2 Broke Girls (stylized 2 Broke Girl$) is an American television sitcom that aired on CBS from September 19, 2011, to April 17, 2017. The series was produced for Warner Bros. Television and created by Michael Patrick King and Whitney Cummings. Set in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, the show's plot follows the lives of best friends Max Black (Kat Dennings) and Caroline Channing (Beth Behrs). Whereas Caroline was raised as the daughter of a billionaire, Max grew up in poverty, resulting in differing perspectives on life, although together they work in a local diner while attempting to raise funds to start a cupcake business.
The series has received a polarized response from critics and audiences alike. The on-screen chemistry between the show's six leads, especially that of Behrs and Dennings, has been praised, while others have criticized the show's reliance on sexualized, drug related, and racial humor. The series was nominated for 12 Emmy Awards in various categories over its run, winning an Emmy in 2012 for art direction. During the course of the series, 138 episodes of the show aired over six seasons.
On May 12, 2017, CBS cancelled the series after six seasons.
Synopsis
The series chronicles the lives of two waitresses in their mid-20s (at the start of the series): Max Black (Kat Dennings), the daughter of a poor underclass mother and an unknown father, and Caroline Channing (Beth Behrs), who was born rich but is now disgraced and penniless because her father, Martin Channing, got caught operating a Bernard Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme. The two work together at a Brooklyn diner, soon becoming roommates and best friends while building toward their aim of opening a cupcake shop. Among those working with them at the restaurant are their boss, Korean Han Lee (Matthew Moy); Oleg (Jonathan Kite), an upbeat but perverted and harassing Ukrainian cook; and Earl (Garrett Morris), a 75-year-old cashier. Also featured starting late in the first season is their neighbor and part-time boss Sophie (Jennifer Coolidge), a Polish immigrant who runs the house-cleaning company Sophie's Choice.
During most of the first season, Max is also a part-time nanny for the twin babies of Peach Landis (Brooke Lyons), who during the season adopts Caroline's horse Chestnut. At the end of each episode, a tally shows how much they have made toward their goal of $250,000. Early in the second season, Sophie lends the women $20,000, which is enough for them to start their business. However, the business fails, and in the 18th episode, they are forced to give up the lease of their cupcake shop with just enough money to pay off Sophie's loan, resetting the end of episode tally to $1. The shop opposite to theirs belongs to Andrew who had his own candy shop named Candy Andy. He (Ryan Hansen) is Caroline's first major love interest, but they break up because her major focus is her cupcake business and he "wants more".
During the third season, the two young women reopen the business in the back room of the diner, using the window as a walk-up window. Max also enrolls in, and Caroline goes to work for, the Manhattan School of Pastry, where Max finds a love interest, Deke, marking the first time in the series that Max gets emotional for a man after the second episode when she broke up with her then cheating boyfriend, Robbie. Caroline has a brief affair with the Pastry School Head Chef Nicholas, who is in an open marriage, which eventually leads to Nicholas closing down the school and moving back to France with his wife. They also attempt to get Deke's parents to invest in the school, planning to run it by themselves, but do not succeed.
During season four, the women finally start their cupcake business, which succeeds briefly before going into the red. Both Max and Caroline end up working in an elite-class pastry shop called "The High" to make more money to return the loan they took for their business. Max also had a brief fling with a new handsome waiter, Nashit, who later turns out to be under 18, when his mother arrives to bring him back to Ireland. In the end of season four, Oleg and Sophie get married, with the two realizing they have their own business to worry about and their own dream to work towards, which leads to them quitting "The High" and coming back to their business.