2 Broke Girls - 1x05 - And the 90's Horse Party

After accidentally picking up Max's landline phone and having to deal with a persistent creditor, Caroline becomes concerned about Max's staggering debts. Desperate to find a way to help her friend dig herself out of her hole, even as Max ignores and belittles her attempts, Caroline hits upon the idea of throwing an ironic hipster party with a cover charge. Thus is born the 90's Pop-Up Horse Party, where hipsters dress in styles I've never seen before, dance to bad 90's music I don't actually recognize, and pay $100 to ride a horse. Unfortunately for them, this wasn't an 80's party, so for forking over a benjamin all they got was to literally ride a horse.

Look at the pure joy on their faces. Cut that out.

We start out with Han's latest heroic attempt to bring relevance to his slowly fading small business, by staging a flashmob at the diner. As usual, Max puts a stop to it in her typical cruel, heartless, sadistic fashion, crushing the little guy's heart. I do have to admit, though, I laughed when I heard her calling "Code Red!", and Caroline and Earl springing into action. That may have just been flashbacks to another, better show. The little scene doesn't have much to do with the rest of the plot, but it does set up the episodes' recurring theme of annoying hipsters and their twee bullshit.

The real meat of the plot kicks in when Caroline hears a strange, old-timey ringing sound, and doesn't immediately reach for her iPhone for some reason. Turns out it's coming from a cleverly hidden landline, which Max desperately NOOOOOOOOOO-lunges at, to stop Caroline from picking it up. Never, ever pick up the landline, she admonishes. Why don't you just then, I don't know, *disconnect it*, Max? Geez. Turns out it's a creditor, and after an honestly amusing turn at being her own bitter grandmother decrying those that hounded her sweet granddaughter to death over an unpaid debt, Max and Caroline have to give up hope of having a constructive conversation with the kind of people paid to cold call debtors at all hours of the night.

Expressing concerns about Max's idiotic financial planning (paying $5 to everyone, regardless of principal, interest or even minimum required payments), Caroline insits on seeing Max's financial records to try and help her. Max, as you'd expect, is deep in debt, AND completely unappreciative of Caroline's help. Caroline tries to get her to take these things seriously, especially since Max is going to be their only decent source of credit for the bakery. Max is having none of it and keeps belittling this immensely patient woman with the heart of a nun who keeps helping her out of her shit for nothing more than room and board.

I dated her once. Not sure which one though...

After a, frankly, sexually confusing run-in with some gender-bending hipsters throwing a Flash 80's Pop-Up Party in a laundromat (and some drunk ones out in the street who wanted to ride her horse, and didn't mean it as a euphemism), Caroline hits upon a brilliant idea. Before we more forward, can I just comment on Caroline's comment that this is the first time she'd gone to a laundromat? Seriously, Ms. Horse Poop Swan Dive? The FIRST time?

Maybe Max does get a pass after having to wash that thing for you...

Anyway, the girls decide to throw an ironic 90's Horse Party, where they'll charge a cover, charge $10 for cupcakes, AND charge drunk assholes $100 to ride a horse. That's HORSE, as in Chestnut, to Oleg's eternal disappointment. They rope Han into volunteering the diner by promising to get him laid. Despite Han's awesome "90's trivia shirt", it doesn't go well for the poor guy at first.

It's unclear to me if the girls were implying that he'd get lucky with them, or with another woman in general, when they convinced him to open up his diner for absolutely no monetary cut at all, but it's all moot as Han finds small-boy-woman loving with one of the gender-bending hipsters. The girl. I think. If not, that's cool too, Han. Anyway, the party turns out to be a rocking success, with even Gender-Bender doths her cap to the girls and their horse. Again, not a euphemism.

Can you punch hair?

In subplot-land, Caroline has to periodically freakout and hide when her ex-boyfriend suddenly starts stopping by the diner. The Richie Rich douchebag dumped her when she lost her money, and now she can't stand to face him. In the first genuinely friendly thing Max has done in like 4 episodes, she takes his table to put him in his place. Instead he flirts with her. And honestly, it's probably just the delivery, but her supposed put-downs also kind of read like come-ons. "You wouldn't know what to do with a good girl if you had one." sounds more like a slice of Hepburn/Whoever banter than an emasculating burn. When Doucho McCreepo replies with "You're not a good girl, that's why I want your number", the laughtracks scandalized "ohhhhhhhh" tells us he crossed some kind of line. See, I get from the tone and the way the rest of the scene played out, that it was supposed to be that he called her a harlot or something. But from the way the scene was playing out before hand, I did not think that's where that was headed. Weird tonal disconnect between writing and delivery.

Anyway, O.C. Douchington's uncouth rejoinder leads to Earl's coolest moment ever on this show, as he slams a baseball bat on the counter, uses it's handle to manually turn the clock hand to closing time, and hams it the fuck up generally intimdating the shit out of Blondey McGinley and his Fun Time Pals. Sweet.

Awesomesauce

That's pretty much all there was to that plot. Dude shows up again at the 90's party, and Caroline psyches herself up to tell him off, but then chickens out at the last minute. Maybe he'll be back. Couldn't care less.