Most critics like Broad City, and the praise gathers in one place: the friendship between Abbi and Ilana. Reviewers describe it as easy, loyal and free of the self-loathing that often comes with comedies about young women, and several credit the show with moving from webseries to television without visible growing pains. Its zany energy and its casual way with sex, money and everyday New York life are singled out as the things that make it feel different from earlier city sitcoms.
The reservations are about tone and about age. Vulture finds the early episodes lurching between sharp observation and broad sketch exaggeration, and Variety calls the first run promising rather than finished. The wider gap opens later: Den of Geek thinks the final season is as good as the show ever was, while The Times finds it smug and formulaic. The spread runs from the warmest possible notice to a plainly hostile one, so the consensus is friendly but not unanimous.