Hidden Remote
Fansided

An ode to ‘2 Broke Girls’ and TV’s most dynamic duo, Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs

By Reed Gaudens

facebooktwitterreddit

Photo Credit: 2 Broke Girls/CBS, Acquired From CBS Press Express

CBS canceled ‘2 Broke Girls’ after a remarkable six-season run, but our girls earned much richer sendoffs than they received.

More from CBS

Max and Caroline have cashed their last check, but, unfortunately, it bounced. CBS pulled the rug out from under fans of 2 Broke Girls when the network canceled the underdog sitcom after an incredible, if not under the radar, six seasons. Somewhere in New York, Max Black has boarded a flight to the CBS headquarters in Los Angeles to demand a reversal.

The cancellation of 2 Broke Girls continues an awful trend of networks dropping the ax on long-running series without prepping a proper final season. Gilmore Girls famously received similar treatment by The CW with its seventh season, Freeform called Baby Daddy’s current sixth season its swan song a mere two weeks before its closer, and until Fox gave New Girl the green light (no Lorde puns intended) for a shortened final season, the Loft Gang’s fate hung in the balance. There’s no doubt that had the 2 Broke Girls bosses known the sixth season would become their last hurrah with the Williamsburg Diner crew, they would have gone utterly bananas and prepared a different, even better, conclusion for Max and Caroline. While our cupcake queens received fitting endings, TV’s greatest comedy pairing since Lucy and Ethel deserved a richer sendoff.

Of course, the writing had been on the wall as rumors swirled in the network’s silence that Max and Caroline would close up shop. But that doesn’t lessen the sting of losing a series with two main characters—and not to mention, two headlining stars—who deserve to go out with a banger of a series ender rather than a pithy fizzle. 2 Broke Girls should have had the honor of fading to black with an uproarious spectacle, a parting confection that didn’t hinge so completely on romance in lieu of the girls’ characteristic ambition and friendship.

In hindsight, the now series finale wraps up Max and Caroline’s journeys from the pilot well. Max, played by the effortlessly hilarious Kat Dennings, begins as an unattached and unaffected diner waitress whose chief concerns are getting high and getting by. When she meets fallen socialite Caroline Channing, brought to life by the tirelessly effervescent Beth Behrs, she’s confronted with her long-dormant capacity to feel. Max and Caroline unearth the best in each other, one learning to love and the other learning to love herself without the bells and whistles.

And in our last encounter with the girls, Max becomes engaged to a man she adores, an action she’d never pictured in her future, and Caroline couldn’t care less that their bank account has once again dropped to zero. It’s a 360 reinvention. They wound up rich in love but poor in money. Oh, the irony.

Photo Credit: 2 Broke Girls/CBS, Acquired From CBS Press Express

Still, we can’t help but harbor a pit of anger that our girls were served an injustice on a silver platter. Six seasons and 138 episodes isn’t the injustice by any stretch of the imagination. It’s always a blessing when a series connects with an audience and outlasts the one-and-done shows that can’t lift themselves off the ground. The offense here is that a veteran sitcom wasn’t granted the opportunity to bow out on their terms, that stories were left untold and endings were hastily concocted to work as periods and semicolons—an uneconomical practice for creativity.

In the wake of the cancellation news, TV Line reported that the 2 Broke Girls bosses had been in talks with Cher to appear as Max’s long-lost mother. Cher. CHER! As if we hadn’t been seeing a million shades of a red before… The lost potential of watching Kat Dennings and Cher riff off of each other as mother and daughter is almost unfathomable.

Throughout the series, Max had alluded to her negligent mother, and Season 6 had been heavily hinting at a reunion with Max’s family. Since CBS remained mum on the future of the series, those stories stayed in incubation until they were fully baked. Unfortunately, that clock ran out, and we’ll never meet the woman responsible for creating Max Black.

Photo Credit: 2 Broke Girls/CBS, Acquired From CBS Press Express

Although 2 Broke Girls wasn’t the best sitcom to have ever been produced (even a long-time and loyal fan of the series can admit to its faults), few multi-cams still on the air past their ’90s sell-by date had as much going for it as the Michael Patrick King-Whitney Cummings co-creation. For one, the series featured two female leads, and it had nothing to do about raising a family. Getting a series on network television with one female lead is already a rarity, but two? And centering the series on ambitious yet flawed business-owners? A modern miracle.

Also, where other sitcoms (see: most half-hours about heteronormative nuclear families) concern themselves chiefly on situational laughs, 2 Broke Girls relied on classic joke telling first and boasted some of the most biting one-liners on television. Its comedic sensibilities were nostalgic of the Must-See TV era, but its mind was very much in the now, commenting on and existing in a veritable time capsule of our society. And though its version of diversity leaned into stereotypes, the characters came from varied cultures and backgrounds to form a, well, dysfunctional family.

Next: The 5 best jokes in the '2 Broke Girls' series finale!

Above all else, the fearless leaders of the series will go down in history as one of the great partnerships on TV. Max and Caroline were hardly unique in the age of Broad City, but they were magic. Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs released a joint statement on Instagram about the end of their series, and hold onto your tear ducts, because it’s going to summon the waterworks. The on and off-screen BFFs end their farewell note with this touching sentiment: “We are so proud of our time on 2 Broke Girls and of all the things this experience has given us, the most treasured is our lifelong friendship.” All. The. Tears.

Now that our pastry innovators have been forced to close the doors on their cupcake window, er, dessert bar early, it’s time to bid adieu and say thank you for the six years of memories and comedy comfort food. It may not have been a flawless run, but it was perfect. We’re going to miss seeing those ketchup and mustard uniforms and the daily chaos they represent for Max and Caroline. But we’re going to miss watching Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs even more. Just remember you’re forever our (two broke) girls!

2 Broke Girls isn’t yet available for online streaming. Check your local listings to catch the girls in syndication.

Home/CBS