally Blonde," "Best In Show," "A Mighty Wind," "For Your Consideration," "Seinfeld," "Joey," etc).
More about these colorful (and surprisingly endearing) characters later on -- but first let's take a look at a number of the comedic dialogue exchanges from season 1 that really stood out in my mind. (NOTE: As with another radiantly and defiantly un-P.C. series whose similarly-terrific no-holes-barred humor is likewise often derived as much by the various verrry funny FACIAL EXPRESSIONS and VOCAL INFLECTIONS the actor in question is making while they're delivering a particular line -- the BBC's now-classic "Absolutely Fabulous" series -- many of the jokes that really resonated with me on season 1 of "2 Broke Girls" had as much to do with the looks the various actors were throwing each other while they were delivering the zingers listed below as they did with the zingers themselves, but hopefully the examples I cited will make you laugh enough to want to check out entire episodes from season 1 that are posted online):
EPISODE 1:
Max to a diner patron (after a diner patron angrily complains about his Russian waitress, Paulina, suddenly "disappearing" on him -- and also right after Max has heard the very same "disappearing" waitress moaning with orgasmic delight from the diner's walk-in fridge): "She's coming."
Earl to Max and Caroline (right after the new diner owner, Han Lee, has fired Paulina for having sex-for-money with various diner patrons in the diner's walk-in fridge): "Turns out that Paulina was Vladimir-Putin-it-OUT-there!!"
Max (vs. two 20-something, wool cap-wearing/Coldplay-loving yuppie hipsters who rudely -- and wrongly -- think that the best way to attract Max's attention is to repeatedly snap their fingers as she walks by their booth): "YOU think -- THIS is the sound that gets you service!" she tells them, obviously annoyed. "I think -- THIS is the sound that dries up my vagina!"
Max scolding Caroline (after Caroline, on her first day at the diner as a waitress, makes the unconscionable "mistake" of actually SMILING at the customers): "DON'T smile, 'cuz it raises the bar, and then I have to smile -- and I CAN'T be doing that: It's EXHAUSTING, and I have a bad back!"
EPISODE 2:
Max to her philandering, soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, Robbie (after Robbie walks into Max's apartment early one morning while she and Caroline are sleeping in the same bed together -- after which Robbie jokingly accuses Max of being gay): "Hey, if I was gonna go lesbian, SHE would be the LAST LEZ-I'd-be-in!"
EPISODE 3:
Max to Caroline: If that's your TEQUILA noise, God only knows what your ORGASM noise sounds like!"
Caroline (smiling proudly): "SAME face, NO noise."
An obnoxious Puerto Rican thrift shop patron to Max (after Max sees the woman in the diner showing off the very t-shirt that Max highly covets for herself -- one Max is convinced the woman ONLY bought at the Goodwill thrift store because she knew Max wanted it):
Patron: "Hey, you snooze you lose, puta!" (Spanish for "bitch").
Max (looking at the Puerto Rican woman's decidedly-effeminate "boyfriend" and then back at the woman who "stole" that t-shirt right out from under Max's nose the day before, at the Goodwill): "NICE language! You kiss your obviously-closeted boyfriend with that mouth?!?!"
A minute later, Caroline (happy to come to MAX's defense for a change -- since it's often the other way 'round) "accidentally" spills a large bowl of borscht (beet) soup all over the front of the Puerto Rican woman's t-shirt, after which Caroline then says: "Sorry -- it's my first week working at the diner, and I'm still a little clumsy. I'll go get some soda water ... but seriously, your boyfriend here will 'come out' before that stain does."
EPISODE 4:
Earl to Max (right after she's arrived for work at the diner): "What's the WORSE thing you ever wanna hear coming out of Han's mouth?"
Max (hesitating): "I got you pregnant?"
Earl: COME on; I mean BAD, bad!"
Max: "I got you pregnant AGAIN??"
Max to Caroline (after an obviously-very aroused Oleg has seen Caroline put one of her fingers into her mouth): "Congratulations, Caroline: You just made it into Oleg's 'spank bank'!"
Max to Caroline (after Max and Caroline sneak into Caroline's upper East Side townhouse that's complete with a massive walk-in closet for all of Caroline's countless designer originals): "Oh my God: Your clothes have a HOUSE!!"
Caroline to Max (after Max marvels a second later at Caroline's giant, electronic, rotisserie-like revolving shoe display): "I call that my Ferris HEELS."
EPISODE 5:
Max (to a group of diner patrons who can't make up their minds what they want to order): "EVERYTHING here SUCKS! Just pick the thing that sucks the LEAST and put it in your mouth!!"
Caroline to Max (who's facing the very same dilemma at her waitress station at the very same moment as well): "EVERYBODY keeps telling me they 'can't decide'; it's like a support group for bi-sexuals!"
Caroline to Max (after Caroline fervently and repeatedly offers to help Max with her myriad of languishing, unpaid bills -- including Max's very substantial long-ignored student loan): "I'm one of those people who gets off on untangling big, complicated messes. And since you won't let me do your HAIR, let me do your BILLS!"
Caroline (the very next day, after she's had a chance to look through Max's huge and hopelessly disorganized cardboard box of hundreds of unpaid bills -- Max's "portfolio", as Max calls it -- and assemble them into some sort of payment schedule): "Okay, so I've divided your bills into three categories: 'Impossible', 'Next-To-Impossible', and 'How-The-Hell-Did-THAT-Happen?!?'"
Max (looking at the three, large Ziploc bags filled with bills that Caroline has lovingly organized for Max the night before): "Great! And I've divided my ROOMMATE into three categories: 'Annoying', 'Super-Annoying,' and 'How-The-Hell-Did-THAT Happen?!?'"
Max to Caroline (defending her ongoing stance of running away from her problems, instead of confronting and dealing with them like an adult): "Listen: EVERYone is broke in their 20s -- and EVERYbody hides from stuff; YOU run into freezers ... and I practice ignorance and black-out drinking."
Max to Caroline's snobbish, rich, Ivy League ex-boyfriend, William (after Caroline tells Max that William dropped her like a bad habit the second he found out Caroline didn't have any money anymore -- and also after William has repeatedly insinuated to Max at the diner that he and his "richy-rich friends" are better than she is): "Hold up your hand."
William: "Why? Want to see if I have poor-people calluses?"
Max (after glancing at William's raised hand): "Noooo, I want to see how big your penis is; with hands THAT size, you BETTER be rich!!"
Max, later on in the very same episode, to Han (after Max has looked at diner owner Han Lee's very desperate -- and very lame -- attempt to be "gangsta chic" with a new outfit he got at Urban Outfitters): "You look like a lesbian I once made out with on a dare."
Caroline to Max (after Max has convinced Caroline that she needn't be ashamed of earning her own money, and after which Caroline is mentally ready to tell ex-boyfriend, William, that the "wad" of money she's earned in tips tonight is something she's very proud of -- only to then learn that William has already left the diner and, in the process, robbed Caroline of the chance to brag to him face-to-face about her new-found independence as a wage earner): "Would've been nice to shove MY 'wad' in HIS face for change!"
Max to Caroline (after diner owner Han Lee has agreed to let his two waitresses use the diner after-hours for free, to host a '90s-theme dance-party there): "You realize we're gonna have to give Han a little something -- like flash a little boob -- something?"
Caroline: "I feel like Han's more of an ASS man."
Max: "GOOD point -- 'cuz his head's right there!"
Caroline to Max (after Max tells her about her brief stint going to college as an art student -- with the long-term goal of one day becoming an illustrator for children's books): "Didn't you get ANYTHING out of going to college???"
Max to Caroline (without skipping a beat): "Ya mean besides MONO, and an art teacher whose idea of 'finger painting' was a little more FINGER than 'PAINTING'?!?"
EPISODE 6:
Earl to Max (talking about Kim Kardashian): "I like a BIG BUTT as much as the next man ... but don't givin' the damn butt a FRANCHISE!!"
Caroline to Max (obviously shocked and saddened by the extremely cheap tip two diner patrons have just left her): "I smiled and bent over backwards giving them service -- all for a dollar and 47 cents! This makes me the LOWEST-PAID HOOKER in New York!!"
Caroline to Max (still obviously stinging from the insultingly-low $1.47 tip she got earlier that day): "...That one dollar and 47 cent tip was a wake-up call, reminding me that Life will always undervalue you -- IF you LET it. Yes, I've been knocked down, but now it's time to fight back and grab Life by the balls!"
Max: "I don't think Life LIKES having its balls grabbed; some GUYS do ... but those are usually the ones that want you to 'spoon' them."
Caroline to Max (complaining to Max about sleeping on Max's not-so-comfortable couch each night) -- a situation, Caroline's convinced herself, that is negatively affecting her "vision board" of soon-to-be-realized dreams, including Caroline and Max opening up a homemade-cupcakes business together, after they've collectively saved up $250,000): "Sleeping on that couch is holding me back; I NEVER get a restful night's sleep, and I really need a good nine hours!"
Max (caustic as ever): "What you really need is a good nine INCHES! Now THAT should be on your 'vision board'!"(Which it turns out it IS!! (LOL)
EPISODE 7:
Max (to a group of complaining geriatric customers in the diner): "Hold up, ladies; you don't get a 'bitch pass' from me just 'cuz you're OLD! I mean you come in here with your gangsta-granny attitude, thinking you can get away with dumping all over the lowly 'gypsy' waitress; NO way!! At THIS diner, we don't discriminate due to age: If you're gonna ACT like an ass, I'm gonna TREAT you like an ass ... no matter how close that ass is riding to the floor!"
Oleg (to Max and Caroline -- after they've once again had to fend off his extremely overt sexual advances at the diner): "You know what they say: Once you go Ukraine, you will scream with sex pain."
Caroline (responding to accusations by Max that she'd never even consider dating a Hispanic man and, instead, only ever dates white guys): "Hey, I'll have you know I once had a Spaniard in Monte Carlo!"
Max (to Caroline): "Isn't that the name of an ABBA song??? Look, trust me -- you could use some 'salsa' in your 'white rice.'"
Later on that evening in the girls' apartment -- Caroline emphatically trying to reassure Max that she doesn't need to get laid right now): "I'm much more concerned right now with getting my head back above water ... men will come sooner or later."
Max (always one to cut to the chase): "Well, according to MY 'research', most men come SOONER."
Caroline (still emphatic that sex right now is the furthest thing from her mind -- even as she proudly and eagerly shows off her newly-redecorated Murphy bed to Max ... a bed complete with crimson and pink sheets, pillows, blankets, curtains, shams, etc. that she's dying to hear Max's reaction to): "So whatta think???"
Max (looking more than a little amused): "I think you've made a VAGINA!! Sister, you may THINK that sex is the 'last' thing on your mind right now, but you turned your bed into a vagina."
Caroline (baffled): "WHAT -- you think my vagina has CURTAINS?!?!"
Max (without skipping a beat): "I don't know how long it's been (since you've had sex)!"
Later, in the very same episode, Max and Caroline enter a hopelessly-pretentious, upscale bakery where they hope to sell Max's homemade cupcakes at, and one that's owned unfortunately by a deeply stoned-looking (and -sounding), dread-locked, 20-something blonde named Simar:
Simar (after the girls looked a bit baffled about her first name): "It means 'light of the tiger' in Sanskrit; it's my Yoga name."
Max to Caroline (after Simar has summarily rejected the sample cupcakes they brought to the bakery without tasting even just one of them -- on the grounds that Max's cupcakes aren't "pretty" enough for Simar's unceasingly prissy and shallow upscale clientele): "What does Simar know, anyway?!? The woman has DREAD LOCKS for God's sake; her head looks like the stuff you empty out of a vacuum-cleaner bag!!"
EPISODE 8:
Max (walking up to a couple in the diner who's blissfully and heatedly making out in front of the other diner patrons): "Okay, so can I get you two anything else? Coffee, dessert, 'morning-after' pill???"
Caroline to Max (while she's borrowing Max's laptop): "Can I close this window that says 'Mexican pain killers'?"
Max: "Yeah -- but bookmark it first."
EPISODE 10:
Max to Caroline (after Caroline has openly marveled at how good her tips have been lately): "Yeah, well don't get used to it; Thanksgiving is almost here, and as soon as people realize how much money they have to spend on holiday gifts, their wallets suddenly snap shut tighter than Kim Kardashian's legs right after the wedding check has cleared."
Max to Caroline (waiting inside a large department store's very clinical and impersonal Personnel office hallway, after they've both decided to apply for temp jobs around Christmas time in order to earn some extra money, a holiday that Max has never been especially fond of, anyway -- coming, as she does, from such an impoverished upbringing): "There is NOTHING 'Christmasy' about this hallway AT ALL; it looks like the place where Santa sends promiscuous elves to get their STD results!"
Caroline to Max: "Are you going to be one of those 'I'm-Too-Cool-To-Believe-In-the-Wonders-Of-Christmas' bitches??"
Max (again without missing a beat): "I'm sooo many types of bitches I've lost count."
EPISODE 13:
Wharton Business School grad Caroline to a diner patron (after he's repeatedly complained about there being no Muenster cheese on the menu -- one of Caroline's relatively rare open displays of anger and exasperation): "Well I wanted to be running a Fortune 500 company instead of waiting on a toxic man-child like yourself, but we can't always get what we want -- so just order something ELSE, put it into your DAMN PIE HOLE and GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE!!!"
Max and Caroline (after they decide to use some verrry sexually-suggestive phrases of their own at the diner -- in a rather naive attempt to stave off anymore unwanted sexual advances by the diner's Ukrainian cook, Oleg):
Max: "ORDERING: One pastrami. And can you do me a favor, doll face?? Make it sooo BIG and THICK you can't get your mouth around it, sweetheart. Can you do that for me??"
Caroline (placing her own sexually-suggestive order with Oleg right after Max has): "And two Matzo ball soups -- hold the balls. Wait -- I'LL hold the balls; you just stand there and look perty."
EPISODE 16:
Max to Han (responding to diner owner Han Lee's not-so-good idea of creating a "special, romantic" menu for Valentine's Day): "Han, this place isn't 'When Harry Met Sally'; it's 'When Harry Met SALMONELLA'!!"
Max to Caroline (after Caroline asks her to guess what the "special" Valentine's Day gift Caroline has bought for her): "Well ... judging by that big smile on your face, I'd say a finger-sized hole in your apron."
Earl (after he sees a voluptuous, double D-sized blonde walk into the diner): "Mmmm, mmmm, mmmmm: You are two scoops of ice cream in a ONE-scoop cone!"
An increasingly-angry Emergency Room clerk to Caroline (after Max has just physically threatened him for not summoning a doctor for heart attack-stricken Earl fast enough -- and also after Caroline has asserted to the clerk that Max is actually a very "sweet" person): "SWEET! An hour ago, your little thug-friend here threatened to cut me so deep I'd have a vagina!"
Max (in her best deadpan, and without hesitating for even a second): "That offer STILL stands, by the way."
EPISODE 17:
Caroline to Max (after Max has unsuccessfully tried to assure Caroline that she isn't coming down with the flu and is otherwise totally "fine" -- despite diner owner Han Lee having just accidentally sneezed right into Caroline's open mouth): "'FINE'; you think I'm 'fine'!?! Han just unloaded right into my mouth!!!"
Max (with her classic, Cheshire-cat grin): "Congratulations; you BOTH finally got some 'action'!!"
Oleg to Max and Caroline (furious after he sees that his ex-girlfriend, Sophie, is on a blind date in the diner with an extremely effeminate/gay Polish photographer): "I am soooo mad, I can't SEE straight!"
Max (looking at Sophie's blind date): "Well, I'm looking right at him and I can't see 'straight', either."
EPISODE 20:
Max (with her usual forthrightness -- after she's spotted a recently-seated female patron in the diner who's brought a dog in with her):
Max: "Hi -- so what the hell is THIS?!?!"
Patron: "Oh, he's legally allowed to be in here; he's my 'Registered Emotional Companion'."
Max (not buying it for a nanosecond): "You mean you don't have a boyfriend."
Patron: "No, no -- I suffer from anxiety."
Max: "You mean you don't want to eat alone."
Patron: "Noooo -- I have a note from a doctor."
Max: "You mean you have a printer and the internet," then quickly adds: "ADMIT it and the dog can stay."
Patron (ruminating about it for a second): "It's REALLY hard meeting guys!"
Later on in the very same episode, Max confronts Han Lee (after the rather short and lightweight Han has once again been berated over the phone by his incessantly-nagging Korean mother): "What does she have to COMPLAIN about, Han?!? You must've been the EASIEST BIRTH EVER; she could've coughed you into a catcher's mitt!!"
Caroline to her formerly rich family's formerly on-retainer lawyer (after the lawyer tells Caroline that he's no longer on retainer, and that his firm's services will now set her back a whopping $1,100): "I don't have that kind of money anymore! Last week, I gave myself a bikini wax with duct tape I stole from the diner!!" (Caroline then adds that she had to shell out $14 for the Neosporine to help recover from this rather short-sighted cost-saving idea of hers!! (LOL)
EPISODE 21:
Sophie to Caroline (after Caroline is shocked to learn that Sophie and Oleg aren't a couple, after all): "A 'COUPLE'; this CRAZY talk!! I mean, yes -- we've had some hot, dirty sex in a few kitchens and toilets, and on the floor of a sandwich shop in the subway. Plus, twice we did it like dogs on the hallway stairs, and every smooth surface in my apartment -- but I mean come on: I'm a LADY!!"
Later in the very same episode, Max to Caroline (after Caroline has convinced Max to file a tax return for the very first time in her life, after which the two of them hastily arrive at their local post office at 11:30 p.m. -- only to be dumbfounded by just how many OTHER late filers are in line in front of them, many of them frantically sealing their IRS envelopes while they patiently wait in line): "WOW -- I haven't seen this much last-minute licking since the cops raided that Thai massage parlor."
EPISODE 22:
Caroline to Max (staunchly defending her plan to give away some of Max's cupcakes at an upcoming crafts fair, as a way to help spread the word about their fledgling homemade-cupcakes business): "One person eats it, and then spreads it around to their friends."
Max: "Hmmm -- so we're HERPES!"
Max to a fellow crafts fair seller (after the seller -- who's dressed in an old-style Dutch outfit -- rather rudely asks Caroline and Max to move their cupcake table "somewhere else", because she thinks that Max and Caroline's table is "blocking" her funnel cakes-filled table): "Hey, Little Dutch Girl: Why don't you go stick your finger a DIKE; I'm sure you can find one over there, by the plus-sized denim."
Caroline to Oleg (after she accidentally finds Oleg and Sophie having sex in the diner's large, walk-in fridge): "Oleg -- on the FOOD?!?!"
Oleg: "Don't say it like that! That ham was ALREADY 'glazed' before we got there!"
Max to Caroline (complaining about Caroline's bad breath): "Your breath smells like you just went down on a brussels sprout."
**********
Michael Patrick King (the "Sex and the City" series and feature films, "Will & Grace," "Cybill," "Good Advice"), who co-created "2 Broke Girls" with the ironically-named Whitney Cummings, has described their series as "'Laverne & Shirley' on crack."
CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler has called it an "equal-opportunity offender."
Critics across the country, not surprisingly, have been rather mixed in their assessment of the show so far -- as have critics in other countries as well (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_Broke_Girls ) -- although almost all of the reviews of season 1 that are currently posted on Amazon have been uniformly positive, even as more than one reviewer there has suggested that a "little less crass and a little more class" for season 2 might be well-advised.
Personally, I've been quite surprised that so many reviewers (professionals and amateurs alike) so far haven't said anything about how much genuine HEART the series has; I think you'd probably have to go all the way back to the glory days of "The Courtship Of Eddie's Father," "That Girl!," "Bridget Loves Bernie," "Taxi," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Cheers" to find a sitcom whose writers clearly love the characters they're writing about this much ... ones whom they obviously want the audience to genuinely love as well.
In fact the pedigree of writers who wrote for season 1 are a truly impressive bunch: Jhoni Marchinko ("Will & Grace," "Murphy Brown," "Men In Trees"), Michelle Nader ("The King Of Queens," "Spin City," "Dharma & Greg," "Kath & Kim"), Greg Malins ("Friends," "How I Met Your Mother," "Better With You," "Will & Grace"), David Feeney ("According To Jim," "Love Bites"), Liz Feldman ("Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneris Show," "Hot In Cleveland"), Morgan Murphy ("Late Night W. Jimmy Fallon," "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"), Molly McAleer ("First Day," "Tosh O.") and Sonny Lee & Patrick Walsh ("Outsourced," "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia," "Rob & Big").
Although many people have rather predictably (and also rather lazily) chastised the show for both its sometimes startlingly-frank language and situations (has there ever been a series on any of the major networks any time recently that talked so candidly -- and often -- about subjects such as female masturbation, not to mention sex in general??), as well as its penchant for certain un-P.C. stereotypes (the short, nerdy Asian; the sex-obsessed Eastern European cook; the Polish femme fatale; the black cashier who's a recovering coke addict, etc, etc), it becomes very clear very quickly reading some of those glowing Amazon reviews (many of them apparently written by women, by the way) that one of the many things about "2 Broke Girls" that viewers are positively responding to is that it DOES fully and happily acknowledge and embrace the admittedly sometimes-overcharged libidos of its respective characters.
Even New Yorker magazine media critic Emily Nussbaum, in her 11/28/'11 review of the show (one of the many mainstream critics who grudgingly admire what the series is ATTEMPTING to do, anyway), had to concede that: "...there's so much potential here it kills me -- a deep female friendship, raw humor about class, and a show that puts young women's sexuality dead center, rather than using it as visual spice, as in some cable series about bad-boy antiheroes."
Nussbaum also noted in her New Yorker review that co-creator Whitney Cummings has openly talked about her own less-than-ideal family life when she was a child -- memories of which often figure significantly in both parts of "2 Broke Girls" and also in Cummings' other current network sitcom (NBC's "Whitney") -- as well as the fact that sitcoms historically "often start slow." Indeed, to look back on some of the season 1 episodes of beloved series such as "Cheers," "Friends," "M*A*S*H," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and countless others that got off to a wildly-uneven start, you'd probably never guess in a million years that the characters on those shows eventually inspired many of us to openly cry alongside them, even while we were also happily laughing at and with them.
There were a number of stand-out moments for me in season one of "2 Broke Girls" that vividly illustrate, I think, what the show really is capable of going forward, where its very promising emotional resonance is concerned -- if, indeed, it wisely trusts its already-sizable audience to include more comparatively quiet moments amidst all the more raucous ones.
In episode 4, for instance, Max (who's never met/known her father and who clearly realizes now what she was cheated out of by not -- at least in comparison to Caroline's comparatively-idyllic, if also motherless, upbringing), gets a chance to talk briefly on Caroline's cell phone with Caroline's father, who is currently in prison on various fraud and embezzlement charges.
"Hmmm -- so THAT'S what a father sounds like," Max says sadly to Caroline. It was an extraordinarily-touching (if also all-too-brief) moment between the two women -- one of Max letting down her guard for a second and letting Caroline (and, by extension, we the viewers) see that she might not be quite as tough and resilient as she desperately wants everyone to think she is.
Later on, in the very same episode, Max asks Caroline why there are no photos of Caroline's mother in her Upper East Side Manhattan townhouse.
"My mother cheated on my dad when I was five, and my grandmother got rid of her," Caroline tells Max, obviously still smarting from the experience. "Not in a MOB way; in a SOCIETY way -- which is WORSE."
Max (looking rather sad herself at that moment): "So who raised you?"
Caroline: "Well ... Estella, from 1989 to '96. Then Dominica, from '96 to '97 -- until she went back to Guatemala. Then ... no one."
Max (digesting the news): "Funny: You don't have a mother ... and I don't have a father."
In episode 1, Max insists that Caroline stay with her -- after Max finds Caroline sleeping in a crowded subway car (despite having told Max the night before, after the two had finished their shift at the diner, that she had "friends in the city" she was going to stay with).
In another episode, Max (still fuming over the fact that Max's now-ex-boyfriend had hit on Caroline while Max was at work one day -- but nonetheless very grateful now to Caroline that Caroline had told her about Max's philandering boyfriend), rushes over to help Caroline, after Max sees Caroline trying to balance six plates full of food on her two arms."Here, let me take some of those ... EVERYONE needs help sometimes."
The final episode of the season featured a tremendously-affecting scene where Han literally rides to the ladies' rescue -- on Caroline's horse, Chestnut, no less -- after Oleg's recently-purchased town car breaks down, and Max and Caroline suddenly find themselves stranded while trying to get to a gala fundraising party on time at the Metropolitan Museum Of Art.
During a scene in episode 20, Caroline -- who likewise is usually very guarded with her emotions, and who likewise doesn't want anyone to see just how genuinely scared and sad SHE is at times -- suddenly begins sobbing uncontrollably in front of Max, after she tells Max various heartfelt memories about waking up as a child at the family's ski chalet in Colorado, to the wonderfully-inviting aroma of the sugar-dusted cinnamon toast her father had lovingly made for her while she as sleeping.
THAT unflinchingly poignant and powerful bonding-moment scene right there radiantly and lastingly illustrated for me just what "2 Broke Girls" can consistently evolve into as time goes on -- much the way that "Laverne & Shirley," "Happy Days," "Welcome Back Kotter," "Taxi," "M*A*S*H," "All In the Family," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Cheers," "Friends" and many other sitcoms that played it strictly or primarily for laughs in the beginning did, but sitcoms that, nonetheless, steadily and undeniably crept up on us, emotionally, as the seasons went on ... sitcoms that, to this day, still make many of us regularly cry with laughter -- and laugh through our tears.
Season two of "2 Broke Girls" begins next Monday on CBS, at 7 p.m.
Season one episodes of "2 Broke Girls" can be found at:
http://www.cbs.com/shows/2_broke_girls
http://www.sidereel.com/2_broke_girls
http://www.tv.com/shows/2-broke-girls/episodes/
http://www.yidio.com/show/2-Broke-Girls
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Questions or comments regarding this "Media Watch" (aka, "After the Fact") column can be sent to John, at: lovesbiking2001@yahoo.com. And to read any of John's previous "MW"/"ATF" columns -- which include write-ups on "The Verdict," "Saturday Night Live," FOX News, "Glee", and "So You Think You Can Dance" -- simply type "Media Watch" and/or "After the Fact" into the SVO search engine here.
