“Broad City” ’s series finale airs March 28, 2019, and with the finale comes the ending to one of the more celebrated comedic runs in television history. In order to properly honor Abbi Jacobson’s and Illana Glazer’s place in stoner culture, Weedmaps News ranks “Broad City” episodes based on weed.
While it may be better to burn out than to fade away, when it comes to Abbi and Illana — the hilarious duo at the center of “Broad City” — they’re more likely to get faded in the act of burning one for old times sake. This is especially true as “Broad City” comes to an end, celebrating five seasons of friendship, surviving in New York City, feminism, and lots of weed jokes.
Weedmaps News sees no better way to send off this once-in-a-lifetime powerhouse of comedy than the only way we know how — rewatching the entire series and ranking the episodes that include weed by looking at when, how, and why they interact with Mary Jane.
20. ‘Stories’ — Season 5, Episode 1
The Season 5 opener marked the beginning of the end of “Broad City.” Abbi celebrates her 30th birthday by walking from the top of Manhattan to the bottom, resulting in a day filled with day drinking, accidental kidnapping, and awkward run-ins, all documented on Instagram stories. It’s clear that Abbi and Illana’s hijinks are starting to get old, if not for the audience, then to the women themselves. Great episode, but a low ranking because we only get a brief glimpse of Ilana vaping. — Culture Editor Nic Juarez
19. ‘Lost and Found’ — Season 5, Episode 6
When Ilana discovers that she’s related to a Holocaust survivor named Sal, played by Jerry Adler, the duo decide to take him out for a day in the city. They spot Alan Cumming and follow him to a drag brunch where they let Sal try a concentrate vaporizer when he asks, “Why shouldn’t I get high?” Great point, Sal. — Nic Juarez
18. ‘B&B-NYC’ — Season 3, Episode 7
Abbi and Ilana often have bad ideas, but this episode might have the worst — they decide to list both their apartments on Airbnb and sleep in a tent on the roof of Abbi’s building. They smoke a joint together before the wind blows their tent over the edge and sends it plummeting into the New York streets. — Nic Juarez
17. ‘Co-Op’ — Season 3, Episode 2
There are two incredible weed scenes wrapped into this one episode. First, Ilana puts Abbi through a lesson on how to look, act, and sound just like her in hopes she can cover her shift at the Co-Op without getting caught. In a hilarious montage, Ilana makes Abbi hit the vape and then hit it again with an even deeper inhale. Also, Lincoln gives Ilana an epic ginger blunt man. — Allena Braithwaite, copywriter and graphic designer
16. ‘Hashtag FOMO’ — Season 2, Episode 5
Fear of missing out, or FOMO, is so very real that “Broad City” dedicated an entire episode to the feeling when Ilana decided to stay in and “organize” her life, which really means wiping down every surface of her apartment and combining all the weed remnants to make a giant blunt.
Later, after a night of party-hopping (where they casually smoke a joint at a house party), Ilana discovers that when Abbi gets black out drunk, she becomes “Val,” a tuxedo jacket-wearing, Judy-Garland-accent-slingin’ lounge singer we all know and love. — Nic Juarez
15. ‘The Matrix’ — Season 2, Episode 6
When the chips are down, a true stoner will always find a way. In “The Matrix,” the duo unplugs from technology and goes to the park for some IRL experiences. Illana ends up rolling a joint with a leaf in Central Park while Abbi roller skates into a ditch and smokes weed to curb … well, everything. The episode is proof that weed can make you more resourceful than lazy. — Andy Andersen, staff writer
14. ‘Abbi’s Mom’ — Season 4, Episode 5
While Season 4 saw the duo become more mature and more comfortable with the idea of “adulting,” it also detailed the growing pains of, well, growing up. In “Abbi’s Mom,” “Broad City” explores one of the weirder aspects of being a grown-ass adult: smoking weed with your parents.
When Abbi’s mom visits to reconnect with her daughter and be more adventurous, Abbi shares a couple of Jäger bombs and a joint with her mom, who ends up making out with a much younger waiter. — Allena Braithwaite
13. ‘Twaining Day’ — Season 4, Episode 2
It’s the funniest cold open in “Broad City” ’s run: Abbi and Ilana volunteer as Planned Parenthood escorts, casually discussing how “witchy” hair is hot as pro-lifers yell in the background. They take hits of weed from their pipe and blow the smoke in protesters’ faces. One of the protesters, presumably high from the cloud of weed smoke, changes his mind and takes a bite of an absurdly large cookie. — Nic Juarez
12. ‘Wisdom Teeth’ — Season 2, Episode 3
Abbi gets her wisdom teeth pulled and ends up high on dentistry, painkillers, and a homemade edible Ilana rigs up. The best part of this is the decarboxylation tutorial with the microwave … and Abbi wandering around high as a kite before racking up a huge bill at Whole Foods. — Allena Braithwaite
11. ‘Sliding Doors’ — Season 4, Episode 1
How many friendships have kicked off with a smoke sesh? It’s 2011 New York City and the two rad ladies known as Ilana and Abbi meet for the first time. After an episode of “what ifs” and near misses, the two end up toking a bowl on a bench, solidifying their friendship for many adventurously lit years to come. — Allena Braithwaite
10. ‘Apartment Hunters’ — Season 1, Episode 9
What do you do when you’ve lost your remote control? If you’re Illana, you smoke weed to recall your hidden memories. “Broad City” is chock full of toking experiences we know from real life but haven’t seen on TV before, and accessing a personal “weed superpower” is an exceptionally fresh, funny, and memorable one. Sometimes when you’re already high, you need to get “highest.” — Andy Andersen
9. ‘Florida’ — Season 4, Episode 7
Abbi and Illana venture to Florida with Illana’s mom, played by Susie Essman, and aunt, played by Fran Drescher, to clean out her departed grandma’s apartment. Eventually, the four ladies have a smoke sesh, shot “That ’70s Show”-style.
It was a bold move to take an iconic, long-running visual gag from another show, but it’s applied in a way that feels fresh and heartfelt as two generations of funny women laugh their asses off. — Andy Andersen
8. ‘What a Wonderful World’ — Season 1, Episode 1
In our very first glimpse into their lives, within the first five minutes of the episode, we learn that Abbi’s and Ilana’s social circle includes a familiar friend that some call Mary Jane. How do we know this? One of their crucial goals in the episode is to score an eighth of weed.
Ilana later packs a bowl for Abbi but leaves her exposed by not providing cover while Abbi takes a hit. Rude! A stoner’s security job is not done until the bowl is ashed. You know better, Ilana.
While this episode isn’t at the top, it does set the foundation for weed to appear later in the series without being awkward or scandalous. It immediately shows Abbi’s and Ilana’s true stoner colors and does it in a way that is familiar to those who know what’s up and inoffensive to people who are experiencing weed in pop culture for the first time. — Senior Content Manager Lesley Nickus,
7. ‘Rat Pack’ — Season 3, Episode 4
Part of being a New Yorker is dealing with rats that are absurdly fearless and hellbent on taking your shit. Have you seen Pizza Rat? The “Broad City” version involves a weed-smoking rat stalking Ilana’s apartment, including a POV that captures the fabulously messy and free-living lifestyle of Ilana. Also, this furry guy looks super-cute puffing.
Later in the episode, Ilana throws a exterminator fundraising party by putting together a weed buffet for her guests, retrieving nugs hidden in her vibrator, a rotting bell pepper, matryoshka doll, and even in her own nose and hair. God, she’s truly a weed queen. — Allena Braithwaite
6. ‘Working Girls’ — Season 1, Episode 3
Ilana does everything we wish we had the ovaries to do — especially when it comes to “office etiquette.” At her temp job in “Working Girls” she takes a rip and then the phone starts to ring. Realizing she’s supposed to answer it, she blows the weed smoke into a desk drawer, closes it, then picks up the phone like a kween with a stoner’s cough. — Allena Braithwaite
5. ‘The Last Supper’ — Season 1, Episode 10
This might be the most realistic depiction of a stoned conversation to ever grace our television screens. For Abbi’s birthday, the two go to a fancy, expensive restaurant — you know, as adults do. They decide to take a mid-meal breather and have a smoke sesh in the alley of the restaurant with the busboy, leading to a delightfully weird conversation full of stoner thoughts. — Nic Juarez
4. ‘In Heat’ — Season 2, Episode 1
The setup is priceless: In the middle of a brutal NYC heatwave, Abbi and Illana try to steal an air conditioner from Abbi’s college dorm and end up excavating her old dorm room for some weed she left behind. What follows is a hilariously aggressive smoke sesh with the boys who currently occupy the room. It’s also the show’s only major foray into smoke porn.
But that isn’t the only reference to marijuana. The episode has a weed icon in Seth Rogen guest-star as Male Stacy, a guy Abbi is trying to date during the heat wave. With the newly acquired air conditioner, Abbi and Male Stacy dance and share a joint. — Andy Andersen
3. ‘Two Chainz’ — Season 3, Episode 1
This rapid-fire split-screen montage of Abbi and Illana’s bathroom habits is a pitch-perfect prolonged visual gag that has both Abbi and Illana hitting the bong on the toilet, amongst several other bathroom activities that range from mundane to hilarious.
It’s a shining example of “Broad City” ’s ability to normalize weed use without making a glaring point of it — showing us, rather than telling us, that smoking weed is a routine task as fundamental as sex, shaving, and sitting on the toilet. — Andy Andersen
2. ‘Pu$$y Weed’ — Season 1, Episode 2
“Pu$$y Weed” is a mission statement for “Broad City” and an ode to stonerism all wrapped up in an episode of television. Jacobson and Glazer’s comedic chops are on full display and early proof that they can deliver a weed joke just as well as Cheech and Chong, Rogen and Franco, Jay and Silent Bob, or any other stoner duo you can think of.
In fact, after running through half a dozen priceless weed moments — “Nature’s Pocket,” calling up an old plug who has gone full yuppie, scoring an eighth off of a middle schooler, a montage of smoking in the park, Abbi’s pipe setting off the fire alarm in Lincoln’s office — the duo prove that their weed jokes can go bigger and smarter than everyone else’s. “Pu$$y Weed” is the crown jewel in the duo’s resume of weed-centric episodes. — Nic Juarez
1. ‘Coat Check’ — Season 2, Episode 9
Ranking the best weed episode of Broad City’s run turned out to be extremely challenging. It is, after all, the weed comedy of our generation. But there could be no other number one — “Coat Check” takes the top spot for having everything our stoner hearts could desire.
The episode opens with a very relatable scene with Abbi and Ilana vaping during a gig working the coat check of a party. At the party, Ilana meets Adele, a woman who could be her doppelgänger, played by Alia Shawkat, and Abbie meets America’s sweetheart Kelly Ripa.
After tracking down Ripa’s lost coat, Abbi hangs out with the morning talk show host when get weird. Ripa ends up being totally unhinged, putting a dash of … something … in a joint she’s rolling, which ends up being too much for Abbi.
Ilana starts seeing Adele, and somehow doesn’t see the resemblance until Abbi points it out. It makes for an amazingly awkward sex scene, which ultimately ends up being too weird for Ilana. During the break-up, Ilana sparks a joint and offers it to Adele, who declines — boo thang doesn’t smoke weed. The next shot is of Ilana slamming the door in Adele’s face. This is my favorite moment in “Broad City” history because it shows what is definitely a line in the sand for me: if you don’t toke, we can’t be together. — Allena Braithwaite
Feature image: Abbi Jacobson and llana Glazer. Photo credit Cara Howe.
