Bialy Bites

S3 E6: Philadelphia

Broad City, 2014

In this Broad City field trip to Wayne, Pennsylvania, Abbi returns home to clean out her childhood bedroom , a tie-dye-and-jam-band reliquary.

Here we find all the sacred relics: Ross Geller headshots, a trove of Phish gear, a dreadlock Locks of Love rejected for smelling like a pepperoni, and the Holy Grail of cursed collectibles: a first-edition JonBenét Ramsey commemorative Beanie Baby.

The episode is built on two moral arcs: one about long-delayed restitution, and one about snacks. The restitution: Abbi discovers she still has the $900+ she raised in high school for her childhood friend Alice, who was hit by a school bus on Shabbat. The snacks: her father, played by Tony Danza with a time-share sports car and an infrared sauna in his sights, disappears into the kitchen to make bialy bites — small, carby absolution pellets meant to fortify the body for the heavy labor of redemption. Neither the bialy bites nor the redemption go according to plan.

In their quest to deliver the money, Abbi and Ilana embark on a suburban odyssey: the no-door Jeep ride (Ilana demanding a DNA test because “You are such a Goy for driving this car”), the bowling alley shakedown, the flirtation with “Shyffilis” — a nickname Abbi herself coined during a Colonial Williamsburg trip — and a detour into the Beanie Baby black market. Each obstacle strips away a little more of the fundraiser stash until they finally arrive at Alice’s mansion, where she has become a statuesque model thanks to pins in her legs that literally added three inches to her height.

Abbi hands over the reduced sum, only to be shamed for her missing funds. Ilana tries to smooth it over by offering the JonBenét Beanie Baby, which Alice correctly identifies as “a Beanie Baby of a dead girl” and therefore disgusting. The would-be Yom Kippur parable collapses into a moral pratfall: Abbi leaves without forgiveness, the Beanie Baby (worth $13,000, Ilana casually notes), or her dignity — but at least with the knowledge that Alice’s house was bought from Will Smith’s mom.

If the lesson is that redemption is hard, petty expenses will kill your margin, and bialy bites can only get you so far, then Philadelphia delivers it in the Broad City way: with fiscal arousal over rare collectibles, snacks as love language, and a level of Jewishness that spikes the moment you hit the Main Line. Every day may be an opportunity to atone, but sometimes you just end up back where you started — clutching your bialy bite, smelling faintly of dreadlock meat.

Make it! Bialys from My Cooking Journey